Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Floating fees and SPV clients

From: Jamie McNaught <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2013 13:20:11 +0000

Hi all, first post so go easy on me!

Background/Intro: I'm a C/C++ software engineer with a keen interest in
Bitcoin working for everyone. I've spent the last couple of months pitching
Bitcoin to merchants & end users (previously I mined),

While I agree as Peter said, transparency with fees is good and leaving it
to the wallet designer to decide to either show / hide these (as Gavin
suggested) there is no denying that users hate fees/charges. That's why in
the UK so many online retailers offer free delivery (again perceived as a
zero value add charge). Infact, if you ask the average consumer, they only
have a mild inkling that there are fees paid by the merchants for using
credit cards.

So I'd agree with Gavin's proposed spec in an optional uint64 minfee which
senders(wallets) should deduct from the total paid to the receiver. If
however the sender is doing a dust collection txn (surely hugely unusual
for legit users?) then the sender should pay the additional costs. Does
that make "minfee" actually "minfeeperkb"? Perhaps, but wallets should aim
to not display such implementation details.

As a newb though, I have to ask, how does the receiver/requester/merchant
enforce these fee requests are respected?

On 3 December 2013 12:07, Peter Todd <[email-masked]> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 03, 2013 at 12:57:23PM +0100, Taylor Gerring wrote:
> >
> > On Dec 3, 2013, at 12:29 PM, Mike Hearn <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >
> > > It may be acceptable that receivers don't always receive exactly what
> they requested, at least for person-to-business transactions.  For
> person-to-person transactions of course any fee at all is confusing because
> you intuitively expect that if you send 1 mBTC, then 1 mBTC will arrive the
> other end. I wonder if we'll end up in a world where buying things from
> shops involves paying fees, and (more occasional?) person-to-person
> transactions tend to be free and people just understand that the money
> isn't going to be spendable for a while.
> >
> >
> > > person-to-business transactions.  For person-to-person transactions
> > Why should there be two classes of transactions? Where does paying a
> local business at a farmer’s stand lie in that realm? Transactions should
> work the same regardless of who is on the receiving end.
> >
> > > any fee at all is confusing because you intuitively expect that if you
> send 1 mBTC, then 1 mBTC will arrive the other end
> > The paradigm of sending money has an explicit cost is not new... I think
> people are used to Western Union/PayPal and associated fees, no?  It’s okay
> to have a fee if it’s reasonable, so let’s inform the user what the
> estimated cost is to send a transaction in a reasonable amount of time.
>
> Indeed.
>
> Transparency on fees is going to be good from a marketing point of view
> as well: fact is, Bitcoin transations have fees involved, and if we're
> up-front and honest about those fees and what they are and why, we
> demystify the system and give people the confidence to tell others about
> the cost-advantages of Bitcoin, and at the same time, combat fud about
> fees with accurate and honest information.
>
> --
> 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
> 000000000000000f9102d27cfd61ea9e8bb324593593ca3ce6ba53153ff251b3
>
>
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