Senate Bill Takes Aim at Visa, Mastercard Credit-Card Fees | Hacker News Reader

Senate Bill Takes Aim at Visa, Mastercard Credit-Card Fees

wsj.com

13 pointssaguntum12 comments

Opening credit to a network not affiliated with Visa or MC would be a huge change. It is hard to believe this would pass into law, but perhaps it is an opening salvo in a negotiation with Visa and MC.

Cryptocurrency makes credit cards (which require disclosing credit card numbers for payment) entirely obsolete (by using cryptographic signatures on transactions, that don't expose keys).

Let me try! Credit cards make cryptocurrency (which doesn't have broad merchant support, charge-back ability, and, you know, the literal "credit" part of it) entirely obsolete.

The charge back is only important because people have to give away their credentials every time they make a payment.

In the context of the existence of cryptography (and cryptocurrency), this is laughable. (Credit cards were invented before public key cryptography.)

Advanced cryptocurrencies enable a much more robust and diverse set of credit options.

> The charge back is only important because people have to give away their credentials every time they make a payment.

What? A charge back is important so that a dispute can actually be resolved. What recourse does a regular person have if they are defrauded by the other party. Or if the other party didn’t hold up their end.

Small claims court seems to be one of the only options at that point. While it's still a valid tool, it can be a big pain to go through with it and I'd bet a lot of people would just take the loss. It also assumes a lot of things like being able to locate the party to serve them.

I agree that it's a thing, but the difference between a chargeback and small claims court if you're a person who wants to charge back a company is night and day. Almost nobody is going to use that avenue.

The first reason it is necessary is that the actual secret is revealed so the transaction entirely relies on trustworthy parties.

What secret are you talking about?

What do you do if the other party does not hold up their end of the bargain after they received the money??

The credit card number lol.

That's a different issue. First issue is much more primary.

A credit card transaction does not in principle have to send the credit card number to the vendor (e.g. Apple Pay already does this).

But a crypto transaction in principle does not allow for charge backs since transactions go one way.

> The charge back is only important because people have to give away their credentials every time they make a payment.

So like, merchants not delivering is not a thing at all?

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