This sort of thing is ginormously disturbing, but I don’t see that it’s intrinsic to electronic payments. The immediate problem is that electronic transactions should be treated like cash, but aren’t. If it were illegal for banks and payment processors to refuse transactions without a court order, then most of the problems cited would never have existed.
It’s appealing to think about solutions like Bitcoin because they don’t depend on The System getting it right. But to really work, they also depend on The System collapsing, since it won’t permit the competition as long as it exists. Most people outside of the Michigan Militia don’t actually want that, but I guess the threat of a feasible anarchist alternative might help prod the beast into action.
