Should App.net Accept Bitcoin? | Hacker News Reader

Should App.net Accept Bitcoin?

bitcoin.app.net

84 pointsdalton60 comments

Bitcoin is the first practical solution to a longstanding problem in computer science called the "How do I get cheap PR for my company" problem.

I completely agree with this and I think that has been the aspect that most companies have taken advantage of over the last few months.

I haven't even heard of the companies that have begun accepting BTC, including Overstock.com.

It is only the people with vested interest in BTC that are celebrating every adoption and making a big deal out of everything BTC related, in my opinion.

You never heard of overstock.com until they started accepting bitcoin?

I never heard of them as well, also did not know http://gyft.com until they started accepting it

That's exactly what I said in my OP.

Yeah, I had actually completely forgotten that App.net existed.

It's still not at all clear to me what it is, and why I would want to sign up. Even after reading the site.

From their site:

/* What is App.net?

App.net is a network of social applications: App.net users can use their account to access hundreds of different applications available on a variety of platforms including Android, iOS, Mac, Linux and more.

Currently App.net users can access microblogging, broadcasting via push notification, groupchat, public or private chatrooms, photo sharing, journaling and more.

For developers, App.net offers a robust API and a variety of open source libraries and tools.

App.net is supported by offering paid services to the people that use it, rather than by selling advertising. Unlike other services, App.net users own their content. We believe that there is room in the market for a service that benefits financially from building things that people are willing to pay for. */

Its a network of networks which you can use to build your own network. Not being pedantic or sarcastic, that is what it says in the description. I guess the issue people have is understanding why this would be useful. I'm not sure why, but I'm probably not their target customer.

It's not really a network of networks, but a central repo for social networks. They can store all your contacts and photos (etc) there, and then you can choose to share your photos uploaded from one service with your contacts on another. It keeps your identity intact across the whole network no matter what app you're using.

Last I knew about it, it was paid-subscription Twitter, essentially. Not totally sure what it is now. Honestly, I'm not sure they know what they are right now.

read this: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/08/the-great-app-net-mis...

I like it how HN sentiment went from "let's ridicule Bitcoin" to "let's ridicule those who consider accepting it because now that everyone does it, it is stupid to make a big deal out of this".

It's not really ridicule. If you do a Kickstarter-style fundraiser to accept Bitcoin instead of just accepting it, it's a pure PR move. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I had completely forgotten about app.net's existence, so mission accomplished on the free marketing front.

Absolutely agreed. This is complete nonsense. Since people can already "commit" BTC to this cause, they have already implemented a Bitcoin payment solution. This blows up the entire premise. I don't recall all of the details of App.Net's launch, but I do remember lots of similar, desperate PR tactics aimed at convincing people to contribute money to it back then.

There are some entirely new business models that Bitcoin enables, and IMO those may deserve some attention. This, however, is far from one of those cases.

First practical solution? It's one of dozens of practical solutions I see on the HN front page every single day.

Yes. Unfortunately, it's not a long term solution.

The public is fickle. There is no long term solution.

I tend to agree but I would not understate the value of marketing. The downside is pretty modest.

So app.net will accept bitcoin if we bribe them with $10k in purchases?

You either believe in the currency and wish to implement it into your platform, or you don't.

Have they not already taken the time and effort to implement it by placing coinbase buy buttons on their website?

Am I understanding this correctly? If app.net does not receive some arbitrary amount of purchases made in Bitcoin before some arbitrary date, that they will disable Bitcoin as a payment option out of spite?

I certainly wouldn't spend any of my Bitcoin on such a hostile company.

Why is it hostile for a company to want customers to put their money where their mouth is? Anyone can say they want to pay with Bitcoin, but are those people actual customers? As a company you can't really tell that based on a bunch of internet hot air—especially about something that inspires the kind of fanaticism that Bitcoin does.

I'm not sure why this makes you so angry and where you draw your sense of entitlement from, but it's certainly not free to support Bitcoin just because you proclaim it to be.

App.net to developers: Give me money, so you can use a Twitter like infrastructure. PS. It's not open-source and you have to pay an ongoing subscription.

App.net to investors: Give me money, in return I will give you equity ownership of the technology we built thanks to the money from developers. Don't worry, the developers don't own any equity so more for you and me.

App.net to Bitcoin supporters: Give me money, blah blah blah.

I don't know, I sort of think it's refreshing for a company to ask for money in this day and age.

I have to agree. There's too much of the "free, but we sell your information to advertisers" model going around these days.

It's hostile because they're threatening to remove a payment option that is literally no overheard for them to implement (all the work is being done by coinbase, they just have to cash the checks like usual).

I am not angry in the slightest, I just think it was a poor decision by app.net to place the time limit and threaten the Bitcoin community with permanent rejection of Bitcoin if they fail to cough up the $10K within 30 days.

Excellent point.

And as an app.net 3rd party dev, I wouldn't mind paying in BTC however I'm already paid up for the next year. I'm not going to prepare several years in advance either.

So giving a 30 day window for ~$10k when they're not really actively marketing for new users just is asking for failure.

There are lasting legal, technical and support operations that we are willing to take on long term if the market's big enough to support it. Otherwise, it's not worth the effort to implement those long term.

How so? They're transacting through coinbase. It's no different than accepting PayPal payments legally or technically.

Buyers understand that if there is a dispute they will only receive the amount paid in USD, not BTC.

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.

As someone who spent a lot of time working with BTC in a professional sense, this statement rings a little hollow considering you're using Coinbase.

Can you elaborate?

App.net is a subscription service. We have a subscription state machine that works great with Stripe. We have systems to deal with upgrades, downgrades, proration, shifting to different plans. Additionally this requires us changing our accounting systems and wading into new tax complexities.

It's fascinating to me that people think that for any retailer to accept Bitcoin it's as easy as embedding a widget on their site. I have been comparing notes with other companies that are also considering adding Bitcoin support and these are the sorts of questions that come up.

"Additionally this requires us changing our accounting systems and wading into new tax complexities."

That's only because you're setting prices in BTC instead of USD, right? I always thought accepting BTC through Coinbase for USD-denominated goods and services had no tax implications.

> It's fascinating to me that people think that for any retailer to accept Bitcoin it's as easy as embedding a widget on their site.

The only downside you've listed is that you mistakenly tied your subscription code with one payment provider.

Gotchya, thanks for the response. I wasn't aware app.net utilized such a complex billing system.

Even if you have Coinbase turning BTC -> USD automatically, there are still issues. Here's just one:

I purchase something on Overstock for 0.5 BTC. The item has an issue, and I want a refund. In the meantime, the price of BTC/USD has fluctuated 20%. What happens?

This question is not insurmountable, obviously. But there are tons of edge cases that need to be thought of and dealt with.

I don't see tons of edge cases. Any current logic tied to your existing payment processor must be reimplemented to handle another one as well, in this case, Coinbase. Internally, everything is dollars. Coinbase handles Bitcoin for you.

This may be good PR for App.net, but it's bad PR for Bitcoin and Coinbase if the idea that accepting Bitcoin is complicated spreads. It isn't. Using Coinbase is as easy as using Authorize.net, unless you make things hard for yourself by pricing things in Bitcoin.

There are ways to make this easier on you--for example, BitPay [1] offers to take on the burden of handling the BTC, and gives you next-day deposit in USD. Far better (read: faster) than Credit Card processing in most cases (no chargebacks).

[1]: disclaimer: they just hired me.

> You either believe in the currency and wish to implement it into your platform, or you don't.

Or you implement it using something trivial like Coinbase (o BTC pricing, you get USD only, Coinbase assumes the risk) and trumpet that you accept BTC for a quick PR boost (see: most announcements in the last month).

That's exactly what they've done. There are no extra legal fees or anything to worry about like the other respondant to my original comment stated either.

They're threatening to withdraw a simpler form of payment if we don't cough up the $10k and fast, basically.

That is a rather naïve statement. Subscription services are not like one-time purchases, and even with one-time purchases other commenters have pointed out potential issues with accepting BTC even though a company like Coinbase (such as refunds).

Dalton listed some of the issues subscription services have with BTC in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7105340

> You either believe in the currency and wish to implement it into your platform, or you don't.

seems like you're wrong about this one.

What is app.net? I've visited their homepage and read the "learn more", but can't really figure it out. At first it seems like an Android an iOS simulator that lets you install the apps virtually so that you can use them ("get access to great apps on $platforms"), but they focus so much on social apps only... Are they an alternative App Store/Play Store then? I don't get it and I don't really feel like creating an account just to find out.

Edit: Ah the bitcoin.app.net page explains it further down.

If you did the same thing for Dogecoin, I can almost guarantee that it would be committed within a day.

Coinbase's killer merchant feature is automatic BTC -> USD conversion. You'd need that for Dogecoin (which doesn't yet exist) for it to see uptake for merchants.

App.net still exists?

Let us suppose that there is an organized group of Bitcoin enthusiasts with a combined amount of Bitcoin holdings of around 100,000BTC. Would an article "App.net begins accepting Bitcoin" increase the BTC/USD exchange rate by more than 0.01%?

To me it seems that a continued stream of press is good for Bitcoin, and I am genuinely curious is there is such a group of enthusiasts that strategically spend Bitcoins for PR.

At this point I doubt it -- and the exchange rate fluctuates so wildly it would be heard to measure anyway. It seems to take macro scale events to move the price these days, e.g. the policy announcements by the Chinese government.

The obvious answer is "yes", but asking a question you don't expect a response from is silly. Why not just say "Send us enough Bitcoin and we'll add Bitcoin payments to our framework." and then take action if you get enough sent in?

That way, there's no leading question, and you communicate exactly what it is that you want from us.

With all due respect, isn't Bitcoin easy enough to implement that you shouldn't need any commitment (10BTC? Really?) to accept it? Especially since the currency is floating, so 10BTC today (~$8400USD) may be half the amount or etc. on any given day...

So what happens to the coins/accounts if they do not reach their 10 BTC goal?

Should App.net just stop operations?

[yes | no]?

I just bought my first Bitcoins. As I was trying to buy a fixed amount in USD, the price in Bitcoins kept changing. It'd be weird to shop in Bitcoins, trying to guess the approximate price in USD as I was making the purchase. Whether the purchase price was volatile, or the value of the Bitcoins were volatile, I'm just not used to that!

Wow, this makes me NEVER want to use app.net

I don't understand why they need to start a kickstarter style campaign with "stretch goals" to decide if they should support Bitcoin. I'm no user of bitcoin, but either use it, or don't. Don't try to con users into using it just to decide if you should support it.

The secondary goal could be interesting (pure end-to-end transactions in BTC), but I'd prefer if app.net would disclose the terms and fees up front.

The answer is yes. period.

What is a member subscription? The main page says it's free.

YES!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com