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Re:Overstock.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoins by brc on Thursday January 09, 2014 @10:05PM (#7034854)
That is missing the point. Arrests are not that common either, but the mere possibility of them does change behaviour. The chargeback is an important part of credit card transactions - it makes the card-holder more likely to spend, and it makes it more likely that the payment recipient is going to deliver.

I have both issued chargebacks for non delivered goods, and had chargebacks raised against me as a merchant. Generally fraudulent chargebacks are easy to defeat if you run your business well. Generally chargebacks are easy to win if you are a sensible consumer. The costs of chargebacks on consumers and vendors alike are vastly outweighed by their benefits.

Going to a commerce system where that layer of trust is removed is going to be more difficult to do.

Re:Overstock.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoins by warfangle on Thursday January 09, 2014 @10:21PM (#7034909)
Who's to say coinbase won't add n-of-m escrow transactions in the future?
Re:Overstock.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoins by brc on Thursday January 09, 2014 @11:11PM (#7035055)
Certainly not me, perhaps they will - I'm merely observing that the presence of the chargeback system can be felt even if no chargebacks have been issued.

The OP was posting that chargebacks can't be that important because they had never done one. That's not the right way to look at it.

Re:Overstock.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoins by warfangle on Friday January 10, 2014 @10:15AM (#7036952)
True. My point is that chargebacks are kind of a moot point, once someone implements a bitcoin payment processor that includes the option of n-of-m escrow transactions :)