On a more serious note; How much further is society going to allow this kind of thing? Hiding behind templated e-mails without any explanation. Disrupting people's lives who become collateral damage with no way out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman
> The typical duties of an ombudsman are to investigate complaints and attempt to resolve them, usually through recommendations (binding or not) or mediation. Ombudsmen sometimes also aim to identify systemic issues leading to poor service or breaches of people's rights. At the national level, most ombudsmen have a wide mandate to deal with the entire public sector, and sometimes also elements of the private sector (for example, contracted service providers). In some cases, there is a more restricted mandate, for example with particular sectors of society.
Yes, society doesn't break down. Just as it doesn't break down if 1% of people were murdered each year. But society won't accept 1% being murdered. And once it's public enough, they'll also not accept that companies do stuff like that. Case in point: banks are tightly regulated exactly because of that, we need to rely on them to handle money efficiently, so we don't want randomness in their processes. Maybe it's time that Stripe & friends get more regulatory oversight as well, since they don't seem to be capable of managing themselves.
I personally know of 2 dealings with an Ombudsman in the Netherlands. One involved me personally and another one of a good friend. In both cases the ombudsman advised in our favor. In both cases the reaction on the advice was: "Thanks for the advice, ombudsman, but we are not going to act on it.".
A non-binding ombudsman is in my experience just a paper tiger to make an organization look good and I have never seen a binding one.
Most all of them have VISA cards.
Expecting customers to carefully create a wallet, an exchange account (so they can buy the crypto) and considering how difficult that can be (even for technical users) is really unreasonable. When people can use crypto as easily as they can use a credit card, then it would be an alternative.
IMPO, this problem is very similar to the PGP problem. You'll get a lot less email if you only accept PGP encrypted and signed emails. You cannot expect your customers to do that. They won't, but they will send you plaintext emails from their Gmail accounts, just as quickly as they will pay using a VISA card.
"what these corporations are doing is literally destroying the basis for a developed economy.... [They] have all collectively routed around the rule of law which is necessary for sustained economic growth over time.
In countries with strong rule of law:
1. Property rights over land, equipment, and personal items are clear and protected by law.
2. Contracts between people, businesses, and the government are effectively enforced by the legal system.
3. Political accountability is high and corruption is low.
4. Business regulations are clear and enforced in a transparent manner.
In such environments people make long-term investments and build large organizations. In contrast, if the property rights and contracts are not enforced and the business regulations are not clear, most of the economy consists of small family owned firms with little modern equipment. A high-tech, prosperous economy would not develop.
Effectively, there are no contracts anymore in the digital economy. There is no predictability anymore. There is no accountability. There is no responsibility. There are no requirements for performance anymore. In sum, the US digital economy is rapidly becoming the equivalent of a third-world economy, complete with crony capitalism and digital robber barons."
Such a service could be offered by the legacy payment providers.
I have used such services in the past, but still feel the field is ripe for disruption.