+1 It's trivially easy to stop ALL media from autoplaying - including gifs! It's wonderful (but sometimes jarring when I expect a gif to be playing already)
For all the talk of Ripple being centralized, they aren't by design, and they have a plan in place to reduce and eventually eliminate that centralization (to a point).
They decided that it would be a good idea to start centralized, then over time wane themselves out of the "validation" of transactions until it's in the hands of a diverse group of validator nodes where no one person has the ability to change things.
How about the part where the founders hold enough tokens that they could crash the price or manipulate the market at will. I understand that they have loose structures in place to keep them honest, but they could absolutely still act badly. We trust that they won't.
There are 2 things here, There is the cut that the founders hold, and there is the portion under the control of Ripple labs.
Ripple labs has a very strict way of handling the XRP they hold. It's not just "lose structures" in place, they are using the Ripple blockchain to escrow 55 billion of the XRP and release it on a set schedule of (I believe) 1 billion per month, and any that is left over at the end of the month is re-escrowed. So they can't just "flood the market" at any time, there is a set limit to how much they can even sell without hardforking the blockchain in their favor.
The founders have free reign on their 20 billion XRP, but I don't see why they would ever use it to crash the price.
Why kill the goose that lays the egg? I mean, if XRP is on its way out then sure, they'll add fuel to the fire, but crashing the price is counterproductive. If they really wanted to cash out and they were smart, they would drip it over time so as not to eat up the market orders on the buy side.
Foreign exchange can easily be "done for free" by properly setting the exchange rate. All Stripe has to do is publish an exchange rate that is a 0.N% deviation from the current market rate and they'll cover their costs, have a profit, and provide a "free" service. This would likely be significantly cheaper than international wires.
Nope - it is a fee for money that travels between PayPal users in different countries. It's about 1% for Canadian accounts, depending on the payment's source or destination [1].
An early stage startup will give you every reason not to jump on board. But the current state of the industry is riddled with inefficiencies most self created due to managerial decisions made half to a quarter century ago (then adopted by competitors). A lot of these make adopting new methodologies and technologies impossible.
I'd rather work on solving problems then working around them.
It was a good thought too. I've known about Groupon and Living Social for years, but have heard too many stories about the businesses they supposedly work for frowning upon customers that attempt to use the coupons. Restaurants putting patrons in the back or in some side room, giving them limited options on the menu etc...
Seems counter-intuitive that restaurants would treat them poorly. If you're savvy enough to use Groupon, you're probably savvy enough to leave a Yelp review.
It's interesting how one's perspective on something differs, one sees it as "cheap" while another sees it as "thrifty". Related to upbringing, perhaps? I love it when I can get two $60 meals for one $60 price.
Your point about Yelp reviews is good, but I'd say that reviews from people with Groupons, Living Social deals, going on Restaurant Week, etc. are generally worthless, and I've often wished for a way to filter them out. And it's really for much the same reason that I think restaurants tend to not value those customers a lot. First, if they'll only come in with a really great deal, they're not likely to become repeat customers at full price. And it's not profitable to nurture a customer base who only buys when there is a sale (just ask JC Penney). And since they've already demonstrated themslves to be "thrifty," they're also less likely to buy extras like alcohol, dessert, etc. that make the visit profitable. There are few businesses that want to attract people who care only about price, but that's the behavior that Living Social and Groupon encourage.
Secondly, and admittedly on a much more anecdotal note, it seems that these customers are prone to acting entitled and complaining loudly about things that are non-issues compared to the regular clientele. Most people who don't like Thai food simply don't go to Thai restaurants. But there's a pretty decent Thai place near my house that tried Groupon, and got a handful of really bad Yelp reviews from people who seriously seemed to just hate Thai food. A couple of them explicitly mentioned Groupon, and the owner told me that she believes that all of those reviews were Grouponers (and the deal didn't restrict what they could buy, so they got the same food as everyone else). Their complaints had nothing to do about the specifics of the restaurant (which has almost universally good reviews). This serves no one. The diners get a meal they didn't like. The restaurant takes a ratings hit. And Yelp users see artifically low ratings for a good restaurant. If I'm looking for a Thai restaurant, I don't care what people who dislike Thai food think -- I already know they'll hate it.
