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Comment by tlrobinson | Hacker News Reader

Alternatively: Apple is poised to take on mobile payments (with over half a billion accounts with credit cards on file) and doesn't want anything to disrupt their plans.

Anyway, why is it Apple's responsibility to ensure every app developer and user complies with the law?

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It's not. However, all those customers that will get screwed will knock on Apple's door, even if they have been warned with huge blinking-red letters that it is not Apple's responsibility to provide insurance for bitcoin transactions. Apple doesn't need the headache for what will probably be 0.00001% of their revenue.

Just like everyone who gets shafted by a Windows app goes and complains to Microsoft?

Yes, all six of the people who use the Windows Store.

And yet, Square frequently gets featured by Apple.

Apple benefits when people buy their hardware to use Square. Is the benefit of owning them worth the liability and extra costs? I doubt it.

Additionally, there are fewer excuses they can use for blocking Square.

I've been following Brian Roemelle's blog on Quora. This seems the most likely scenario to me. It's a huge opportunity for Apple, and they've already been telegraphing their intentions even before bitcoin started getting popular.

I don't understand how everyone believes this to be so true, that its a massive conspiracy theory because Apple is supposedly about to launch their own payments platform.

Bitcoin is nowhere near popular enough to be a threat to any rumored Apple payments platform.

Bitcoin is not the same thing as mobile payments. I send mobile payments, I don't do bitcoin, and I'm a nerd. What percentage of the population do you think really is interested in ever using bitcoins?

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