Comment by 🚀 stack
Re: "A Payment Layer on Gemini? Remember the old web you did…"
Depending on corporations for one's well-being often leads to unpleasant surprises. That is why alternative solutions are important, even though it's getting harder and harder to even convince people of that.
2025-12-26 · 4 months ago
6 Later Comments ↓
@zzo38: what is the point of that? Is there a problem with existing tech that you are solving?
There are many points, such as: to improve security of payment, to avoid using overly complicated web browsers, to avoid some of the dishonest things that other ways do, to make it effective for many kind of payment (including anonymous payment), to be independent of the protocol, etc. (I might improve the document later today; I already found some mistakes, but there are some I probably don't know so if someone else knows enough about computer payment would be able to comment better.)
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 26 at 22:39:
@stack, Ah, but you see, there is the interesting part. I wasn't depending on a corporation. The corporation sent people out, however, to interfere in my business and ultimately use their leverage to shut my independence down. They did this illegally, and unjustly, but they did it just the same.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 26 at 22:41:
@zzo38 That looks pretty neat. I'll have to look at it more carefully when I have some time to read. I like the basic ideas I see so far.
in generally i believe that commerce is what spoiled our internet, and that there ane very few, if any, ethicasl ways to earn on the intenrnet.
most ways i can imagine exploit the end user inevitably.
so i think it is the best when 'service' is being offered by a community or hobbyist, and the node is always very small, comparable with this bbs.
if gemini has more users, we'll need more forums and federation, or some decentralized system like usenet, or usenet with gemini frontend.
on topic: afaik all payments on the internet use https.
so if you implement something with gemini interface, it should talk to bank or other entity via http.
also, i guess you can implement a crypto payment that is possible to use via gemini. if we forget that crypto sphere itself is very questionable.
Original Post
A Payment Layer on Gemini? Remember the old web you did have some funky send us checks type of stuff going on that intersected with the web before Musk and Paypal. I remember CGI scripts for processing credit cards, specifically. What do you guys think? Good idea, bad idea? I feel like ads were the bigger ruining factor of the old web...