DISH Network Begins Accepting Bitcoin for Payment

http://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/DISH+Network+%28DISH%29+Begins+Accepting+Bitcoin+for+Payment/9533028.html

by TwoFactor • 12 years ago

41 18 12 years ago

leeoniya3• 12 years ago

"DISH will use Coinbase’s Instant Exchange™ feature to exchange bitcoin payments to U.S. dollars at the moment of the transaction"

Bitcion is probably pretty far off from being stable enough for things to cost "X Bitcions". But out of genuine curiosity, can someone list the benefits of paying with bitcoin besides anonymity/privacy (which for DISH's account-bound customers is irrelevant). I suppose it saves DISH from having currency-specific payment processors in each geographic region if they wanted to reduce admin overhead, but the conversion fees would still exist in a sense from Coinbase's fees.

beaner• 12 years ago

If dish is hacked and their credit cards on file are stolen, yours will not be one of them.

leeoniya3• 12 years ago

merchants should not store credit cards in any form.

pretty much every payment processor / gateway allows you to create payment profiles with reference ids which you can store and reuse later to process additional payments.

if DISH got hacked, all the hacker should be able to get are useless payment profile ids.

EDIT: i hope everyone who's downvoting me does extensive pen testing and security audits on their servers/network. storing even properly encrypted card info is a huge liability.

mikeash• 12 years ago

If you already have a bunch of bitcoin sitting around for other reasons (you stuck a bunch of savings in it, or are selling drugs for bitcoin, or you do substantial amounts of mining) and you want to pay for stuff with bitcoin anyway, this saves you a step, and time waiting for bank transfers and such.

gnaritas4• 12 years ago

It also saves DISH from charge backs; Bitcoin is cash.

aroch2• 12 years ago

Just because someone pays with a not-directly-refundable method doesn't mean you don't have to refund them.

aroch2• 12 years ago

As I said in the other thread about this [0]

Seems like buying a service that is explicitly tied to unique identifiables (ie. your address, satellite receiver, DISH tuner codes) with bitcoin as somewhat pointless. This comes off as a marketing opportunity for all involved.

Edit: Heh so the same person of flagged me on this post followed the link to flag me on the other. Mind explaining how exactly this is a useful implementation of bitcoin beyond making the companies involved look good? I highly doubt this is going to increase the usage of bitcoin, its too out there for "normal" people to buy and why bother going to the hassle of buying bitcoins every month to pay your bill (since its a poor store of value) when the oft touted benefits of privacy is moot.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7815834

malloreon• 12 years ago

This headline is misleading. Anyone "accepting bitcoins" though one of coinbase / bitpay / gyft / whatever is NOT accepting bitcoins.

They are accepting a third party who will stand in front of them and accept bitcoins in exchange for dollars. There is a big difference.

bitJericho• 12 years ago

Yeah, just like companies using payment processors are not accepting credit cards but instead are accepting a third party who will stand in front of them and accept credit card transfers in exchange for dollars.

DISH Network Begins Accepting Bitcoin for Payment

Related Stories