That doesn’t address the criticism. If I pay for a good or service via crypto and it is not delivered satisfactorily, what is my remedy? Who even decides what “satisfaction” is?

Yes, the dispute/chargeback process for cards is cumbersome today, but it is a solution - albeit inefficient. What is the crypto answer?

I don’t mean to put you on the spot for this question, but I would love to understand how decentralized solutions might address this issue.

What if you pay via cash or debit card or don't want to cut off a company (like Apple or Google or Amazon) completely? What is your remedy..chargebacks are a last resort. How many can you do before you get cutoff?

Normally chargebacks are for scams or fraud not because something came broken from Amazon.

> If I pay for a good or service via crypto and it is not delivered satisfactorily

If you paid with cash, what is your remedy?

And if the reason you need a third-party is just to resolve disputes, then what's stopping to have other companies that do nothing but the scrow-holding and dispute resolution?

If I pay in cash then I’m physically present. Usually I’m at a store with a reputation to uphold and a set return policy that’s reliable. If I’m transacting with an unknown entity (eg craigslist) then I can at least physically inspect the item. Very different than ordering online.

> Very different than ordering online.

So for these cases you consider a high chance of the counterparty being dishonest, you use the alternative that can give you safeguards. If it makes more sense to use a credit card, you can still use it.

Since it is the customer who chooses the payment method (or just won't buy from the seller if they aren't happy with the options offered), what is the benefit for the customer?

The lack of fraud (by which you really just mean lack of charge back) is only a benefit for the seller, and not the buyer. You are just moving risk to the buyer, and it is just like the old days of the Web when some sellers would try to get you to use western union to pay.

I've not seen you describe this yet in the thread, which tells me there is no benefit or you haven't thought this through.

There you go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31795159

> If I pay for a good or service via crypto and it is not delivered satisfactorily

In this vague hypothetical situation, what a lot of crypto folk would tell you is that you should use a smart contract, and not a regular transaction, to pay. Hypothetically the contract/network will act as an escrow agent, and would only complete the transaction when all input parameters are true AKA all parties are "satisfied". The successful input parameters and their truth sources would be agreed upon before hand.

I could argue more specific scenarios around fraud (buyer receives a good/service and pretends it was not satisfactory), but that can go on forever and I would encourage readers to go search for answers to specific edge cases because they are out there.

Sounds like a lot of work. I'd rather pay someone to do it for me.

That only works if all "input parameters" involved in the transaction are verifyably on chain. If I'm buying a physical good with crypto there's no way you can write a smart contract that verifies I did indeed get the good I paid for. Oracles don't count because that's just kicking the can to a different level (how do I dispute the oracle saying something happened that didn't).

Exactly. On top of that and the high transaction fees, it's more complicated to do a Patreon like service with Crypto than just work with the imperfect financial systems we have now....

It’s really not that hard to build a Patreon style service on crypto and web3. It’s also far easier to build a new payment processing platform on crypto than it is to build an alternative to PayPal or Stripe.

Many Patreon payments are simple donations, or gated access to digital media. These can be achieved with smart contract functionality to mitigate the need for costly payment processing.

Yes though I would point out that smart contracts require some knowledge of coding knowledge to implement....

Yes, a theoretical crypto-Patreon would have to be coded in Solidity and frontend interfaces built around it for the web. This might be OSS or just a private enterprise.

But the users of this platform do not need to know how to code.

In a hypothetical crypto Patreon, if you send $1 to an artist, your only recourse to get that back if you are displeased with their art is to ask them politely, or ask the platform or protocol creator. Most likely you will not get your funds back, but this is assumed to be the case.