>The author is ignoring the fact that there are no refunds with bitcoin.

The author's first point was that "the unbanked want to remain anonymous". Refunds cannot happen while being anonymous.

Bitcoin is a replacement for cash, not an pseudo escrow service which we have come to expect in the western world with credit cards. Transactions are built on end-user trust. Credit card companies introduce a third party into the transaction which costs money. This is not a bug of bitcoin, it's a feature. The services you are referring to can, however, be built on top of the bitcoin system.

> Refunds cannot happen while being anonymous.

Preferring anonymity != preferring no payment disputes.

Bitcoins are also only pseudo-anonymous, and every transaction is publicly available making it less anonymous than a closed payments system or cash.

This rhetoric that apologizes for Bitcoins design flaws ("it's a feature not a bug") is detrimental to future blockchain implementations that could design a competitive solution to refunds.

That's like saying paper money has a design flaw, or ethernet has design flaws because it doesn't account for serving web pages.

Or its like saying an automobile has a design flaw because it can't go in reverse.

How is it at all the same thing? Bitcoin isn't a contained technology, it can be built on top of just as the internet is built on top of.

Nope. It's even easier to mod an automobile because it doesn't require a consensus from the mechanics (miners) to make a change. See the block chain size debate if you're still unconvinced.

There are many companies already building services on top of bitcoin, it doesn't take a change to the protocol and therefore it doesn't take any permission or consensus from anyone. I can't tell if you have a fundamental ignorance of crypto currencies or if this was an intentional straw man, but either way it is so far from being rational I'm not even sure how you would come up with it except for maybe learning about bitcoin through a game of gossip rather than reading or experience.

> The author's first point was that "the unbanked want to remain anonymous"

That seems wrong, and also self-serving. I doubt the people who are cashing their checks into prepaid debit cards at Wal-Mart are doing it for anonymity.

The multi-signature feature in the bitcoin scripting language allows to add a refund process into bitcoin transactions. Bitrated, which I founded, provides consumer protection using that mechanism and a marketplace for dispute resolution service providers.

Multisig escrow doesn't solve the refund use cases and isn't new/unique to bitcoin. There are plenty of use cases where a refund is needed just a day after the transaction is complete (defective items, economic hold up, etc.).

It can also be gamed if the additional parties are in on the scam, which requires a level of trust that the article says the unbanked do not have.

If you want to mimic credit cards, just have a company hold the money for 30 days, take %3, and take away any disputed transactions from the business.

A payment system that ties up the funds for 30 days in escrow is even less useful and not competitive.

Again, escrow is neither new nor unique to Bitcoin. It doesn't solve the refund problems. Why do you think it's not used by modern payment systems?

> A payment system that ties up the funds for 30 days in escrow is even less useful and not competitive.

I agree but that's what credit cards are.

Absolutely not. ACH delivers funds in 1-3 business days.

Do you not know how credit cards work?

From wikipedia:

> Businesses increasingly use ACH online to have customers pay, rather than via credit or debit cards.[citation needed]

> Rules and regulations that govern the ACH network are established by NACHA and the Federal Reserve. In 2013, this network processed nearly 22 billion ACH transactions with a total value of $38.7 trillion.[1] Credit card payments are handled by separate networks.

Credit cards can be gamed if Mastercard is in on the game, but that not something anyone worries about. Multisig escrow doesn't do away with the need for a trusted adjudicator, it just makes it possible to have one for Bitcoin.

M-Pesa is mentioned in the second sentence of the article.