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Comment by btgeekboy | Hacker News Reader

The general populace has no reason to care. We aren’t liable for fraudulent purchases; it’s just an inconvenience more than anything.

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No immediate, concrete reason to care, but it's not like we're not paying for that fraud in the long run. Costs go up to account for the losses.

More security may not be worth it, if the total costs of fraud go down, but they are largely shifted to the individual victim rather than financial companies. I'm pretty sure this has been mentioned a million times; have you ever considered it before?

The financial companies don't treat fraud liability as a charitable gift they give to their customers.

They set APRs, fees, etc. to absorb it. The cost is, ultimately, borne by all of us, in either scenario.

There is an almost unfathomable value in being able to rely on getting the average outcome, rather than being one data point in the average. Insurance is a thing, you know? Also, people prefer taxes to armed robbers. And stuff like that.

I'm confused as to what you're arguing here.

I'm not advocating that individuals be held responsible for credit card fraud. I think the current setup is probably the best - the folks with the most ability to smooth out the losses (the banks) have most of the liability.

I'm simply objecting to the "The general populace has no reason to care" statement up-thread. That we're not directly liable for the fraud doesn't mean we're not getting screwed financially by it.

Better security is an opportunity for businesses to deny that they made a mistake when it is breached. If you have a compulsory PIN, then when a transaction goes through, they can say "it's impossible unless you were at fault". Is it? Who knows, but there are stories and rumors. I'm morally certain that companies will do this if they have the opportunity and are able.

It's no different as an abstract concept than Boeing purportedly sacrificing hundreds of people to try to produce a 0.1% higher ROI. In general, you optimize a number that describes a large system, and you have to consider that there may be tradeoffs - things may get...lumpy.

It's not so much evil as that people have jobs that involve optimizing certain numbers and certain related consequences are outside their purview.

A quantitative improvement could mean implicitly taking away insurance that was gratis.

I don't see how any of this can feasibly argue against pushing for better adoption of contactless payments.

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