Source text in English | Translation by Sharon Tong (#33959) — Winner |
The Adam of all cryptocurrencies was invented more than a decade ago. Since the start of the internet and Jeff Bezos's glorious idea to start Amazon.com — lucky for us, not as Cadabra, which sounds like Cadaver — payment was a huge issue, especially fraud. In the 1950s, credit cards were invented to solve the problem of carrying money bags with you. The first one was the Diners Card, which I still am a customer of today. [...] It allowed the merchant to copy the credit card information quickly on paper and hand a copy to the customer to countersign it. Its most recognizable characteristic was this swish pop sound. Before the invention of this funny machine completing the payment process was handwritten paperwork, which just was a long process. I remember customers waiting in the line complaining, “Oh no, another one with a credit card. Now we have to wait much, much longer.” And it was true, the merchant had to get the papers out, write everything down in a readable format, check the identity of the customer and the signature, and this was time-consuming. Payment with cash compared to that was a quick and easy process—so much room for improvement for smart entrepreneurs. | 加密货币的始祖在十几年前就已经诞生了。自从互联网出现、杰夫·贝索斯奇思妙想开创亚马逊网站(幸亏没把它命名为卡达布拉,它和英文 “遗体”的发音颇为相似)以来,支付就是个大难题,特别是支付欺诈的问题。上世纪50年代,人们发明了信用卡,解决了必须随身携带现金的问题。大来卡是最早的信用卡,我现在还在用。 [……] 有了它,商家就可以把信用卡信息快速拷贝到纸上,并让顾客在副本上签字。它最特别之处就是发出“嗖——啪”的声音。 这个滑稽的机器可以完成支付流程,在其发明之前,人们要手写单据,很费时间。我记得顾客们排着队,抱怨着:“哎,又是信用卡,现在可好,等的时间更长了。”的确如此,商家要拿出纸来,写下所有信息,字迹要清晰,还要查验顾客的身份和签名,十分耗时。相比而言,现金支付又快又简单,因此,对聪明的创业家们而言,信用卡支付还需要大大改进。 |