• Katana314@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The one thing I don’t like about digital payments is that so far, they’ve all been owned/controlled by various major card processors, like Visa. That control really gives those processors a dominant position and basically free money.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      11 months ago

      This. I love how much easier it is to manage digital make-believe numbers, than tons of leaflets and pucks that represent make-believe numbers.

      I just wish the system that handled it was more… democratic? Instead of corporate feudalism with credit scores…

        • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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          11 months ago

          Loved the idea behind satoshis. Even tried it out. Even made a little money and got out before it all crashed.

          It was an interesting concept until all the mega-grifters showed up to make it yet another speculative commodity to fuel their insatiable gambling addictions.

          I consider myself pretty knowledgable in lots of computing topics but even I felt very shakey at the sheer paranoia required to keep digital currency safe. (Assuming it doesn’t suddenly become worthless overnight on its own).

          I can’t imagine normies navigating that. And using paypal or a bank or something put you right back at “not your coins” anyway.

          Personlly, dumping 100% of it all at once purged a LOT of anxiety.

          Plus, accounts are readily trackable on public ledgers. Not very private as soon as various means are deployed to know your public account.

          The thing that saddened me most was seeing how much freaking energy and technology was thrown on the pyre of make-believe numbers. The “metaverse”, web3, the fact NFTs even happened. Hardware shortages whenever some new coin figured out how to store a hash on it. Super sophisticated scams everywhere…

          If anything it was definitely a psychological experiment to see what intangible nonsense even entire nation-states would devote massive resources to instead of feeding or housing people.

          Not to mention the huge mess with constantly changing laws and taxes from officials who struggle to send emails.

          Plus, and finally, it was supposed to democratize money unlike fiat currency, but it was worth fiat currency, so the a-holes hoarding all the fiat currency just gobbled up all the digital ones too and tried to sell it back to us.

          Maybe we’ll get something better in the future.

    • thorbot@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I really just don’t care. The ATM you got the cash from gets a cut of the fees. It’s all corporate bullshit anyway

      • Hello Hotel@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I really just don’t care either, Ill just pay who im forced to, 1/10th of my paycheck (it costs them pennies to make) or I could randomly die. It’s all corporate bullshit anyway. /s

        I really just do not care, Ill just take out a loan I cannot afford so I can stop playing chicken on crosswalks and avoid dieing to that driver who is on their phone, not paying attention. Its just human bullshit anyway. /s

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      As opposed to using debit or credit, which is also owned and controlled by all of the major credit card companies.