Totally happy to see racist platforms like Gab shrivel up and die, but uneasy about payment processors being the arbiters and instruments of their death.
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The payment processors have enormous, largely invisible and unchecked, power (ask sex wokers or anyone involved in an even mildly controversial business). The fact that they are using it for good here doesn’t change my discomfort with where this power is being concentrated.
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Anyway, nothing about any of this is simple or obvious to me.
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Before you say “bitcoin”, I thought so too, a long time ago. (I even chaired the financial crypto conference). But it got hijacked by scammers and consumed by volatility that has rendered it useless for its intended purpose. This is hard.
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Replying to @mattblaze
I think both you and Nick Weaver overestimate the scammer factor at this early stage of the game.
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Replying to @matthew_d_green @mattblaze
Here's something I never understood about cryptocurrency. Either the idea doesn't work, and is consumed by scammers and grift. Or it does work, and bitcoin (or something like it) becomes a shadow financial system for criminals, which gets it shut down. What's the third way here?
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I think the assumption by supporters is that the black market is a small fraction of total usage, and Bitcoin survives while reducing the ability of financial institutions to restrict economic activity in this way.
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This is an exact analogue of how Gab said at the outset that it would be a free-speech platform, and truly objectionable content would just be a tolerable niche use. But "bad money drives out good" is a powerful principle beyond economics
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Agreed. See my reply to myself. I think your analogy is good--no reason to use gab/BTC *except* for the black market uses.
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