• schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    6 hours ago

    The first two depend on centralized services and nonfree software, which are things I don’t like. The third doesn’t. The fourth doesn’t have to.

    So by those metrics I like cryptocurrency the most. In fact I have invested a bit of my savings in Bitcoin. I have never used Uber or AirBnB meanwhile.

  • krisevol@lemmus.orgEnglish
    0·
    6 hours ago

    The illegal cab company made legal cabs cheaper and more competitive, after a decade of them charging high prices and pricing shitty service.

    Same thing happened when the illegal hotel company came along.

      • nomy@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        6 hours ago

        I’m experiencing the opposite, AirBnB has gotten ridiculous with their pricing. After all the fees and hassle it ends up cheaper staying at an actual hotel.

    • DupaCycki@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 hours ago

      But then the poll would make little sense, because forums for communists would win with 99.97% of votes…

    • Leomas@lemmy.world
      0·
      5 hours ago

      I think your priorities are in the wrong place if you think about “forums for communists” instead of “telegram channels with incel nazis”.

      • vanillama@programming.dev
        0·
        4 hours ago

        I interpreted it as them mentioning lemmy (since lots of lemmy users are communists or socialists of some flavor), but if they meant to complain I agree with you completely

  • Dack@programming.dev
    0·
    9 hours ago

    Why is everyone so toxic? If you wanna discuss something be nice. (Even if you think that the person you are discussing with is a complete idiot)

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
    0·
    9 hours ago

    The exposure of hotels using surveillance pricing. A room should cost a hunnert bucks a night. Not $100 or $150 or $200 or $250 etc., depending on which “app” you pray to. Am I right Trivago?

  • GalacticSushi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    0·
    9 hours ago

    Fake money for criminals helped me buy weed when I didn’t have a local dealer. It’s also how I pay for Mullvad. So fake money for criminals wins.

  • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
    0·
    10 hours ago

    The fake money for criminals is the best because there’s a lot of people that aren’t criminals that have bought in on it and among those the concensus is “I think a bunch of IT neck beards can build a better financial system better than the one that evolved over centuries”.

    The delusion is laughable.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      7 hours ago

      Honestly I think pretty much anyone could build a better financial system, and more people should try. What we have now is the result of centuries of unchecked power. This monetary policy was created by Richard Nixon and then we adopted a Keynesian rationale post facto. It didn’t evolve, it was stolen.

      If you’ve got another idea (including moneyless systems) I’m down to try that too, but what we’ve got right now is pure garbage, and having no out before the modern era doesn’t imply that it’s good.

      • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        7 hours ago

        The modern banking system and monetary policy was created under FDR. Nixon just stoped pretending it was backed on gold and told de Gaulle to kick rocks when he asked for the gold back.

        Realistically the changes under Nixon are peanuts compared to the digitization of it all since the introduction of systems like Swift.

          • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            0·
            6 hours ago

            Yes I am an American and I know what he did, but I also know that the Breton woods agreement was only a small part of the financial system, and that realistically, the economic downturn of the 70s was far more heavily impacted by several oil shocks and the hangover from massive spending on Vietnam.

  • rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    14 hours ago

    The very fact that it’s “fake money for criminals” is exactly why I didn’t pick up any BitCoin when it was 12p per coin… I could have been rich af off of £10

    • root@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      0·
      10 hours ago

      “criminals” = people the goverment doesnt like crypto is untraceable (mostly)

      I think thats why there are so many smear campaigns against it

      • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
        0·
        8 hours ago

        crypto is untraceable (mostly)

        It is very traceable. It’s just that the government doesn’t have a special position with tracing transactions, so there’s been a bunch of kludges built on top of the very transparent Bitcoin network to try to mask things.

      • vanillama@programming.dev
        0·
        8 hours ago

        There are plenty of issues beyond that, especially BTC and similar coins being energy inefficient, just imagine if every single transaction ran through that. It wasn’t designed to be practical.

        And on the less technical side, the biggest contributor to crypto being despised by most people is the massive prevalence of scammers, from companies that pretend to help you invest (while being a ponzi scheme) to rug pulls to other scammers being attracted to it for its perceived anonymity.

        Afaik there’s legitimate uses for the underlying technology, but cryptocurrency is just inferior to regular digital currency from a practical standpoint, and you either have to put up with government regulation (defeating the purpose of a currency aside from government) or put up with fraud that can’t be stopped by our governments.

        • root@lemmy.wtfEnglish
          0·
          7 hours ago

          so you have to put up with surveillance or put up with freedom?

          I dont think the state should be able to trace transactions

          • vanillama@programming.dev
            0·
            7 hours ago

            That’s very understandable, but impractical for investments and savings, the US insures some banks and the like but it doesn’t insure crypto funds, if people’s savings end up there based on false promises (or if their assets are managed by a third party) they can lose everything and have no recourse.

            This isn’t a hypothetical, it’s the story of countless people who lost everything to grifters. I don’t think blaming individuals makes a lot of sense when it comes to emerging technology and when, again, regular finance is generally insured by the state. The biggest reason for scammers to flock to crypto is that there’s a lot less regulation, making it harder to prosecute them. And that’s my original point on the choice we have right now, even if ideally we want better choices in the future. Right now you either go with a traditional institution for financial services, which includes government oversight, or you operate on your own and assume a lot of risks, whether you’re even aware of that or not (and financial actors purposely deceive people on this end, as it’s in their best interest to do so).

    • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 hours ago

      I too, ran across Bitcoin in the VERY early days, when it was pennies. I thought it was a scam and probably illegal, I mean “people can’t just set up their own currency, can they?” It didn’t help that I first found it when I was poking around in Tor, wondering what the “dark web” was all about.

  • qevlarr@lemmy.world
    0·
    16 hours ago
    • Doorbell surveillance network
    • Self-service identity theft
    • State secrets betting house
    • Billionaire fan club fund
    • VinegarChunks@lemmus.orgEnglish
      0·
      4 hours ago

      Very good additions.

      I would add that the state-secrets betting houses are also more broadly insider-trading betting houses

  • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
    0·
    17 hours ago

    I mean if we’re opposed to every new technology than obviously we’re all going to call it illegal. Doesn’t matter what it is. Maybe the pattern is saying something about us and not the tech

    • mabeledo@lemmy.world
      0·
      13 hours ago

      The fact that big money keeps creeping in and forcing harmful stuff down everyone’s throats does tell us something about ourselves as a society, yes.

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
    0·
    19 hours ago

    I miss when the tech business model was to find where buyers and sellers were interacting, insert an app in the middle and then add fees.

  • makeshift0546@lemmy.today
    0·
    20 hours ago

    I love em all except the coins at the outset. Uber is too expensive these days but air bnb is utterly fantastically.

    • paultimate14@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 hours ago

      Uber is too expensive these days

      That was always the goal. Uber and Lyft prices were heavily subsidized early on. Their investors poured billions into them in order to not just establish market share, but tk drive existing taxi services out of business. Taxi services that had things like: fleets of company-owned vehicles instead of personal vehicles, commercials grade maintenance schedules, stricter licensing requirements for drivers, unionized employees instead of independent contractors, etc

      Uber and Lyft just plain ignored a lot of existing regulations by saying “those don’t apply because this is an app” to legislators who were too old to know how to turn on a smart phone. They got the public on-board by temporarily offering artificially low prices and high payouts to drivers. Now they have established themselves and removed the competition, so the payouts are going down and the prices are going up.

      There are still some US cities that do not allow Uber or Lyft to operate, and there are other countries in the world that do the same.

      • makeshift0546@lemmy.today
        0·
        13 hours ago

        That just not true across the board. I’ve found solo they are expensive but compared to getting a suite at a hotel they are competitive. You ain’t beating the king room at a Hilton though, agreed.

        It certainly isn’t true AT ALL for group travel. I regularly stay in very nice homes for under $150/night per person.