Is the inability to be charged a problem? - page 2.

hilariousandco

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Quote from: keithers on June 02, 2014, 12:36:45 AM

You could probably pre-deposit a certain amount of btc into an Uber account if they had that option. Then the needed amount would be withdrawn.

This is exactly what I was going to suggest, but why would you be ok trusting a company with your credit or bank details but not Bitcoin? There's nothing to stop them draining your account at the moment is there?

Aswan

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Quote from: drmadison on June 01, 2014, 11:36:22 PM

It hit me this weekend that there is a certain subset of things I can never use BTC for.

I've recently started using Uber quite a bit. For those who don't know, it's a car service. You hit a button in the app and a car is there to pick you up in just a few minutes. It takes you where you want to go, you hop out and walk away, that's it. You don't need to pay or tip, it's all handled for you. The service automatically charges you the appropriate amount based on the pickup and dropoff locations and you never worry about it.

But there's no way to have these charges automatically pulled from your account, and with the irreversibility of bitcoin, no one sane would entrust a service the right to send coin on their behalf.

Is this a limitation? Is there some answer I haven't thought of?

Simple. You use your tracking device (smartphone?) to cal for a car. A message pops up asking you to sign a tx to send BTC to the service. You send 1 BTC, which is more than enough to get you pretty much everywhere. The car comes around, you hop in and you get dropped off at your destination. You just walk away. One minute later, your tracking device does a little sound. Your remaining BTC has just been received. Pretty easy I'd say Cheesy

drmadison

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Quote from: keithers on June 02, 2014, 12:36:45 AM

You could probably pre-deposit a certain amount of btc into an Uber account if they had that option. Then the needed amount would be withdrawn. Definitely not easier than the way they have it set up now though. bTC won't be a payment solution for everything though...

I suppose services could hold a pre-deposited balance, and you just reload monthly or whatever...
Not as easy as allowing charges automatically...but without the protection you get from other payments systems it's probably the best way.

Ron~Popeil

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You could even use a trusted intermediary that releases funds with your approval.

keithers

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You could probably pre-deposit a certain amount of btc into an Uber account if they had that option. Then the needed amount would be withdrawn. Definitely not easier than the way they have it set up now though. bTC won't be a payment solution for everything though...

sed

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I think it's an interesting question, but I think it boils down to asking whether irreversable transactions are a problem. I think the usual answer is that multisig transactions are the solution here. Specifically for UBER, it might mean that the uber app simply sends you a request to 'ok' the amount after you get dropped off. I don't really know because I haven't used UBER. Obviously you're right that you wouldn't want to give a company blind access to your entire wallet so if UBER was taking bitcoin payments they'd obvs have to set it up a bit differently than they have with visa or whatever.

drmadison

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It hit me this weekend that there is a certain subset of things I can never use BTC for.

I've recently started using Uber quite a bit. For those who don't know, it's a car service. You hit a button in the app and a car is there to pick you up in just a few minutes. It takes you where you want to go, you hop out and walk away, that's it. You don't need to pay or tip, it's all handled for you. The service automatically charges you the appropriate amount based on the pickup and dropoff locations and you never worry about it.

But there's no way to have these charges automatically pulled from your account, and with the irreversibility of bitcoin, no one sane would entrust a service the right to send coin on their behalf.

Is this a limitation? Is there some answer I haven't thought of?

Topic: Is the inability to be charged a problem? - page 2. (Read 1865 times)