Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Payment Protocol Proposal: Invoices/Payments/Receipts

From: Alan Reiner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2012 13:13:00 -0500

On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Gavin Andresen <[email-masked]>wrote:

> When I say "pass around" I'm not thinking of users copying and pasting,
> that would be a terrible user experience; all of that communication needs
> to happen automatically behind the scenes. Lets tackle that after we've got
> the simpler customer-pays-merchant flow working nicely
> (funded-escrow-pays-merchant is a subset of that, anyway).

I think that the "pass around" method needs to happen in addition to the
methods of transparent protocols that occur behind the scenes.  For one,
there's a lot of CONOPs that need to be worked out by getting knowledgeable
people using it, and providing feedback about how it could/should/will be
used and how it could be improved.  The pass-around method is simpler to
implement and still usable by the types of users that will be using it in
the beginning -- experts.  Also, I see that for very large, important
multi-sig tx/contracts/escrow, the "manual" method might be preferred --
much the same way many people prefer manual-transmission cars even though
automatics are "easier" -- some people/organizations will want the control.

I'm all for protocols that enable higher-level access to this
functionality, I'm just saying there should be lower-level access, too.