The Upcoming Paypal Nightmare - Beware

Divinum Fiat

Well-known member
If you haven't yet heard, Paypal is changing their terms this July so that they will have rights to all of your website content. You can read the full article here. Also read the biometrics changes Paypal has in store for its users. Bitcoin here we come.

Do any of you know if XF can be integrated with other payment gateways?

For those of you who have a WP site in front of your XF community, which gateways do you prefer?

2Checkout
Authorize.net
1ShoppingCart

Would love to get your thoughts.
 
It looks to me, that they arent trying to OWN the content, but to relieve you of your claims on the content. Meaning that if you sell something through paypal, such as art... they have the rights to use the art as they choose for their own purposes... such as advertising paypal or ebay or whatever.

In other words, they have the rights to USE your content, but not to OWN it. What you're doing is forgoing any rights to sue paypal if they use their content in a way you dont like. This is par for the course with everything online. YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc... they all have this. Ignore the article; it seems to be clickbait to convince people that Bitcoin isn't an absolutely terrible idea. That website has a vested interest in promoting Bitcoin.
 
Good point, Jaxel. Definitely a difference between owning and using content. I wish Legalese was an actual language program when going to school. :-)
 
Additionally, XenForo.com's terms of service:

You are granting us with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service. You retain copyright over the Content.

This stuff is quite boilerplate for anyone hosting user generated content.
 
In other words, they have the rights to USE your content, but not to OWN it. What you're doing is forgoing any rights to sue paypal if they use their content in a way you dont like. This is par for the course with everything online. YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc... they all have this.
What they don't have though, and what the real concern with the PayPal TOS, is that they are now removing your rights to seek legal redress from them for monetary claims less than $10k.
 
Bitcoin in general is a terrible idea. When it comes to fiat currency, there are two major issues:
  1. Government control. A dollar is worth a dollar because the government says so, and its used everywhere in America because the government enforces it's use. And they usually enforce its use with threats of jail time. In addition to this, the government has a license to print money, which can create inflation.
  2. Its FIAT currency. Meaning its not backed by anything, such as gold and raw materials. Fiat currency is highly susceptible to things like runaway inflation and deflation because of inherent changes of velocity. The velocity of currency is a measurement of trust. When it comes to fiat currency, its valuable because it's users trust it's value. A fiat currency can bottom out because the people no longer trust it. This is what happens when a market crashes, like in 2008 or in Greece recently.
Bitcoin solves problem number 1. Since there is no government controlling the currency, there is no one who can abuse the currency by printing money. However, at the same time, there is no government enforcing it's use. If you're a Keynesian economist, you will think this is terrible. I myself follow Austrian economics; and I think this is a great idea.

However, it does not solve problem number 2 at all. Since it's not back by anything, and its not government controlled, its more fiat than the dollar. Which means its more subjective to changes in velocity than ever; and more prone to possible market crashes. Keynesian economists don't study velocity, so they dont understand this.

Keynesian economists view the economy as a "machine"; something that can be manipulated at will. They are the type of people who think that when a currency is starting to tank, they try to print/burn money to try to manipulate the value. Keynesian economics has been the utter failure of fiat currency.

Austrian economists view the economy as a "living entity"; one that changes at whim similar to an actual person. It has a very hands off approach to economics because the idea of a "market crash" is a GOOD thing. A market crash is a CORRECTION to an error... something got overvalued so the market is crashing to fix the problem. A keynesian would instead print money to try to prevent the crashing; things like bailouts and tarp funds. But all that does is prevent the crash, so nothing ever gets fixed... its the equiavalent of sweeping it under the rug to worry about another day. But that pile of dirt under the rig keeps getting bigger and bigger and eventually its going to be too hard to handle.
 
Bitcoin solves problem number 1. Since there is no government controlling the currency, there is no one who can abuse the currency by printing money. However, at the same time, there is no government enforcing it's use. If you're a Keynesian economist, you will think this is terrible. I myself follow Austrian economics; and I think this is a great idea..
Except it doesn't solve it at all. All a government need todo is throw a few billion, maybe even 10s of billions into buying computational resources to become >50% of the hashing rate, and they can execute a number of attacks against the bitcoin block chain such as denying transactions, rolling back transactions, double-spending, etc. this article breaks it down to describe how vulnerable to bitcoin system is to large monopolistic players.

Ultimately; bitcoin was an amazing cash grab on-par with tulip mania. Great if you got in early and cashed out before it crashes.
 
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In early 2009 I lost almost half the users on my forum over a dispute over the same boiler plate language I used in terms for a photo content. People just overreact.
 
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