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> The biggest thing we need is a better way to pay someone over the internet without them knowing who you are.

What's the reason you don't want sellers to know who you are?

That would be like buying things in real life while wearing a ski mask and paying with cash.

What's the reason for the seller to know who I am?

Any normal pre-total-surveillance store would've had zero issues selling me something for cash if I walked in wearing a ski mask.

That is not remotely true, dude. Probably some stores would've been ok with it. But for the past 40 years or more, wearing a ski mask around has had the connotation of "this person is up to no good". A lot of stores would've had a problem with your hypothetical purchase for quite some time now.

Let's never mind the ski mask. For thousands of years, a stranger could walk into a store and buy something for cash. The store didn't know their name, didn't have surveillance cameras or computers because they didn't exist and generally wouldn't even be able to remember that the purchase had happened if asked about it six months later.

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