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Comment by root_axis | Hacker News Reader

That's sort of side-stepping the point. if a trusted third party is a satisfactory solution for the problem then a more complex and obscure trustless alternative is not compelling.

Additionally, your response is in the context of the question: "How does Ethereum help with retail?". Your answer is "it helps to avoid erroneous charges", but that doesn't answer the question of why Ethereum is a compelling option compared to a system that has already solved this problem without the inefficiencies of the blockchain approach.

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You seem intent on getting me to defend a point I'm not making. I'm just describing what Ethereum could provide here and what makes it different from other solutions. The closest I came to actually praising it in any way was calling it "kind of cool." I'm not actually attempting to say, in any way, that this is actually useful or the way everything should be done or anything like that.

I'm not intent on anything, I am just pointing out that your stated reasoning for why eth is useful in a retail context isn't compelling. It'd be like if someone asked "why is an iPad useful for web development" and you responded "well, iPads support bluetooth keyboards so users don't have to input code on a touch screen"... ok well that's true, but it's not compelling because keyboard input is already a solved problem without the need to confine your development environment to the limitations of a tablet.

Nobody said anything about "compelling." The person asked, "How does Ethereum help with retail?" I answered. What exactly is your problem with me here?

Ok... replace compelling with insightful or noteworthy. You're being pretty defensive and seem to be taking my responses personally. I'm discussing your reasoning, not your personality. This is a discussion forum, and as you stated, someone asked a question, you answered, and I explained why I find your answer to be lacking, it's as simple as that. I didn't attack you or insult you so I'm not sure why you perceive a simple reply to your comment as my having "a problem" with you. If you find mild criticism to be so harrowing you're more than free to ignore my replies at your own discretion.

The fact that you don't see a use case where this solution could shine doesn't mean others can't see it... Paired with bittorrent or IPFS this is perfect for digital goods...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_goods

Care to give some specific examples instead of just making vague allusions to how perfect it is without providing any details?

The "specific examples" are so obvious that I presumed that any HNer could guess at least some of them, but I understand that not everyone has had the "aha!" moment with blockchains....

Here's an specific example, and certainly not the only one: I sell a digital good valued in $20k and I don't need to give paypal $580 (2.9% fee), it can be accomplished with $0 fees with the same level of trustworthiness. You just got rid of the middlemen...

Now multiply this sale for 100 articles my store sells daily and you'll begin to understand why this is so powerful.

$20,000 digital goods are so uncommon it might as well be a fantasy. Of course, it all adds up, and I will concede that you will save money on fees, but you can very easily end up paying a similar price for conversion surcharges and unpredictable daily price swings that can easily cost you more than 3% (though, there is the possibility that you might gain some money in the conversion, but that type of volatility has its own indirect costs in terms of business planning)

> $20,000 digital goods are so uncommon it might as well be a fantasy.

$20k subscriptions in finance (like a market data live feed) are not only common but even cheap. Now ask yourself why Wall Street is so much more hyped with blockchains than SV...

> You can very easily end up paying a similar price for conversion surcharges and unpredictable daily price swings

You don't have to pay with ETH, you could do things like peg your ERC20 token to the USD, 1 of your token = $1, the underlying asset (ETH) can do whatever it wants with the price, your tokens are decoupled from its value. The monetary policy is up to the party that issues the token... Remember: this is "programmable money".

> $20k subscriptions in finance (like a live market data feed) are not only common but even cheap

I'm not saying $20k digital goods are non-existent, I'm saying that they're an extreme niche that does not reflect practical reality for the vast majority of businesses.

> Now ask yourself why Wall Street is so much more hyped with blockchains than SV

Because SV is more often composed of individuals with a deep understanding of technical topics while finance is more often composed of people who are less knowledgable on these topics and more susceptible to buzzwords and hype (not that this doesn't exist in SV, but it is even worse in finance). This is evident by the fact that nearly nobody in finance is using blockchain tech outside of experimental research and buzzword bingo (unless you count crypto gamblers and traders).

> you could do things like peg your ERC20 token to the USD, 1 of your token = $1, the underlying asset (ETH) can do whatever it wants with the price

Except that this is even worse than Eth because arbitrary custom tokens are of questionable liquidity at best and impossible to liquidate at worst.

Stop going off on a tangent... the point is that many [0] see value in a token-powered store. You don't see it? that's ok.

[0] https://github.com/brakmic/BlockchainStore/stargazers

The problem with digital goods is it's trivial to copy and give away at a fraction of the original price or even for free. This should especially be considered in this space, where we talk about trust-less scenarios.

Not a fair comparison, you have the same risks even when you pay for digital goods sold via conventional channels. Having the files encrypted in IPFS and then sell the decryption key is not that different.

Also don't forget that digital goods include stuff like "subscriptions"...

Im no real fan of eth, as my use case is more as a store of value in a crypto. But if you were actually providing a service, not a good, it could have applications?

Does this help alleviate scenarios where Paypal has the power to shutdown a seller's account and hold their funds?

Sure thing. Cryptomoney is very advantageous for merchants because their funds cannot be frozen nor are they vulnerable to chargebacks or any other type of restrictions placed on them by financial companies attempting to discourage or incentivize specific behaviors. On the other hand, in the centralized world, consumers enjoy many protections from fraudulent and incompetent merchants and gain nothing by participating in a system where all consumer protections are absent.

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