Until cryptocurrency came along, it is amazing how little we knew, overall, about the lack of freedom we have. With money, we are controlled by the powers that decide what is best for us.
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Recently, we saw both Mastercard and Visa stop payments to Pornhub, one of the most frequently visited websites in the world. This stems from an investigation by the New York Times that states the site if full of child and revenge porn.
This followed a move about a year ago by PayPal to not longer service payments to the site.
Certainly, few would defend the promotion of these types of material. However, this is an accusation, one the company denies. There was no legal entity that concluded it; no court ruling. Instead, it is an accusation that might have led to action by these financial operators.
The challenge is here is that there are obviously millions of adults who opt for pornographic material. There is no denying the popularity of it across the web.
After all, Pornhub has reported over 3.5 billion monthly visits – more than Netflix, Amazon, or Yahoo.
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Nevertheless, this is not about pornography. Instead, it is about the freedom of adults to spend their money on goods and services as they see fit. Pornography is not illegal (child porn is and revenge porn is being outlawed in many areas). Hence, the owning and viewing of it is not breaking any laws.
Yet the financial system deems it valid to stop servicing these entities with the means of collecting revenues.
The same is being done to the cannabis industry. Even though it is being legalized in many states, since Federal Law still bans it, operators in that sector do not have many options. They are cut off from the banking system since that is Federally regulated.
Cryptocurrency is the answer to this. Of course, this point is being driven home by the establishment. They like to use the word "terrorist" to apply to those who use cryptocurrency. At the same time, they like to convey the notion only drug dealers, gun runners, and prostitutes use cryptocurrency.
Anyone who is old enough to remember the beginnings of the World Wide Web will remember these were the same accusations thrown out about the Internet. Naturally, we know, today, that is not the case.
Freedom on money is something that is rarely discussed in the public forums. However, as we can see, it is vital. When our use of money is restricted, decisions are made for us. We no longer have the ability to decide for ourselves.
For example, if someone is 18, it is up to him or her if smoking pot is something to be done. It matters to me none what the decision is. Many states have this as legal, even for recreational use. If the person opts to do it, that is their choice.
Most would agree with that concept. Of course, here is where it gets tricky. That person could make the choice yet what if the payment methods were hindered? No use of credit cards, money orders, or checks. None of the traditional methods can be utilized. Thus, while the choice to use is there, it is effectively cut off.
This type of debate often only comes into play when one's preferences are affected. In fact, many get on their moral horse when what they do not like is targeted. Those who are anti porn and drugs are saying, "it is about time to get rid of that filth".
The problem with this view is it can go both ways. What if these payments were cut off from the traditional systems: church giving, abortions, guns, media content, sex items, sugary foods, cigarettes, big liters of soda, and wine.
After all, each of these has some group that is against them and feels they should be removed.
But what about CBDCs?
This is a bad solution too. The challenge with this is two-fold. To start, it is too easy for the government to go negative with interest rates, forcing people to spend money and killing savings.
Secondly, and more important, as bad as the banking system it, it does stand between the government and our accounts. A CBDC will allow governments to simply do as they wish. Change the political party in control of the government and you will see how suddenly a host of goods and services is removed from the payment network.
Here we see a major problem with monopolistic entities. Certainly, PayPal and Visa have the right to do as they see fit. They are private companies after all. However, we can only guess at the percentage of online transactions they are responsible for. It is safe to say they account for more than 75% of all Internet transactions.
Telling people what they can or cannot spend their money on is not freedom, especially when this applies to products and services that are legal for consumption.
Cash use to be the ultimate freedom of money. Did people use it to buy illegal products? Certainly. However, most of the spending was done on legal items. The key is that any transaction could take place, if the other person was willing to accept the cash for whatever was provided. There were no third parties involved in the transaction.
Today, that is no longer the case. Every digital transaction has someone involved, which means it is subject to their approval. What is even worse is they take a piece of the action for providing this service.
Here again, we see a system whereby cryptocurrency, for all its present flaws, offers a much better solution. Of course, this is not the best solution for those who want to keep wielding power over the different populations around the world.
This is where the present battle resides. It is the Great Race taking place. On one side is the established entities that are perfectly fine with how things are. Technology is enhancing their power since it make control much easier.
On the other is the technical people who are seeing to dismantle this system by creating products and services which are not under these same entities control. Decentralization offers a great deal of hope since peer-to-peer communication is much more difficult to control. When this extends to money, it starts to add in freedom.
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Yeah freedom of money now even Paypal is entries crypto world
Certainly telling people what to do and don't do isn't freedom. What I even do not deem fit is that people own their senses of judgement and with proper decentralisation of systems such as MasterCard we would even see Centralised entities become even less cheaper because no one would opt to use them.
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In 2014 , Government of India actually banned many porn sites . Many argued against it using points which you have mentioned , like we are adults and we have the right to choose where to spend . Unfortunately many of the sites are still not accessible and many use VPNs to access it .
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So the Indian government has trained their citizens to use VPNs, and supported the growth of the VPN industry :)
To some extent , yeah . But many in India including the youth isn't aware of VPNs. Digital literacy is too low right now.
Tyranny at its finest. Whatever the few say goes.
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The governments are always on the look out to any " Money Spending Freedom" program.
Calling Cryptocurency holders and investors drug dealers and what not are uncalled for.
Nevertheless, the governmental system would always try to rule things out, but with the daily implementation of private companies and projects like Cryptocurency and it's newly decentralized form, these money spending bondage will definitely eradicate.
Money earn by one should not be taught or controlled on how to spend by another.
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I just had to call the bank again this morning because I was looking to purchase some ETH on my credit card. It got flagged as fraud, just like it did on Monday. I had a nice talk with the service agent and her suggestion was to call in before I make my next purchase so they can remove the fraud alert. Really? I need to call before I can spend my money? What if ETH drops to $400 at 11:00 on a Saturday night. Is anyone going to be there when I call in? I really wish I had a bigger back so I could do all of these transactions without having to deal with Fiat.
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Unfortunately, you being in crypto is the wolf in the henhouse.
Crypto will ultimately put a hurting on the banking system and they know it. They are doing all they can to make life difficult.
This is why I believe getting rewarded in crypto is so vital. Have people growing their stake without having to use fiat.
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That is another good point. Hopefully one day all of these rewards I am getting will actually be able to work for me :)
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It all feeds in. Keep accumulating, staking, and being active.
Over time, I think people start to grasp how much if an impact compounding can be.
It is vital to look at this stuff over a 3-5 year period to see the real changes.
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Yeah, I have been on Hive/Steem about three years now and I really thought my account would be bigger than it is at this point. It is nothing to complain about, but not what I expected. That doesn't mean I plan on stopping.
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The UK government had a plan to block porn nationwide if porn sites didn't do KYC to prevent minors from accessing them.
They dropped it last year. I think they found out what was obvious to most Internet users to begin with: it could be easily circumvented using a VPN.
Also, the whole idea of going through KYC to browse porn is hilarious.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50073102
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Almost as dumb as KYC for a social media application. LOL
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Agree 100%. Crypto can let us to decide where to spend our money, as it is not issued by a state, same as cash was some tens of years ago.
Even if Visa and Paypal are private companies, they still deal with your earned money. You use their payment processing facilities for a premium cost, so that you should be able to buy the things you need, as long as they are not illegal. Porn is not illegal, especially now, with all the lockdowns and isolated people, that would need some dopamine.
But this is not the point of the discussion. People shall have the freedom to decide what they can do with their money, as long as it is legal, would add and as long they not threat the safety of innocents. Crypto gives this, even types like Mr. Mnuchin don't agree to it, and try to block the world change.
Thanks for sharing
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more than 3.5 billion visits per month, this is a large amount that no one would be willing to lose but the industry will not stop and do whatever it takes to continue that is for sure.
Yes, in the case of cannabis in Uruguay they had this problem that although it is legal, the people in the pharmacies that had their barshops did not know where to keep their money and had tons that they did not know where and they ended up with piles of money in the safekeeping companies,
Since no bank wanted to deal with them due to the fact that they had problems with LDAFT, but well, as someone has said, this is nothing more than a way to get some other competitor out of the market,
Well today with crypto this is the solution for these industries of course it is always a bit complicated,
I think that if the industries do not get into something like being excluded from these industries that they will not disappear, on the contrary, if they do not enter they will be left behind, and the same thing will happen as with bitcoin that they will want to enter already when the market is mature, and they have lost a lot of money, of course for now they have the power to stop and finance some proposals that stop the advance of financial freedom of course they will not stop it, what they will do is slow it down but not stop it, in truth governments can use these tools to stop drug trafficking and thus reducing the market for them but without the full support of the entire chain they will not succeed and perhaps there is something else that is better not to talk about it, we do not want anyone's eyes on us.
Well happy day we hope to have our freedom to be able to enjoy what to do and where to spend the money that it has cost us to earn, but hey.
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Builders of Hive based websites are doing just the similar thing. With Bitcoin decentralizing payments. Hive decentralizes social media. There is a great plurality of websites that use Hive as part of the backend:
Should an operator of one of these sites decide they want to ban me, then I can just switch sites and get the same content where-ever I go. There is something like that going on with gab.com as well. I would like to see something like that happen for several video sites. In the case of video sites, instead of a blockchain happening before the website exists, the blockchain would come after.
I have been around the space a long time, and we see some have certain enhancements that others don't. My own site allows you to view and/or change your (posting) permissions for other accounts. Something I felt was missing from the Hive space.
There are two parts here.
You are correct in that all posts do feed to Hive. However, they target specific audiences so posting pics to Leo or Stem might not get you very far.
But plenty to use and no way to ban the Hive account.
We can add dapplr to the list too.
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I'm using Ecency now. It's my new favorite for now.
Your current Rank (17) in the battle Arena of Holybread has granted you an Upvote of 18%
Today we have to justify our every transaction and if something is suspicious for the state then they start checks. the freedom of payments is an illusion and cryptocurrencies can be the solution to these problems
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Freedom is an excellent word for defining cryptocurrencies. Being free of taxes, of banks, of third-party services, free of centralization is something that many crave when looking for cryptography as a refuge for their money and in this market they find endless ways to multiply their income.
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@taskmaster4450... You have no idea how much I want the world to think like that (especially Brazilians).
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Not exactly, but my family think I am great "waster" of time doing all this, better I should take interest in facebook and whatsapp forwarding.