Buyer spends 1 BTC @ $800 USD/BTC. Value of BTC goes down to $400 USD/BTC. Seller left with 1 BTC worth $400 (if they don't cash out). Buyer requests refund of value @ $800. Seller has 1 BTC @ $400.
I guess this would be mitigated by immediate exchanges... Haven't used Coinbase enough to know how well this would work, specifically their merchant services, but what's the per-transaction cost to immediately exchange BTC on transactions? Also, I've seen buy/sell prices on CB - is that the same in their merchant accounts? I see daily cashouts as a merchant option, but that doesn't entirely remove the fear of a market crash. Or even smaller daily variations (morning price high, evening price low, etc).
I could see how there would be at least some potential for long-term concern.
If you are a US citizen and purchase something from a British site in pounds, you wouldn't expect a refund in dollars would you? You assume the risk of currency fluctuation and fees.
That's not how coinbase (the company app.net is working with) works, though.
The second somebody makes a payment via BTC through coinbase for an app.net project, the BTC is cashed out on the fastest exchange possible and the fiat value of that BTC directly sent to app.net whenever they please.
> Buyer spends 1 BTC @ $800 USD/BTC. Value of BTC goes down to $400 USD/BTC. Seller left with 1 BTC worth $400
No, seller never sees BTC, buyers BTC are immediately turned into USD and seller gets USD. No fear of market crash, they're getting the instant exchange rate.
This PDF is so far from reasonable. This is a group of people that seem to be angry about anything and everything tech related - from exploitative production labor all the way through to not paying enough attention to your family. The PDF reads like an anti-technology manifesto and anti-government war cry more than anything else to me.
Keeping in mind that there are exceptions, yes, this is a good mindset. Obviously, there may be things that wind up affecting annual reports if they aren't completed "tonight." It's important to remember that those are the exception, though.
> However, YouTube contains lots of uploaded songs and the US government could have seized their domain for a long time already, but didn't.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't this what the DMCA safe harbor protection is for? They can't just pull their domain if they are responding in a timely manner to reasonable DMCA takedown requests.
Or am I missing a point you're making? Entirely possible. It's 4:55. I'm burnt out.
I think the point is that they are looking to give greater remedies than DMCA. You would now be able to complain about a website to those doing business with it, and they are supposed to stop doing business with it. If it's foreign, anyway.
Combining "Buy a portable computer instead" and "The only peripheral you absolutely need is a hard disk or network drive to put backups on" doesn't make sense. I don't know about you, but my productivity tanks the second I don't have a mouse.
You just think you're more productive because you get to slam "jjjjjjjjjjjjlllllllllll" to position your cursor.
Use the mouse for what it's good at: pointing at things and selecting text. Use the keyboard for what it's good at: entering text, such as regular expressions to transform the code you just highlighted.
It probably largely depends on your platform. In Alex's case, he uses a Mac laptop, which has a trackpad. Apple has done a bang-up job of making the trackpad useful and dare I say "expressive" in Mac OS X.
On the Mac, the latest gens of their trackpads have obsoleted mice for me.
Just have to say, before reading all of this, REALLY glad this many HN readers and posters are into this topic. Thought I was the only nut that loved technology and firearms, guess I was wrong.
I surely was, but surely am no longer :) He resides in PA too, just like me, where our gun control laws favor freedom over oppression (all you Cali/NJ/NYers out there). But I digress.
Yeah, Chrome doesn't like this site. Which is a shame - when I opened it in Firefox I was impressed, but if I had not been prompted to check it out by the comments on this thread I would have moved on...
I guess this would be mitigated by immediate exchanges... Haven't used Coinbase enough to know how well this would work, specifically their merchant services, but what's the per-transaction cost to immediately exchange BTC on transactions? Also, I've seen buy/sell prices on CB - is that the same in their merchant accounts? I see daily cashouts as a merchant option, but that doesn't entirely remove the fear of a market crash. Or even smaller daily variations (morning price high, evening price low, etc).
I could see how there would be at least some potential for long-term concern.