Topic: Who pays transaction fees (Read 6778 times)

Gratz.  Moving on.

I patched the official client to allow zero fees, so it's not a problem for me.
I simply wanted to state in my post that I disagree with forced fees, even though it might prevent newbies from sending a transaction that will "never" be confirmed. No whining intended.

I think I love you.

So you understand the fees.  You understand why the fees.  You understand the circumstances under which the official client "forces" you to pay the fees.

You just don't like them, and would like to see them at zero (and or in the GUI have the ability to set them to zero).

Point noted.  Submit a feature request here:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues

That's how open source works.  Just whining in the forums and continuing to disagree with the "whys" people have provided, will never change anything.

The other alternative is to use a different client and/or write your own (which you've said you don't want to do).

Time to move on.

That's right, however the official bitcoin client - at least version 0.3.21 and a RC for 0.3.22 - FORCED me to add a fee on every transaction I've made so far. There is apparently no way in the settings to disable this behaviour.

Of course, these transactions were in the ~1BTC range and the coins I sent were only a few minutes old.

I realize it's possible to patch the client to get rid of the forced fees. I'd prefer if the client only suggested a fee, and not force it.

Bitcoin doesn't differentiate between the two.  You really, really can send BTC without paying transaction fees, honest.  I do it 3 times per 24 hours.

Looks like you missed my post: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=14789.msg218966#msg218966

You still haven't explained how your system would work. Remember that bitcoins, like cash, are sometimes exchanged between two ordinary people, not just between a "merchant" and a "consumer". How would it work in this case?

I did.  Remember when I listed the hardware necessary, and the money to build such a transaction network, coming in around a million dollars?  That was the why.

Did you even read what I said? /sigh  If you disagree with my logic, then give a logical response.  Don't just make some shit up that I clearly never said.

So far the best answer I have gotten was from jgarzik who stated that it wasn't really doable.  But he never said why.

Errr you're being a jerk. OP explicitly stated that fees have to be paid, but just wondered for buyer's psychology sake if we could point that burden on merchants.

I think there needs to be a lot more work making transaction fees clear and transparent to users, but i don't think it matters much who pays them. If they become more standardized I would assume that merchants will price items so that with fee it is a nice round number, like my local ice cream shop prices their cones at like 2.87 or whatever so they can sell them for 3 bucks.

The guy is a total clown... he has no concept of economics or of the purpose of BitCoin.  In his world, transactions are powered by Sunshine and Rainbows.

I'll just add as a final point:

Folks do understand that fees have a very real and very needed purpose?

When coins are no longer coming into the network (21,000,000 coins in 2030).  Why would anyone mine? 

They mine, because they get the transaction fees in the block they add.

If there are no transaction fees, there will be no miners, and no transactions will ever be confirmed. 

No transaction fees = No miners (at some point in the future).

Consider it a "sales tax".  You pay that on every transaction you use your credit cards for, and it's WAY higher than the fees we're talking about here for Bitcoin.  They serve a purpose, at some point they will be the only reason to mine.  Without miners we have no Bitcoin economy.

I wouldn't bother moonshadow.  This is a person who is interested in a decentralized cryptocurrency who wants to regulate it and have it free of fees, and just have everybody process transactions for free, and provide their electricity and machines to him.  I don't know how someone can be so sure about issues of economics, who doesn't understand these basic principles.  I guess we're BOTH "trolling" now lol!

In the end, the customer is always paying the transaction fees.  Bitcoin, by it's nature, just makes that explicit.  I can't see any way to hide the cost of transactions from the sender anyway.

Maybe you could respond to my point instead of saying all of that irrelevant crap?

Your obvious trolling aside, I have made my points clear.  Those who needed to hear them have.
I really cant make my case any stronger so I leave it up to the developers to consider what I have said.

those $300-$500 in fees "you" are paying:

a.) You're soaking up the cost, making you a bad businessman
or
b.) You're passing them along to the consumer, as is intended.

Visa does it back with their rewards - they have customers sign instead of pin entry, which incidentally assesses you as a vendor a higher fee for those vs. debit transactions.

jhansen, I really think nobody here can make you understand the basics of bitcoin until you complete at least a freshman college level Economics course, in all seriousness.  Marxism just doesn't work.

Well

I accept credit cards, ACH transactions and what not as a course of doing business on a daily basis.  To accept $20,000 in a month for example I'm paying somewhere in the neighbourhood of $300 - $500 in fees to visa.  But I would rather do that and get paid now then wait for a check in the mail...

When setting this up, I researched and understood the fee structure before deciding on accepting those payments. Its not hidden.  I think its safe to say that the fee structure could be known in advance with bitcoin as well, at least to an acceptable point if not exactly.  And I expect to take it in the backside when I accept credit card payments.  I just look at it as removing a barrier to getting a sale.   When I accept credit cards it allows me to do something I was not able to do before.  Get paid from a great distance instantly. 

Now if you were to come along and tell me that I could do that exact same thing but the fees were only half as much and there is no international fees that I have to deal with and oh by the way, its impossible to get charged back on, I would be very much open and accepting of that idea.  Its not only accepted by most merchants they will be paying a fee to do transactions its an unspoken truth.  Now lets look at the case where they have a 0.25 fee to do an ATM transaction.  Well what does the merchant do?  They fucking charge a 0.45 surcharge on it.  They make money on the fee.  With visa, your not allowed to do this but nothing says that merchants couldn't just decide to double the expected fee and make a little extra on the thing.  I as a consumer could decide to not purchase from them due to this policy or I could just pay the fee anyway.   Some merchants will eat fees as a cost of doing business some will do a surcharge.   

I'm just trying to illustrate how there can be nothing but goodness that comes out of merchants paying fees.  They get a new capability they never had before (accepting money from different countries with out the exchange rates fucking them) the fees are lower then what they are already used to paying, and the customer are not preferring to use visa over bitcoin because its cheaper for them to do so.   Basically right now were automatically putting bitcoin at a disadvantage against its main rival visa/mastercard and paypal as an electronic payment solution due to the current fee structure.

I'm sure everyone can easily see this point even if you don't think its a big deal??

Oh, sorry.

creighto, I was talking about jhansen858's "hidden fees" proposal, not how things are now.