

The Future of Payments and Open Source Support - kenny_r
http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2014/11/2/payments-in-the-future/

======
geofft
I think what strikes me as the large-scale problem here is that some people
are baffled by the concept that not wanting money might be a rational
decision. As a completely different example of the same decision being
rational, let's remember when Tarsnap wasn't accepting Canadian customers
(despite a presumably sizable potential market) because dealing with Canadian
sales tax law was too much overhead. Even if the path to accepting money
legally is clear and well-documented, it still might not be worth it.

Not to mention I've heard stories of developers whose motivation to work on
open-source projects has gone _down_ since getting paid, since it makes it
seem like work instead of a hobby.

There is a worldview that seems to me to be prevalent in the cryptocurrency
community (I don't know which direction causation runs, but there's certainly
a bit of correlation) that everyone wants micropayments and microtips -- cf.
the tip bots on Reddit. It's not uncommon to see the tipbots get downvoted,
and the tippers to be completely confused why someone might think it unwanted
or off-topic.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/234ds8/tipping_in_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/234ds8/tipping_in_other_subreddits/)

~~~
privong
> Not to mention I've heard stories of developers whose motivation to work on
> open-source projects has gone _down_ since getting paid, since it makes it
> seem like work instead of a hobby.

I am having trouble finding a good link, but I believe this effect is well
documented in several areas – where compensating someone for an activity winds
up with them being less likely to do it.

~~~
freshhawk
Dan Ariely talks quite well about the subject of social norms vs financial
norms and how just assuming you can move an activity from one to the other is
very ignorant.

[http://danariely.com/the-books/excerpted-from-
chapter-4-%E2%...](http://danariely.com/the-books/excerpted-from-
chapter-4-%E2%80%93-the-cost-of-social-norms/)

If some "pay for open source work" scheme got github level popular it would
completely destroy open source for a long time. Right now there is more work
being done than the community could pay for. But at the same time, it's handy
to use bribes to get some necessary but boring stuff done.

------
wdewind
TLDR; there are two problems with tip4commit:

1\. The obvious, that they are collecting funds on behalf of other people's
work and then keeping them when the funds go 'unclaimed'

2\. Even if you do want to claim it, they don't make it easy, and for someone
in a complicated tax country (like the author, Austria) there is almost no way
he could accept the money without incurring some kind of risk. So basically
when they are keeping money that goes unclaimed it's very problematic because
they don't make the money easy to claim in the first place. Obvious incentives
issues.

Point 2 is what this article is about.

~~~
mike_hearn
I'm not sure it is. I'm not a huge fan of tip4commit either, I agree that it's
opt-out model is bogus, but the fact that it uses Bitcoin seems irrelevant.

The author seems to believe he cannot accept tips, because of tax and
regulation, but he doesn't point out what _specifically_ would cause problems
here. Obviously people make and accept tips using euros all the time, this is
not illegal, so why it would be different using Bitcoin isn't obvious. You can
declare tips as income, no problem.

The real cause of his discomfort is revealed later in the post:

 _Personally I believe that Bitcoin is a terrible currency ... If you have a
completely broken piece of country then I can imagine that you are suspicious
of regulation and this sort of thing, but for me regulation is what keeps my
world running and working._

Also,

 _Bitcoin for me feels like a cult. The vocal people in the community seem
like they don 't actually care about Bitcoin, but they want to see it succeed
so that their "investment" makes a profit_

So he has a generalised feeling that Bitcoin is bad because it's popular and
has vocal fans, and that regulation is good yet also complicated, so anything
which seems simple must be unregulated and therefore bad.

I do not consider myself particularly libertarian, though I do use and work on
Bitcoin. Regardless, this doesn't seem like a great set of arguments. Rather,
the author has decided that because a lot of Bitcoin users don't seem to like
government, and he likes government, he should not like Bitcoin.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
> author seems to believe he cannot accept tips, because of tax and
> regulation, but he doesn't point out what specifically would cause problems
> here.

JFTR: "accepting tips" for software is something that is not at all
straightforward. The way bountysource and others get around that is through
invoices once a large enough amount has accumulated. I have no idea how that
works in other countries. Gratipay/bountysource solve this problem, no bitcoin
service I have seen does.

> Rather, the author has decided that because a lot of Bitcoin users don't
> seem to like government, and he likes government, he should not like
> Bitcoin.

I think you misunderstand something there: I am pointing out why Bitcoin is
something that does not solve problems for me and I doubt I am the only one.
The premise of tip4commit is that it helps Open Source projects. It's not just
not helping me, it's making my life more complicated. In fact, right now,
pretty much anything that has bitcoin involved makes it harder for me.

~~~
mike_hearn
Could you explain why accepting tips is so complicated? What _specific_ law
means you cannot do it?

Let me put this another way. If your friends give you money for your birthday,
do you give it back to them and tell them you can't accept their gift because
of tax and regulation? I doubt it! You may well declare the gifts on your tax
return if it's big enough to bother with, but if Austria makes it hard to
accept cash gifts of small amounts then something is seriously wrong with
Austrian law and this is not something to be defended.

~~~
PeterisP
1) In many countries, unlike USA, a majority of people don't ever handle a
"tax return" or "file taxes" \- if your income consists of standard salaries
or student stipends or social security/etc, then the employer is required to
handle everything and you can generally ignore the issue unless you start
doing business or selling real estate or whatever. For a normal person, the
cost of starting to file taxes (and investigating how it needs to be done)
it's orders of magnitude larger than any reasonable amount of tips -
generally, hiring an accountant would be cheaper&safer than doing it yourself
and any non-standard income less than the accountant fee is not worth the
hassle.

2) Those tips are strictly different from personal gifts - they're payment
(voluntary, but still) for stuff you did, so tax wise, they would be
considered equivalent to commercial export of software. Taxes on international
commerce are tricky (e.g., determining if value added tax applies in this
case, etc), most jurisdictions have some simplified paperwork, guides and
assistance for small business with the expectation that they're domestic, not
international.

3) If you're asking "which _specific_ law prohibits" \- it's entirely
opposite, it's not like there are specific laws for each taxable thing - the
general law mandates that _any and all_ income is declarable and taxable, and
then there are _specific_ laws to make exceptions for things such as birthday
gifts from relatives or tips for waiters.

~~~
patio11
Generic endorsement of this comment, coming from someone who has an
international business and has occasionally had to decline tips, for these
(and other [+]) reasons.

I once had a gentleman attempt to put a rather small sum of money in my hand.
Call it $50. He meant it as a nice gesture, because he had been consuming my
professional output for years, and it had helped his business. He could not
have known, but causing me to have US-source income would have potentially
exposed me to several thousand dollars in additional tax liability during that
year. (Long story.) There exist ways around it, but at the very least I would
have had to loop my accountant in on the incident, so we could discuss whether
I have to worry about the $50 "donation."

My accountant's rate is $10. Per minute.

All of this was going through my head when I attempted to gracefully decline.

[+] Totally separate from tax/compliance, I have social reasons why I prefer
to not get tipped for things. Social expectations are a weird thing, but
regardless of their intrinsic weirdness they appear to be _real_ , and as a
result I try to hew to them unless I have a really strong reason to not to.
One feature of social classes in the US is that the one I aspire to be in
_does not_ accept tips. Tips are something which flow from the relatively
well-off to the relatively poorly-off, and even in those relationships where
I'm relatively poorly-off, lumping myself in with waiters and massage
therapists doesn't sound advantageous when I hope to have a professional image
closer to that of a doctor, lawyer, or investment advisor.

For related reasons, I remain very concerned that many OSS developers appear
to think that they should have to throw hundreds of hours of professional
labor into projects used by for-profit companies so that they can be allowed
to participate in Internet busking on a scale which would be sneered at by
actual buskers.

------
unclesaamm
A recap of some important facts about tip4commit that weren't clear to me when
this all started:

1) That they collect a 1% service fee on donations.

2) That they donate 1% of a project's pool for any given committer, which
leads to this exponential decay where they never quite have 0 balance for any
given project.

If enough donors use tip4commit, that is potentially a lot of bitcoin pennies
that is just sloshing around their server.

~~~
benologist
3) unwanted / rejected / opted-out donations will be returned to the 'project
pool' instead of the donor, it's unclear what happens in cases when a project
has no participating developers (default), is itself opted out, or has all
opted-out developers

4) donors are not informed that the projects they're supporting may not
receive or accept donations this way

5) donors are actively lied to, see:

[https://tip4commit.com/github/django/django](https://tip4commit.com/github/django/django)

and

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8545377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8545377)

has a django rep trying to opt them out of the program, there is no ambiguity
whether they like, let alone want to or will receive donations this way

------
anton000
"The vocal people in the community seem like they don't actually care about
Bitcoin, but they want to see it succeed so that their "investment" makes a
profit."

Im into Bitcoin, and I agree with this view. Most specially the reddit based
bitcoin community.

~~~
zanny
And so what? You believe in the promise, and putting your money where your
mouth is is one of the most powerful market forces. People are putting their
money in BTC because they believe in it.

~~~
jamespo
And they are vocal about it because they want some people to get in under them
in the pyramid.

------
mangecoeur
It's nice to see someone who isn't on a hype-high over Bitcoin for a change. I
still don't see why people think that a new unregulated currency would be
somehow free of all the problems and abuses that prompted all the regulation
of existing currencies in the first place - y'know, tax, fraud, customer
protection, money laundering, market rigging, etc etc...

------
freework
I don't understand this whole controversy. The the amount of money donate to
you is so small (like under a dollar over the course of a year) then you don't
need to declare it on any tax forms. If a random person on the street gives
you a quarter, you on't need to report that on taxes, nor do you have to
report a 0.00017 BTC donation.

On the other hand, if the donation is big (say in the thousands USD), I can
see why someone could decide to not accept the donation because they don't wan
to report it on their taxes. An easy solution to this problem is to NOT TAKE
THE DONATION. If you don't take the money, you don't have to report anything.
The tip4commit site supposedly states if a developer doesn't accept a donation
the money goes back to the 'project pool' where it will get donated to another
developer on that project.

~~~
DanBC
> The tip4commit site supposedly states if a developer doesn't accept a
> donation the money goes back to the 'project pool' where it will get donated
> to another developer on that project.

So tip4commit is being dishonest -- if the project has said that none of their
contributors will ever accept a tip it is dishonest to continue accepting
contributions for that project.

------
muyuu
Sorry Armin/Mr Ronacher/Mitsuhiko but your "Bitcoin is Wild West" rant is
unwarranted.

Your problem has little to do with Bitcoin and all to do with the fact that a
bunch of guys signed you up to their payment service without your consent.

~~~
joshfinnie
I agree except for the fact that his concern with tip4commit is that it
wouldn't exist if bitcoin wasn't available. The fact that bitcoin is what is
making tip4commit to run without much regulation is Armin's main point.

~~~
zanny
And what would he do about an international tip service that is not
incorporated in Austria that pestered him like this?

The jurisdiction of almost any country besides the US in terms of what happens
online is almost nil. I don't see the recourse an Austrian would take against
an online tip service in China or South Africa that spams them with tip
notifications.

~~~
cbsmith
Actually, in most first world countries you'd have a hell of a time doing this
for very long or on much of a scale without the authorities catching up with
you.

Sure, services in other countries could still maybe get up and running, but
they'll have a harder time finding donors.

------
baddox
> The problem was on one hand something I did not opt into (and there not
> being a way to opt out of) this tipping system and that it's a completely
> unregulated space that can cause me troubles I could have avoided otherwise.

While I have no qualm about his desire to avoid tip4commit, I find the mention
of "unregulated space" peculiar. It seems that he is worried, and probably
prudently so, about the fact that this space is highly regulated, not that it
is unregulated.

~~~
cbsmith
It's a matter of perspective. The bitcoin world is highly unregulated, and
much like the black market, you cannot pull it from that space without
bringing all the chaos, disorder and risk that comes with that. For a lot of
people (and arguably for almost everyone), the benefits of the regulated world
are terribly desirable.

------
alexruf
Since I am from Germany and our banking and tax system is quite similar to the
Austrian, I totally agree with Armin in each single point!

Maybe not exactly what Armin described as a solution - but did you already
check Flattr ([https://flattr.com/](https://flattr.com/))? This also might
work for supporting OpenSource projects.

------
atmosx
I envy this guy for living in a country where you can say things like that:

 _The reason I bring this up is because our taxes are very high, but I get
something for that money. It might not be the perfect system and there are
lots of things about it that make me furious, but I do not see a reason why I
would want to stop paying taxes._

That must be one heck of a feeling. Gives me hope for the future.

~~~
chippidysan
That quote makes it clear he really doesn't understand where his tax money
goes.

~~~
ubernostrum
So what sorts of horrible, unbelievably terrible things do you think are being
done with his tax money that would cause him to reject the tax rate if only he
knew?

------
Animats
Well, actually you _can_ ignore Bitcoin.

------
firepacket
This was a painful read.

He says he "doesn't want to be educated about bitcoin" because "he's heard all
the arguments", while at the same time claiming it's a "terrible currency (or
not a currency at all)" without any further reasoning.

This poor guy _needs_ to be educated if he thinks that avoiding taxes,
regulations, and credit card fees are the only applications.

Common decency dictates that if you openly state you are unwilling to learn
about something, you should refrain from posting opinionated articles about
that thing.

~~~
cbsmith
> This poor guy needs to be educated if he thinks that avoiding taxes,
> regulations, and credit card fees are the only applications.

I think he very clearly understands all the applications. The point is that
_for his case_ it doesn't provide any value, and he believes in a lot of cases
its drawbacks outweigh its advantages (which is an entirely arguably point).

> Common decency dictates that if you openly state you are unwilling to learn
> about something, you should refrain from posting opinionated articles about
> that thing.

Again, I think you misread the article. It isn't that he is unwilling to learn
something. He's learned a great deal and concluded that it makes his life more
difficult. More importantly, he's pointed out a significant problem with it:
there are a lot of things that can happen with Bitcoin that would otherwise be
prevented _and you 'd want them to be prevented_.

~~~
firepacket
> I think he very clearly understands all the applications.

Really? And what are you basing that opinion off of exactly?

The only applications he mentions in his post relate to taxes and credit card
fees. If he had any understanding of the other uses like multiparty
transactions, timestamping, identity management, voting, derivatives, and
trustfree contracts, then he failed to say anything to convey that awareness
in his writing.

> Again, I think you misread the article. It isn't that he is unwilling to
> learn something. He's learned a great deal and concluded that it makes his
> life more difficult.

I didn't misread anything. Rather, he _miswrote_ by conflating his opinions of
a single bitcoin service with the entire underlying protocol.

~~~
cbsmith
> If he had any understanding of the other uses like multiparty transactions,
> timestamping, identity management, voting, derivatives, and trustfree
> contracts, then he failed to say anything to convey that awareness in his
> writing.

He wrote nothing about whether he requires oxygen to live, but I'll wager with
you he needs it.

He spoke negatively of Bitcoin as a currency (and currencies aren't used for
much of what you describe), but he highlighted a number of aspects of Bitcoin
that he thought were useful and where he expecting to see it having a huge,
innovative impact. He didn't make a laundry list of everything awesome one
might be able to do with Bitcoin, but given that his essay was about the
future of payments, you can see where perhaps speaking of its use for voting
might have resulted in the essay becoming meandering and without focus...

> I didn't misread anything.

Trust me, you did.

> Rather, he miswrote by conflating his opinions of a single bitcoin service
> with the entire underlying protocol.

No he didn't. Actually, he hardly got two paragraphs in before he said, "I did
not actually have anything against Bitcoin in this particular case."

So no, he's quite aware that his issues with "a single bitcoin service" are
removed from the underlying protocol.

~~~
firepacket
> He wrote nothing about whether he requires oxygen to live, but I'll wager
> with you he needs it.

So you think understanding bitcoin applications is obvious as breathing
oxygen? Sounds to me like you're making baseless assumptions.

> He spoke negatively of Bitcoin as a currency

Yes he did, and he didn't mention why. It was just a page full of backhanded
jabs and insults towards bitcoin with zero reasoning to support it. Doesn't
strike me as someone who understands it at all, quite the contrary.

> he highlighted a number of aspects of Bitcoin that he thought were useful
> and where he expecting to see it having a huge, innovative impact.

Inter-bank asset exchange? If that's where he thinks the major innovation
lies, he clearly and severely lacks understanding of potential applications.

> Trust me, you did.

Ok, pal.

> So no, he's quite aware that his issues with "a single bitcoin service" are
> removed from the underlying protocol.

If he has regulatory issues with accepting small gifts, or if he doesn't like
the methodology of a particular bitcoin service, that has absolutely _nothing_
to do with bitcoin as a currency.

How is making statements like "bitcoin is a terrible currency" without
including any actual reasoning anything but pure ignorance?

~~~
cbsmith
> So you think understanding bitcoin applications is obvious as breathing
> oxygen? Sounds to me like you're making baseless assumptions.

Great case of the pot calling the kettle black there...

No, I do not think that understanding bitcoin applications is as obvious as
breathing oxygen. The point is that just because someone didn't write about
something in one particular article doesn't mean it isn't there.

> It was just a page full of backhanded jabs and insults towards bitcoin with
> zero reasoning to support it.

A common problem described in that essay, which is not a jab or insult towards
Bitcoin, though definitely has the Bitcoin community in its crosshairs, is
that the community seemed to take his very real experience with tip4commit as
criticism of Bitcoin; your comments are doing a wonderful job of demonstrating
the problem.

Let's go over the "backhanded insults":

* he personally believes that it is a terrible currency [OMG! How insulting that someone has a negative personal belief!]

* bitcoin is unregulated [how is this a disputed fact? how is this an insult?]

* if you move large sums of bitcoin going in and out of your account you won't be questioned by authorities [again, I can't see the issue here]

* For him, Bitcoin's costs and predictability as a means of transferring currency across borders is worse than using transferwise, and even more so when within SEPA. [pretty rooted in fact, no?]

The one thing he didn't back was his opinion of it as a currency, and the way
he presented it, it was quite clear it wasn't presented as an argument and he
wasn't trying to change anyone's mind with that statement.

In general, I'd say his essay did a great job of expressing the reasoning
behind his actual concerns on this matter.

> How is making statements like "bitcoin is a terrible currency" without
> including any actual reasoning anything but pure ignorance?

If he were conducting a debate about the value of bitcoin as a currency, you
could make a case that it was pure ignorance. Given that he was expressly
trying to avoid that debate, your assertion is ridiculous. He was merely
acknowledging his opinion without trying to defend it or make an argument for
it.

Sometimes you are writing a piece about one topic, but people insist on
calling you out on another. You acknowledge your opinion about that topic, but
you don't want to get in to the details about it because it isn't relevant to
what you are speaking to, so you don't make any effort at all to make a case
for the opinion, you don't make any effort to defend it, and you certainly
don't try to persuade anyone to agree with you. (In this case he even
qualified it by mentioning some other ways he sees value in the technology.)

By example...

You've made a number of assertions about all the ways bitcoin is awesome. You
also made assertions about Mr. Ronacher's knowledge of it, and yet you haven't
presented any actual reasoning on any of those points. Where are the
paragraphs of supporting material on each of the ways Bitcoin is awesome? You
haven't presented Mr. Ronacher's education and browsing history to support
claims of his ignorance, or even detailed the "jabs and insults" from the
essay!

Should we conclude from this that you are contributing nothing but pure
ignorance to the discussion?

At least to me, that kind of argument seems completely ridiculous.

