Amazon was sabotaged for not accepting Bitcoin

Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce, is still lagging behind when it comes to new technologies and new means of payment. Cryptocurrencies, even with their flaws, are still a global tool of emancipation when it comes to digital payments.

People who are excluded from the financial system due to lack of banking services or other reasons can still participate in the global digital economy by mining or buying cryptocurrencies.

That’s why many companies accept Bitcoin. Mercado Livre, for example, has already started testing payments with the digital currency, in addition to reaching the milestone of BRL 80 million in Bitcoin on deposit for customers with its service for buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

These are high numbers, but not necessarily for the giant Amazon. On the other hand, Amazon is so big that what might be a rare event for a local retailer could be a significant audience for Amazon.

There are people who want privacy for whatever reason. Why would they give credit card information to Amazon that can be hacked?

There are people who can have cryptocurrency, but not a credit card. A situation that can no longer be ignored.

The cryptocurrency market is also reaching a reasonable size. An estimated 20% of Americans now own cryptocurrencies. Brazil and Europe are moving towards the same percentage.

Offering crypto as a payment option can therefore be about more than just customer convenience. Even if the vast majority don’t use crypto, turning a bad experience on the edges into a fun new payment experience could be worth more than the raw data can tell.

This applies to all online businesses. Especially airlines that are worldwide. There is no excuse for an entity like Amazon not to accept cryptocurrencies.

But with Amazon, it’s not about the customers, or the experience, or even how many can use it. It’s pure politics.

Sabotage

“I’m glad AWS didn’t take a big gamble on this [blockchain]🇧🇷said Timothy Braywho, as Vice President at Amazon, led Amazon Web Service (AWS) efforts from 2014 to 2020, a period when cryptocurrencies took off.

He actually brags about sabotaging Amazon when it comes to blockchain let alone cryptocurrencies.

And from that he proves why his claim that there must be confidence in the technology in question is false, because we must trust that it is he who has the right answer. Relying on authority, so being a fallacy.

Of course, we should have a basic trust or default that a new neighbor is an ordinary, friendly person, and also to people who cross the street, or that someone will not take our towel when we go swimming on the beach.

However, we should not trust Bray with the supreme knowledge of all things. Nor should we trust that he is not blindly biased. Perhaps an ego too big for the good of Amazon, which he left in 2020, and so on.

We also don’t necessarily have to trust subjects when it comes to accounting, which is why we have audits.

Trust with certainty to some extent. Totally unreliable, but when it comes to a payment technology, it sure is better, isn’t it?

But Bray doesn’t seem to have much experience working around money itself, or payment systems, and his opinions and decisions are therefore based more on minor aspects.

He is described as an environmentalist and political activist. Therefore, your basic stance probably starts with “I don’t want this to work” and maybe even “I don’t care if it works.”

The most important thing for him is this idea in his head that people cryptocurrencies are somehow these fringe libertariansthe spectrum opposite him presumably closer to communism.

“Of course, we also talked to some of the leading figures in the cryptocurrency market. This didn’t help much as they seemed more concerned with the aspects that could get you out of tricky government regulations and contract laws; everything had an unsubtle touch of libertarianism.”he said.

For Timothy Bray, Bitcoin is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme that, in his own words, should rot in hell.

“Until this year, most of my conversations with crypto promoters had problems. For example, “This person thinks evidence of waste [de energia] is correct and can therefore be safely ignored’. And “This person is pretending that the proportion of cryptocurrency transactions that are actually Ponzi are not rounded to 100%.”

“Bitcoin itself can rot in hell and I expect it to implode tomorrow. But the Ethereum folks got a proof-of-stake that worked at scale; good for them. Yet the explosions of non-BTC crypto Ponzi schemes continue, at a dull and discouraging pace.”

That resignation is all over his statement, and perhaps not too unfair to people claiming to speak for bitcoin around 2014, when he probably met them.

It was an atmosphere where the public was very angry with the government. Endless wars raged in the Middle East. There was really a lot of darkness and there was a revolt from both the techies against Wikileaks, Snowden, and the public about Brexit and Trump.

But bitcoin has nothing to do with the government. Bitcoin may have something to do with the Fed, although cryptocurrencies can be designed anyway, including a Fed-like system, and bitcoin has something to do with banks.

While many may argue that banks are the same as governments, they are two very different things with cryptocurrency basically being an upgrade from the paper based monetary system to a native digital code currency and financial system.

Ignoring this aspect of technology is objectively a mistake. You can say what you like about many things, but bitcoin solves the double-spending problem.

It is a technological innovation, objectively speaking, and not an incremental improvement in its raw form.

Therefore, one cannot afford to throw technology away, be it Bray, Amazon, or whoever, because although our society is hierarchically designed, it is decentralized in the sense that every human being has a choice in all things at all times. has.

If the technology has a use, then those who have a use will use it. Blockchain can be used in systems that require a very high level of security, such as the military, or in systems where data veracity is paramount, where this data is collected digitally through sensors.

Bitcoin is used for global payments, usually as an alternative or backup. This could include circumventing the government, such as capital controls. It could also be that the government uses it to pay informants. It can also be an ordinary person who uses it because the card is not working for some reason.

So the claim that someone can be ignored because “this person pretends the share of cryptocurrency transactions is actually Ponzi, does not round to 100%” is demonstrably false as cryptocurrencies are used for global payments.

However, someone like Bray will probably never change their mind. He was infected by blind politics, where both emotions and rigidity are often superior to rationalism.

However, an entity like Amazon cannot afford to have such opinions, especially when going against 20% of the public.

After all, Amazon is just a database that can be easily replaced, and if they impose policies on their common activities for unwarranted reasons, their demise is inevitable.

Because we can’t have a situation where we actually have “hater” companies. It is not for Amazon to determine which payment method users prefer. It’s their choice to provide it, of course, but it’s also the users’ choice to hate Amazon for that reason.

This imposition of politics and sabotage on non-political issues where we are dealing with a payment technology has to stop if Amazon is to remain relevant for the long term.

Because we assumed they might not like cryptocurrencies. However, to have it confirmed in such plain language is quite another.

And if you’re going against an entire technology and 20% of the audience, you better be right.

This article has been translated with permission from Trustnodes.