I agree we are already exposed to this problem. Visa and Mastercard already make judgments about whom to support and whom to disallow. This is dangerous, especially because they are willing to succumb to the Internet outrage machine and pressure from loud activist groups to make these decisions.

When a platform is large enough (or has to be inherently large due to network effects), we should ensure (through regulation perhaps) that they act neutrally and provide service to everyone except where the law explicitly disallows it. That is, they should behave as a "dumb pipe" and not curators.

They isn't any neutrality, at least in the US. We've watched Visa/Mastercard/Paypal and others take down people they politically disagree with. Look at Paypal + Patreon for another example.

What's currently in the pipes to help fix this? Sure you can always support someone by mailing them a money order or cryptocurrency, but that is a huge hindrance to most people. It can cripple groups that are political unpopular. 20 years ago, that might have been gay rights groups.

Personally, I think we need to have state intervention.

The American finance and payment systems are a Rube Goldberg machine. Too many layers of middlemen adding cost and clunkiness; technology which was barely a good idea in the 1970s. But too many middlemen with a stake in it for anything but the state to blow it out.

I could imagine a system where everyone got a basic bank account for life-- each SSN and EIN is also an account number. The account is managed by the state as a public service, and you can assign it to a local brick-and-mortar bank to handle in-person banking. There would presumably be competition for the business.

That way, everyone would have guaranteed access to direct-deposit payroll and ACH-style-but-less-of-a-boondoggle electronic funds transfers. Push and pull payment APIs could be part of the state provided system, with enormous economies of scale driving the transaction price to essentially zero. Since the underlying service is state-run, it has to support any legal business purpose or the courts will shred it.

The financial tech sector is then freed from having to reinvent basic transfers and accounts again and again, and can focus on value-add services.

Point taken.

You could also argue that having multiple big entities doing payment processing is better for everyone to the extent that they are competing. I mean, Mastercard and Visa are undoubtedly going to pull every lever at their disposal to take out Apple. (And to take out Amazon and Walmart as well if they decide to jump into this thing.)

So rather than wishing that Apple were NOT a payment processor, I guess a better idea is to hope for the Walmarts, the Amazons, the Targets, etc to all jump in and join the cage match.

> Mastercard and Visa are undoubtedly going to pull every lever at their disposal to take out Apple.

The Apple card isn't competing with Mastercard and Visa -- in fact, it uses the Mastercard payment network. It's competing with credit cards issued by other banks on top of the MC and Visa payment networks (and AmEx/Discover, which unlike MC and Visa combine the payment network and card issuing).

I doubt the other banks are too afraid of Apple though, I didn't see anything so compelling about the Apple card that would cause it kill other credit cards. It's a slick product, but not game-changing the way that e.g. the iPhone was to entrenched phone makers.

>I doubt the other banks are too afraid of Apple though, I didn't see anything so compelling about the Apple card that would cause it kill other credit cards.

Interesting. I thought it offer fairly good Cash Back, no Fees, no hassle, ease of use. Even if it manage to reach 10% of the US iPhone users it will be a serious damage to other CC. While I may not get the best Rebate and Points when using Apple Card, I don't think those few percentage are worth it for my privacy.

Apple hasn't patented cash back, no fees, or ease of use. The other banks are free to copy most of these ideas if they're prepared to.

Look at the personal finance scene in the UK—it's one of the more vibrant markets for banking right now with the likes of Monzo, Revolut, Monese, and countless others. Convenience and simplicity has prior art there.

But none of them integrate as well as Apple Card. And none of the other brand are as trusted as Apple. Unless other big banks offer something similar, people will choose a well known brand that offer these capabilities and not some unknown ones.

Then Visa will pull every lever at its disposal to take it out.

It's also disappointing though, because it means Apple is not competing as a separate entity. What we want is for Apple to jump in be an actual credit card company. Then for all of them to try to destroy each other. (Unfortunately, now that I think about it, there are probably legal reasons that Apple is restricted in this regard. That's a shame. Basically means that it's Mastercard and Visa forever.)

Yeah I mean, this is what cryptocurrency is supposed to help solve and does for people willing to jump through the hoops. Instead of waiting on corporate overlords to enter a ridiculously relegated and bureaucratic mess, we have the open source community actually moving forward with ideas (ones no one seems to like on HN because it's not as simple or convenient, not that Linux was easy to use when installing Slackware from a bunch of disks) and almost no one wants to embrace them, rather just shit on them here.

I'm fully aware this is an unpopular opinion here, but cryptocurrency is one answer to the conglomerates everyone is complaining about. Is it perfect, or even very good? No. But I use it regularly on major merchants and get stuff delivered without much hassle and pay for my VPSes without trouble.

People want an alternative that is as good as Visa/MC without the conglomerate control. That is not going to happen. You can't get 100% of the convenience of the major processors with 0% of the problems.

> Mastercard and Visa are undoubtedly going to pull every lever at their disposal to take out Apple

The images shown are labeled the "Apple Mastercard". So it's a Mastercard with Apple branding.

the difference is that there re dozens of CC companies which do not share information.

Apple already has a lot more info on users then CCs do.

edit

Apple knows a lot about you IF you use apple products. Didn't think this would be a controversial point :)

???

Wait? What?

Apple doesn't know what I buy. At least not currently. How can they know that? Only Mastercard and Visa know that.

Maybe Apple could buy that information from Mastercard or Visa? Is that what you're saying?

i never said Apple knows what you buy. They just know a lot about you based on using their devices / services.

I don't know man?

I'd wager that Google, Mastercard, Visa, and AT&T each know way more about me than Apple does. That's not even counting companies like Amazon, Target, etc. It seems to me that with respect to privacy, Apple is the least of my problems.

how is this remotely true?

Apple has nearly nothing on you. Amex knows what I buy, when, and where.

if you're using their products, why would they not know anything about you? using their phone, app store, itunes, news app, maps appointments.. maybe im missing something? I'm not saying they have your purchase history, but they have a lot

Apple have built up a reputation for not knowing this about me as a consumer.

Maybe they do know lots about me, maybe they don’t. A significant part of their public reputation rests on their respecting privacy concerns however. So if it turned out that they were secretly collecting data on me they would take a hit to their public reputation and (very likely) their bottom line.

They are very much incentivised to keep my data private and imho that offers a strong likelihood that they’ll actually do so.

So you did inform yourself about Apples technical implementation of those services and the implications for privacy, or did you just make an uninformed guess to post something?

You are confusing Apple with Google.