• The website of course is through a third party and charges a fee of $2.50 per transaction.

    If I understand that right you pay 2.50 for every transaction of 3. That’s 83%.

    This is not completely related to school meals, but it is a good example imo which explains why big tech and banks have been lobbying for a long time to shut down and ban crypto money and other community currencies. There are many decentralized currency solutions available which parents could use at costs next to nothing, but lawmakers claim to ‘protect’ people by shutting them down or introduce regulations that trigger a similar effect.

    (To also say that: There are many crypto scams and of course there should be strong consumer protections, but using complementary currency systems as a means of payment -not as a means of value storage- would be a great benefit for the society. The monetary policy and financial regulations we have in any country are increasingly causing trouble for the society imo.)

    • Reading it back now, I think how I said it was confusing. So we have to put money into his account. Say $50 put into his account. When we refill his account that charges us a fee of $2.50.

      I am not a crypto fan, but just because of all the scams, the fact it’s unregulated, the fact that every start up was pushing crypto in ways it didn’t need to be used, NFTs, etc. I think there could be a valid use for it, as you’re saying, but it’d need a lot ore regulation, oversight, etc.

      • I don’t reject crypto regulation, but the way how this is done across the world is bad for innovation and prevents competition.

        To give an idea what I mean: One of the more prominent crypto scams of late has been the FTX case. Back in the fall I read FTX’s bankruptcy declaration. As far ax I remember, it said that 2 out of the 4 FTX companies never had an audited report, they never had a cashflow forecast, major decision about cash reimbursements were made via chat, budget responsibilities were unclear, assets bought were not on the books, and many other points. But none of the things had anything to do specifically with crypto. They simply had no investor reporting and the investors -with big names among them like Sequoia Capital, Tudor Investment or Robert Kraft- apparently didn’t ask questions.

        With a proper reporting and by applying and enforcing the existing laws, though, the FTX case would never have happened. And this is also true for many other crypto scams imho. But, again, I’m not at all against regulation, it should just done wisely without preventing technical and social innovation.