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666 points jcartw | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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nirui ◴[] No.43621834[source]
I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China.

Due to it's commercial origin, Alipay is filled with unwanted ads and traps. Almost every time I made a payment with it, a pop up prompts me to enlist their Ant Financial LOAN service either now, or being prompted for the same question again 30 days later (yep, not Yes or No, but Now or Later). It's just fucking ridiculous, I don't need a LOAN for a $400 projector, and I don't need a LOAN for a $4 hair cut (Xi should probably do something about it, really).

I'm glad that at least people of Brazil don't have to suffer that kind of shit. At least their government-run program is better scrutinized and boring, thus more dependable, that's a good thing in my eyes.

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palmotea ◴[] No.43621950[source]
> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China.

After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run.

For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on government data anyway. It'd be much better the government roll out an API and an app that uses it, so you can avoid the private sector altogether.

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chneu ◴[] No.43621997[source]
That's exactly why NOAA in the US is under attack. Conservatives see $$$ potential if they privatize it.
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somedude895 ◴[] No.43622142{3}[source]
I'm sure the NOAA is under attack because someone in the administration really wants to launch a new weather app.
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1. ilirium ◴[] No.43641438{4}[source]
The weather app doesn't give much money. The main business sells weather and climate data B2B: agro, insurance, logistics, retail, supply chains, advertisement, medical, etc.

Companies whose primary business is weather apps are small, and such areas are highly competitive.