As if a highly centralized market for exchanges is not enough, namely MtGox also tries to centralize instant payments with a voucher system.
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=25307.0
So who am i to judge MtGox?
Who i am doesn't matter, what i want, does:
A more decentralized payment system.
Since demand for instant / easy payments seems to be high, i regard it as highly likely that systems will emerge, which will eventually fullfill this demand.
As with other technologies on the internet, early movers, even if technologically unsound / unreliable / monopolized / outright evil will have an advantage based upon the sheer number of users they can attract.
If we don't counteract such centralized systems soon, bitcoin will become known to the world as "that payment system by MtGox".
This is why i propose a quick and dirty (or, for my ego: qwk'n'easy) approach to instant payments, that will be easy to implement for service providers, merchants and customers alike. If we can get this started, we might be quicker than the hare named MtGox.
The basic principle of this approach has been around for quite a while now, so i don't claim originality for it (even though i honestly didn't know the other postings before). Whenever it comes up, people seem to ignore it, or fail to see real need for it. I hope this will change after this posting.
I am quite confident that, for instant payments, it will either be this or the MtGox approach.
And i certainly won't have the latter, not without a fight.
I agree that my approach will not stop centralization. It will lead to a certain level of centralization where not one major player, but a handfull or a couple dozen, maybe even a few hundred solid payment providers share the market.
I have no doubt that this is better than one new Paypal, even though it is admittedly worse than a completely decentralized, peer-to-peer payment system. But that p2p system will still hold its ground, since what i propose is only a solution for instant payments, as well as a good means of getting people to actually use bitcoin.