It seems the only payment options accepted by the Fairphone shop are the usual archaic, painful, long-winded and generally regretful banking-related payment methods.
I’m also looking to buy a new phone at the moment, and would ideally like to buy an FP2, but it seems I won’t be able to in this case. Frankly I have lost so much time and money in my life to banks (and Paypal at one time), that I now avoid using them at all costs. Unfortunately, that means people like myself and the OP won’t be able to get as ‘fair’ a deal as we would like for now!
So, as it seems I’m not the only one that would buy a phone with Bitcoin if the option were provided, it would be interesting to know what Fairphone’s stance is on digital currencies, and whether we can expect to be able to pay for our phones in the Fairphone shop with Bitcoin in the short-to-mid term future?
If so, and it’s not going to take more than a month or two to put in place (which as a web engineer I know it wouldn’t!), I might hold out for a while. Otherwise, my only remaining option (and perhaps the OP’s) will be to buy one of the usual ‘brand’ phones from a retailer that accepts Bitcoin
Personal experience and/or personal preference doesn’t always translate into a general problem for everybody.
Which country Fairphone would ship to are you in?
Credit card, PayPal, and PSD2/SEPA payments (within the EU) are delivered quicker than Bitcoin when it was popular. Because Bitcoin doesn’t scale well.
Since the end of 2010 there is a deposit insurance in the EU of 100.000 EUR (which doesn’t mean it did not exist before in individual states).
Of course, there are doomsday scenarios that a bankrun and deposit insurance leads to huge devaluation of the currency. The moment our banks cannot be trusted anymore, is the moment our economy collapses. Which includes the very economy a few Bitcoin users use. At such point, you won’t be able to HODL when you got nothing to eat.
Well, “archaic” seems a bit harsh, when it is how almost all money transactions are done.
I, myself, am no friend of bitcoin and the like, as this “currency” is way more speculative than any oter of the major currencies. And I don’t need my daily money to gain a profit or loss from others speculating with it. I rather like to know what it’s worth without checking the value online first.
Call me old-fashioned.
And - not to be mistaken - I am absolutely fine, that you prefer bitcoin over banking-related payments.
Where I really start wondering, is, when the payment method is more important, than the social and environmental issues of the phone you buy? That’s something I do not really understand.
Why is it, you are interested in buying a Fairphone in the first place, if I may ask?
I am really just curious and don’t mean to offend you.
Btw:
Maybe one of the retailers of Fairphone will be accepting bitcoin?
I have not checked, but this might be a possibility.
Here is a list of resellers that sold the FP2 online:
But the tech stores that I know of that accept bitcoin don’t seems to sell Fairphone. Any tips about a store within EU single market that selling Fairphones and accept bitcoin?
I would not remember, that one such shop is on the list of resellers, that I know of.
Maybe you could ask those tech-stores accepting bitcoin, to add Fairphone to their assortment.
Only this way, do they learn, that there is a demand for fair electronics (in a broader perspective).
You find some arguments this community came up with in this thread.
In my opinion bitcoin is highly speculative and its production takes lots of energy; so - to me - it does not seem to be the best choice for a startup selling a fair / ecological product.
Not in the sense of “absolutely not”, but by and large this is what it means.
Fairphone staff might read along in this forum and engage occasionally, or not. It’s better to not expect them to and address the company directly if you want something from the company. But hold that thought for the moment …
Sorry, could you please tell me, what you do mean by FUD?
The video is - in my opinion - not really convincing. Because the two points made are really weak points:
The energy is procuced by plants, that are designed to meet future needs, so lets use this energy now instead of wasting it.
The problem with this kind of reasoning is twofold:
When the energy is used up even now for mining, the reserve for future developments is gone and guess what? I already hear the argumente: “We need more powerplants, because the rise in consumption is exceeding plans.”
As all the energy is used up, the drive to reduce energy consumption and all arguments to shut plants down are countered. Not exactly a good thing in my opinion.
Bitcoin mining obviously is using lots of power. But it’s unfair to mention this, because standard payment is using lots of energy as well (trucks, cash machines, servers for transfer etc.)
That argument is not convincing me as well.
If the energy used for usual payments is equaling bitcoin mining, some data for that argument would be nice. But just making a list of energy consuming processes is misleading. A long list seems to imply big consupmtion, which might not be the case. And listing things that belong to investment banking is not volid at all, since banks do more than just payments (that’s no statement of the sense and moral of all those actiions, just a fact).
Others doing equally bad is never an argument that bad behaviour is acceptable.
Regarding the fact, that bitcoin is higly speculative, just watch the exchange rate and compare it to any widely traded currency. This makes trading in bitcoin and selling goods for bitcoing kind of a gamble; in my opinion that is, of course.
When selling goods, I think normally you would leave your prices in EUR and let some payment service provider handle Bitcoin payment for customers who want to pay in Bitcoin … so you would get your normal EUR price, and Bitcoin payers would have the risk of the exchange rate.
Hi there, to answer your question, we do not have adding bitcoin as a payment method on our roadmap for the foreseeable future. However, if anything changes down the line, we will definitely keep you updated.
Let’s take it from the beginning. Every merchant needs at least one payment option to be able to sell anything. Different payment options come with different pros and cons. You said “bitcoin does not seem to be the best choice for a startup selling a fair / ecological product.” Implying that would be a worse ethical choice than the other payment options, because of its energy consumption. A thing that is very transparent in bitcoin, not so for other payment options. If one is to make an ethical choice among payment options one has to also consider other things.
Has everybody already forgotten that time when Visa blocked people from supporting Wikileaks after they exposed war crimes committed in Iraq, while at the same time allowing people to send money to Ku Klux Klan?
To be clear, I’m not saying that Fairphone should drop Visa, that would obviously be commercial suicide. Just that a fair world needs censorship resistant money. IMHO
Sure, but why wouldn’t normal money transfer via bank account do the trick?
And if your bank is limiting your options, you always can change for another bank.
I guess, the main advantage/point for crypto currency is anonymous payment.
The downside of it is, that all the scammers, blackmailers, porn-, drug- and arms dealers use that currency as well.
True in a way. But the reports, I found and that tried a comparison came up with a really bad result for bitcoin.
Do you understand that censorship resistant is actually something completely different than anonymous payment? And that bitcoin isn’t actually anonymous, pseudonymous at best.
I surmise, you read my posting.
Yet, I am not so sure, you understood it.
First I agreed with you on the point of censorship resistance by saying “SURE”
Then - and that being a different point - I just posted my own opinion (“I GUESS”), that the main advantage of cryptocurrency could be pseudonymity - I stand corrected there for not being precise enough.
Next you could try some counterargument to the fact, that scam-mails and blackmails (at least all that I received) come with a code for a bitcoin wallet and that crypto currency is kind of “the option” on darknet marketplaces selling illegal goods. Do some research there of your own (for starters: on the web).
But alas, you just call it FUD, as if that is argument enough. Well, it isn’t. It is rather a kind of insult. Where are your arguments?
Conclusions:
I obviously made a difference between censorship resistance and anonymity/pseudonymity, but you just failed to catch it.
Anonymous was not correct. Pseudonymity is the correct term; which still is an advantage over other payment options.
If you would like to buy a Fairphone I recommend you adapt to the status quo of payment (IBAN, credit/debit card). Just like you gotta do with your insurance, taxes, rent, etc etc.
The argument of Bitcoin being censorship-free (I don’t agree with that, but lets take it for granted) does not apply to Fairphone 3. Or do we have some kind of magical reports of people being not allowed to own or buy a Fairphone 3?
What I consider FUD are blanket statements like “X is preferred by criminals”, now I am all for discussing ethical considerations with different payment methods, but I think it should be more balanced. Perhaps “Y is also used by criminals”. In fact I don’t think there exists a payment method in this world that is without criminal transactions. And the ability to make payments is a necessity, so we can’t just throw them all out. It is a quite complex and difficult question what would be the most ethical payment method. But let me just take ONE example from the traditional banking sector, from just two months back
