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Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

IMO they're blaming the wrong group for the issue though. Financial transactions should not cost much more than compute + software they run on. This is one angle where I actually respect a portion of the crypto community -- they've called out some things that were stagnant in the financial sector. Of course it remains to be seen if they can come up with viable alternatives, but agreeing on a problem is a good step forward.

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I mean, sure they talk big, but isn't one of the largest complaints against crypto the fact that transaction fees are high [0,1,2] and processing times are long [3]?

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/crypto-and-its-many-fees-what-t...

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-much-does-it-cost-buy-...

[2] https://www.makeuseof.com/crypto-exchange-fees-explained/

I believe the fees were in fact low back when they used that argument, many years ago.

Btw, you’re missing [3]

> Financial transactions should not cost much more than compute + software they run on.

The fees aren't pure profit for financial institutions. Its used to subsidize consumer protections like fraud prevention and reversal.

> This is one angle where I actually respect a portion of the crypto community

Is there a portion of crypto platforms that don't take in fees?

Any crypto platform that doesn't charge a fee will be swamped (even more) with spam transactions along with all those who validate that chain.

It's also used for cashback credit cards to attract high income people with good credit scores, at the expense of everybody else.

There would be three ways of solving this.

Government breaks up managed care organizations so that they are small enough such that their counterparties (e.g. smaller doctor organizations) can tell them to pound sand when asked for ludicrous fees.

Government legislated that electronic ACH payments or transactions have to be offered free of charge.

Government operates electronic money accounts and electronic money transfers as infrastructure.

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