Shame on Mangopay. This isn't how you treat a customer, especially one who does as much social good as Liberapay. I hope everyone here remembers this next time they have to select a payment processor.

Running the fundraising infrastructure for neonazis isn't really "social good" if you ask me.

Could you please not do this?

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not unrelated. If people want to wax poetic about how much social good an organization who's on record as breaking the law to fund neonazi groups they should probably provide a reason for the justification.

Could you elaborate on "breaking the law"?

Apparently due to a single "controversial user": https://medium.com/liberapay-blog/the-first-year-of-liberapa...

Although I can't figure out who. Possibly https://www.byline.com/column/58/article/1409 ?

No. That’s an old article. Different event. Perhaps same problem, but there’s no evidence I’ve seen to support that yet.

A small business being at the mercy of random payment providers is yet another demonstration that there is a fundamental social need as well as a strong market demand for decentralized payment systems like Bitcoin.

I feel very, very strange that payment processors can act that way. It's not the first time I hear about such things, other times it has happened with Paypal or Stripe.

I mean that's some users' fault, isn'it it? Isn't it the job of the payment processor to identify and handle problem users and crooks? What am I paying them for? I don't really understand how they can boot customers, _and_ boot them _without an explanation_. They should need at least a ruling from a judge. I can understand if my audience is "risky" and hence I get no discount on fees and so on, but this behaviour is unacceptable and - IMHO - it breaks business freedom and (potentially) competition.

I don't know if it's the same in the US, but in Italy, as an example, a "real" business operating in brick-and-mortar locations is considered a "public place" (pubblico esercizio) and it can't refuse its services to people that can pay for them (barring some legal limits, e.g. selling alcohol to kids or to people that are already drunk). I think that in a ruling some years ago those rights were extended to online shops and activities. If you want to give services to a restricted audience you can create a "private club", but then you're severely limited in what you can do in marketing/advertising and such.

I really think the same should happen for internet activities. This is blatant - albeit algorithmic - discrimination.

Preferably one with low fees, finality and a high transaction capacity, though. Things that doesn't seem to exist in any of the common cryptocurrencies, yet.

>Things that doesn't seem to exist in any of the common cryptocurrencies

Lightning (layer 2 on top of Bitcoin) seem to be fitting the bill pretty well at this point.

In it's current state it's not really functional, is it?

Bitcoin is a failure as a transaction system - it doesn't scale and fees rocket as the network gets full.

Lightning appears to be a failure too - it requires a lot of money to be comitted to the network and constant vigilance so as not to lose your funds.

Further, the market demand you talk about doesn't seem to be playing out - if anything the accepting of cryptocurrencies for actual transactions (rather than just speculation) seems to be on the decline.

Wikileak was pretty darn happy they found Bitcoin to get out of the clutches of the USG.

As for Lighthing, I think you're singing its demise a little too early.

They are also not the only way to scaling and ease-of-use.

Lightning appears to have major design flaws, the ones I have mentioned are not the only ones.

Wikileaks may well have been happy. That doesn't mean bitcoin is a good solution for wider use, especially with its transaction throughput limitations.

Ease of use in the cryptocurrency world is something of a joke...

So while I'm not versed enough in the crypto-space to comment on your first two points, I'd like to agree _Heartily_ about point 3, "Ease of use in the cryptocurrency world is something of a joke..." (And if that's why you're being greyed, that's dumb.)

As a "dumb user" I went to buy some crypto after the initial crash last winter. I found that: Most exchanges do not permit use in my state (Washington). Of those that did, Coinbase/GDAX ended up having technical issues, leading me on for months of useless support tickets, before blackholing me entirely, and once I finally obtained some eth on gemini, diversifying it into a handful of altcoins required yet-another "exchange search", learning how to do some very sketchy wallet transfers, and using MUCH less trusted exchanges that actually allowed my state and the pairings I needed. (And if I want to liquidate my position, I have to basically invert this whole mess of a flow.)

I very well could be going about this in a dumb way, or it could have improved, thus this post (in that someone can feel free to correct me). My perception is that ease of use is in fact a joke, and if crypto wants to become a thing for "Boring Normal People" it needs to fix that.

I think you have to separate:

   - hard to use because governments willfully get in the way

   - intrinsically hard to use.

The former is very easy to get around (it kind of being the point of cryptocurrencies in the first place).

The latter is a real hard problem for crypto that will require an entire generation to die off (those who can't understand and will never understand that using a 3rd party to manage your money isn't compulsory or even desirable anymore) before things evolve.

> The latter is a real hard problem for crypto that will require an entire generation to die off (those who can't understand and will never understand that using a 3rd party to manage your money isn't compulsory or even desirable anymore) before things evolve.

This is not a description of why cryptocurrency is intrinsically hard to use. It's intrinsically hard to use because - - It requires insane levels of OpSec to keep safe - It can be sent to the wrong place with a typo, and never recovered - Its transactions are irreversible, this is not a feature for most users - The fees are opaque and variable - Transaction processing can take an arbitrary amount of time

It's not that people 'don't understand' that using a 3rd party is unnecessary, it's that these third parties provide a lot of valuable services. The use of cryptocurrency is a marked step backwards from the existing situation for most scenarios.

The problems with crypto-currencies being widely adopted are the same as the benefits. While people who understand the benefits like it, the same could be said for cash, which is widely going away and had far better adoption.

1. Loss aversion - You lose your bitcoin wallet you lose everything. You can't have that with large amounts of money or you'll bankrupt people.

2. Anonymity - Thieves can steal money, and to get it back you have to expose yourself and claim the money, if you're lucky enough to get it back at all. Governments can also very easily track users.

3. Decentralized - You have no one single person to punish when things go wrong, or seek help from. You're alone just like everyone else.

I would rather see a nationalized service, maybe offered through postal banking, for fee-free instant money transfer. Banking, for such basic purposes, should be treated as a utility. It isn't sexy, it isn't flash, it's roads for money. Nothing more.

> I would rather see a nationalized service

And how is that going to help with the OP problem, I wonder?

Gov't says your business ain't what we like, payment can't happen, business is dead.

Interestingly, a state monopoly could actually be more tolerant on some types of business, because of the legalities associated. As an arm of the state, it's subject to the state's obligations for equal access and service.

If their policies were anything less than "we support any legal business", they'd be spending decades in the courts.

Conversely, a lot of private payment processors are beholden to the tastes of their clients and investors. Even if you have all the right metrics and tech about fraud, chargebacks, customer satisfaction, see how many processors close their doors if you say you're selling rifles or porn.

Ideally that would only happen if the business was illegal or found guilty of serious crimes. In those cases society has an interest in killing it.

> fee-free instant money transfer. Banking, for such basic purposes, should be treated as a utility.

You're making it sound as though "being a utility" means "no fees". I cannot name any utility that is fee-free.

Sounds a bit like SEPA to me. At least that's how most donations and similar are handled here. AFAICT there's no need to have a special processor just to accept payments.

I guess their payment processor got sick of handling thousand of tiny payment and gave them a random excuse to boot them out asap.

> Mangopay hasn’t provided a detailed explanation of their decision, so we’re not sure. We’ve tried to understand their concerns, they seemed related to the fact that Liberapay is open to everyone

Likelier: Liberapay’s KYC was insufficient.

Mangopay probably received a call from the regulator, and they realized that they could not ensure that Liberapay was not (unwittingly) letting people launder money or finance terrorism.

The AML/CFT requirements that would have needed to be applied by Liberapay to all its users would probably have caused such friction that they would have grown much slower, however.

>Likelier: Liberapay’s KYC was insufficient.

No. They mirror one-on-one Mangopay's: https://docs.mangopay.com/guide/kyc https://liberapay.com/about/faq#maximum-amount

It is also a strong possibility but wouldn't Mangopay would have given some time for Librapay to adapt to the regulation ?

The fact that they stop the contract so soon without previous warning (unless Librapay is not disclosing everything) is what make it really weird for me.

> It is also a strong possibility but wouldn't Mangopay would have given some time for Librapay to adapt to the regulation ?

No anti-money laundering law doesn't work that way

> The fact that they stop the contract so soon without previous warning (unless Librapay is not disclosing everything) is what make it really weird for me.

That is completely normal (in fact giving notice is pretty lenient), if a financial institution suspects you of money laundering weird things will begin to happen to you such as freezes, orders being ignored, surprise account closures, etc. You will under no circumstances receive an explanation as that in itself is a serious criminal offense because it is considered to be helpful to money launderers when you explain to them what they did that aroused suspicion.

Note to readers: if weird things start happening to your bank account (delayed or ignored payments, logouts, etc) get on the phone to the bank and be as helpful to them as you can be. That is typically the only way to get this resolved.

With apparently 13 k€ per month processed, how much could they launder?

No harm would have been done by giving them a few months grace period.

The amount is irrelevant.

Financing Nazis is illegal, especially in France, which had a bit of an economic setback about sixty years ago because of them. Oh, and a lot of death and suffering.

https://github.com/liberapay/liberapay.org/issues/11

That thread is not about money laundering, and it's two years old.

So basically if you're literally money laundering for cartels like HSBC, it's cool you've got plenty of time, but if you're a bit player for charity you should be blocked? Doesn't sound legit to me.

> Likelier: Liberapay’s KYC was insufficient.

Indeed and that would be consistent with no explanation being offered as explaining is normally illegal under "tipping off" rules.

From the discussions in https://github.com/liberapay/salon/issues/248 it seems to be related to controversial users.

>I have just received an email from mangopay saying that they want to terminate their contract with us because we have/had a few controversial users.

>I've replied, asking for confirmation, and information on how much time we have left.

Currently using bitcoin for payments changes nothing. Yes, the transfer of "currency" are decentralized, but to cash it out (to pay for food, rent, etc) you still need to use exchanges which are centralized.

If you need to 'cash out' it's not a 'currency'.

A) Regardless of whether you're right or wrong, that's just a discussion about labels. Call it whatever you want, my point still stands: the transfers are decentralized but the exchanges are centralized.

B) Even though my point does not depend on whether you're right or wrong, you're wrong. I have USD in my bank but I have to cash them out into GBP. So according to your "reasoning", USD is not a currency? Of course it is, you're just talking nonsense.

The money in your bank account is no currency.

Either a currency is something you can buy things with, or it's a label with exchange rates. In the first case it can't be something that needs to be cashed out. In the second case you can't buy something and the thing you buy other things with is money.

You're usage of Bitcoin, money, GDP, USD and currency is willynilly.

> You're usage of Bitcoin, money, GDP, USD and currency is willynilly.

Your usage of the English language is wilynilly.

I'm a trader and we call it currency.

You have added zero to this conversation.

Does personally attack people get you somewhere in real live, I wonder?

> Does personally attack people get you somewhere in real live, I wonder?

I didn't personally attack you. I said you have added nothing. That comment has nothing to do with your personhood.

I think you don't know what a "personal attack" is. Or a "currency", for that matter.

So a donation site with practically no AML/KYC/CTF procedures got shut down by their regulation-bound payment processor?

No, they require your personal information according to the KYC rules defined by MangoPay: https://docs.mangopay.com/guide/kyc

As a small-time donor, I had to give them the info listed there under "Light Authentification". People who give or receive more have to submit copies of their passport or governmental ID .

Thank you for actual data.

Edit: Strike this, I opened two tabs and read the wrong one :)

The article is dated February 2017, I didn't notice before "In 2017 we’re going to keep improving Liberapay." near the end. According to their frontpage today, 462 new donations were started in the past month (totaling €350/week). The headline seems misleading.

This article is dated `2018-07-12T21:09:44.399Z`

Weird, I landed on "The First Year of Liberapay" [0], not sure if the link was edited or I somehow misclicked..

Edit: my bad, I opened the link from a comment..

[0] https://medium.com/liberapay-blog/the-first-year-of-liberapa...

Dear Medium,

Can you stop pressuring me to register when I open a link to you? I closed the tab without reading the article, and soon you'll piss me off enough that i'll remember to not open medium links...

Report those on the In-Page Popup Reporter https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://...

Link is a search result redirect to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/in-page-pop-u...

I've installed this Firefox addon last week: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/make-medium-r... . I highly recommend it.

Thanks for having reminded me how awful was the medium experience before; I hadn't even noticed I was on this site.

IMO you're doing it wrong. If they don't want you as a reader, why use a workaround?

For the same reason I use an ad blocker. I don't care if they don't want me as a reader. What matters is that I want to read that content.

They want me as a reader but they also want money. Since I don’t browse news articles with a fist full of e-credits this is the best choice of their options. NYT absolutely will not let you read without paying, I suppose you’d prefer that.

Because the content is still decent.

Firefox and Safari have "reading mode" which helps when you really need to read that article.

Reader view: for when a website's design is worse than using none at all.

Medium is as bad as reddit to me, with medium's open in app sticky float and constant sign up pop-ups. Reddit has their extremely deceptive open in app pop-up that also asks you to stay (meaning LEAVING the page and going to their app on the play store for installation) or to leave (meaning to stay on the page). I use reader mode on ff as it lets me read the information without the distraction of anger.

I'd recommend blocking all javascript by default. Medium is perfectly readable that way. Most sites are even more readable that way.

I second this, and I'll add that uMatrix allows you to block JS by default while giving you the versatility to manually whitelist domains.

Medium = YouTube for textual content.

What do you expect?

I disagree. Medium lost its luster a while ago. Personally I don't even bother with medium links anymore. It's usually low quality content in a format that makes it difficult to even consume.

Dear nottorp,

Can you please fight this battle elsewhere and keep your comments on topic? I know it’s irritating. I agree. Just not the right place in my opinion. I came here looking for comments on the article.

Thanks,

Where? On Medium? I don't read the site unless it's linked to on HN...

Branching conversations? In my internet discussion board?

I agree with you but there's other ways to do this than yet another unrelated comment.