> irreversibility - once you receive Bitcoin there are no chargebacks.
Unless I receive the goods before paying, I would never buy anything with Bitcoin online. There’s no buyer or fraud protection whatsoever. I don’t understand how any legitimate merchant would be alright with that. If a merchant would only accept Bitcoin, that would come across just as sketchy as a merchant who wants me to mail him a cashier’s check – never gonna happen.
> Unless I receive the goods before paying, I would never buy anything with Bitcoin online.
Good, then you should be fine donating to Mailpile using Bitcoin. Because it's not a purchase transaction, it's a donation. There is no promise of a product.
By clicking 'Continue', you acknowledge that you understand that you are contributing to a work-in-progress and not making a direct purchase. Perks are managed by the campaigners and cannot be guaranteed by Indiegogo. Your click also acknowledges that you agree to the Indiegogo Terms of Use.
Remember that "chargebacks for everyone, no questions asked" is a US and Australia-only thing. In most other places it's not very common (you need to go premium for that), and Bitcoin would be more than welcome to reduce fees, delays, frozen accounts, and other bull.
Fraud is still fraud, so if you get defrauded by someone, all you need is that a judge decides that Bitcoin is money, like it has already happened with that guy in the US who ran a ponzi scheme based on Bitcoin and got caught. So don't worry about that.
> all you need is that a judge decides that Bitcoin is money
And then what, do I need to sue every time someone stiffs me? That would be a colossal waste of time and money, which means in practice that the fraud gets away with it – knowing they might not even have the funds to pay me.
The way it works now is, if I’m not satisfied and the merchant isn’t being reasonable, I can call my credit card company and request a chargeback. No lawyers and courts needed.
I was talking about fraud, which is a lot broader than "I bought something on Amazon and something went wrong". If you fall into a ponzi scheme, a credit card won't save you.
About chargebacks, again, it's a US and Australia-only thing, so yeah, maybe in those places Bitcoin won't look so good, won't be adopted, and they will be left behind.
On the other hand, "chargebacks for everyone if no evidence of goods delivered" is a global thing.
Fraud is very different from chargebacks - if you lose money in fraud, good luck getting it back from the fraudster; proper chargebacks mean you get the money back in any case, even in extreme cases if your bank goes bankrupt during that time.
At least in the US, it's not quite "no questions asked". The last time I requested a chargeback my credit union sent me a form with a list of questions, including asking me to detail how I had attempted to resolve the issue with the merchant, with the dates of when I had phoned them.
Merchants have a reputation to keep. Most people will trust a merchant who has proved themselves trustworthy. Merchants who haven't built trust will be forced to use a trusted escrow service, of which there are many.
There are more than enough options for buyer protection with Bitcoin. The good thing is that they're all optional. Buyer protection is a trade off. Sometimes it is unnecessary. But with card companies and businesses like PayPal, merchants don't get a choice. They're liable for charge-backs for 90days and for having their accounts frozen indefinitely.
MailPile has already received over $6000 in Bitcoins, by the way. It is their only donation received which is currently liquid.
Out of the dozens of times I've purchased with Bitcoins I have never been ripped off.
Buy from reputable companies or use an escrow service.
A homeless guy asked me for my car keys the other day. He said he'd clean the inside of my car and bring me the keys. I didn't give him my keys. Something tells me you would have.
Not exactly. Bitcoin enables multi signature transactions, so power rests not only with the escrow service, but also with the parties involved. There can also be more than one dispute mediator involved, as to maintain a balance.
For the delivery of real world goods you can write small scripts in the tx that monitor tracking numbers, have time locks, and the like as to maintain more control over the flow of money. Bitcoin is trustless, but only to an extent. Just like anything there will be point of failures, but Bitcoin minimizes them to a large extent and brings with it the opportunity to distribute power among many third parties, not just one.
I won't even bother answering you last question though, because I'm sure you realize how ridiculous that sounds in the context of this thread. Namely, if MailPile only accepted Bitcoin this would have never happened.
Unless I receive the goods before paying, I would never buy anything with Bitcoin online. There’s no buyer or fraud protection whatsoever. I don’t understand how any legitimate merchant would be alright with that. If a merchant would only accept Bitcoin, that would come across just as sketchy as a merchant who wants me to mail him a cashier’s check – never gonna happen.