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rachofsunshine 2 days ago

> The private citizen has the option to pay cash, bitcoin, trade goods or services, etc...everyone is[n't] entitled to convenience in every situation.

These options aren't small impositions, they're sufficient added overhead that they dwarf the value of the transaction itself. Bitcoin is the only one of them that seems vaguely realistic to me, but most people don't (and shouldn't) keep their own crypto wallets and don't (and can't) get paid in crypto, so that still requires interaction with third-party processors on two levels. It needs one level to convert fiat to crypto and vice-versa and another to conduct the crypto transaction.

Put another way, the sites that are shutting down this content clearly have substantial financial incentive not to do so. If they thought they had a reasonable alternative, don't you think they'd be using it? And if decent-sized companies with financial incentives cannot find an alternative that seems practicable, what makes you think private individuals are reasonably able to do so?

The broader issue here is one of monopoly, and I guess it might be helpful to zoom out here a bit. Do you think a company with market dominance should be able to engage in (otherwise legal) anticompetitive practices to suppress new companies in their domain? If it were up to you whether to have anti-trust law, would you have it?

If yes: isn't this essentially the same problem? These payment processors have a duopoly and are suppressing alternatives who would take these payments (and might outcompete them in the market on that basis).

If not: are you not concerned about a failure-state where monopolies (a) control critical sectors like finance with an unbreakable grip, (b) intertwine that grip with governments who want to circumvent civil liberties protections to suppress private action, and thus (c) become a de facto shadow government whose behavior - by virtue of being nominally private - isn't subject to constitutional protections or court oversight?