> We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors
Sounds like you're saying we need crypto. Decentralized banks? That's exactly the sort of crazy idea that's just not gonna happen outside of crypto.
> Speaking of credit card companies: why do they exist??
They provide a useful service. They pay for stuff for you, then you pay them back later. This is great because if fraud occurs it's their problem to deal with.
Banks already are a decentralized system, just not a very good one. I can send a SEPA transfer from any EU account to any other EU account no matter which banks they are with and there isn't a "SCT processing company" that handles that for me, the banks communicate with each other - the system is decentralized. But that transaction takes up to a day for pretty much no reason, so we use payment cards for most things. Those are centralized. If Visa/Mastercard doesn't want to handle my transaction, I'm screwed. If instead cards simply signed an SCT message and my bank refused to process it, I could simply switch banks.
> credit card companies
Yeah, my bad, I should've said payment card companies / card payment processors. For debit card transactions they don't provide any benefit, they are only middlemen between me, the merchant and our respective banks.
Banks are centralized enough to be targets for government intervention. There simply aren't enough nodes in this supposedly decentralized system for the failure of a single node to not matter.
> For debit card transactions they don't provide any benefit
If it only we have some kind of country-wide entity that was run by the people through elections and that could create a centralized payment system with open access to everyone....
But no! The state! oh the horror! Cant have state-run things!!!!
Governments the world over are surveiling you without your consent right now. How could you possibly trust them? Centralized economic systems are nothing but yet another state surveillance apparatus. People think it is normal for the state to demand complete identification data on every person businesses transact with. It sacrifices our privacy yet fails to prevent crime. No amount of crime justifies this.
We need decentralized currencies with strong privacy guarantees. There must be so many nodes in operation no single government on earth has any hope of stopping the processing of transactions. Currencies must exist independently of governments, especially their monetary policies. It must be mathematically impossible for them to trace anything. Only then will people be free.
Man. You can't outrun the government. You can vote, you can try armed insurrection. Reform or revolt, those are the choices, and revolt is guaranteed suicide.
Believe me, you can't outrun it with your fancy digital currency with "so many nodes in operation no single government on earth has any hope..." is terribly naive. They can seize the networks man, they can arrest you, they can shoot you. They eat your bitcoin for lunch.
>>>Reform or revolt, those are the choices, and revolt is guaranteed suicide.
Revolt has worked out decently for the Iraqi Kurds and the Taliban. Jury is still out on the Burmese and the Houthis. Libya is a violent mess but technically they successfully overthrew the central government with significant external help, so at the very least that's a non-fail. Just for a few timely and relevant 21st-century examples that disprove your statement of "guaranteed suicide".
Every time some new technology appears, it subverts government controls. They must become even more tyrannical than they already are in order to regain the same level of control they enjoyed before. We'll either end up with an uncontrollable population wielding ubiquitous subversive technology or a totalitarian government which polices every aspect of our digital lives.
Most likely, balance will be found along the way. We're gonna find out just how tyrannical they're willing to become and just how much people really care about their privacy and freedom.
Sounds like you're saying we need crypto. Decentralized banks? That's exactly the sort of crazy idea that's just not gonna happen outside of crypto.
> Speaking of credit card companies: why do they exist??
They provide a useful service. They pay for stuff for you, then you pay them back later. This is great because if fraud occurs it's their problem to deal with.