Credit cards are a bad platform to build on. The duopoly structure is a bad platform for gradual improvement and the regulatory environment is a bad platform for innovation.
We have deeply entrenched kick-it-forward allocation of responsibility and fixes to serious problems are characterized by firefighting, designed-by-committee compliance, cover-your-assness and such. All the hallmarks of a poorly functioning market, poorly functioning organization and general pathologies that occur whenever the way we organize is wrong.
Leaving bitcoin aside,^ I think the fundamental problem is having CCs play the role they do. Instead of customers sending merchants money, merchants request money from CC companies. That is a bad system.
^The reason bitcoin is difficult to insert into the conversation is because it has so many big hairy goals. Government power over money. Macroeconomic theories of monetary policies baked in… Its a big interesting project, but the problem discussed here is only really a subset of what bitcoin is about so it's kind of a tangent.
Credit cards are a bad platform to build on. The duopoly structure is a bad platform for gradual improvement and the regulatory environment is a bad platform for innovation.
We have deeply entrenched kick-it-forward allocation of responsibility and fixes to serious problems are characterized by firefighting, designed-by-committee compliance, cover-your-assness and such. All the hallmarks of a poorly functioning market, poorly functioning organization and general pathologies that occur whenever the way we organize is wrong.
Leaving bitcoin aside,^ I think the fundamental problem is having CCs play the role they do. Instead of customers sending merchants money, merchants request money from CC companies. That is a bad system.
^The reason bitcoin is difficult to insert into the conversation is because it has so many big hairy goals. Government power over money. Macroeconomic theories of monetary policies baked in… Its a big interesting project, but the problem discussed here is only really a subset of what bitcoin is about so it's kind of a tangent.