@WuMing2

I agree with your statement about surveillance that comes along with current technology and business models.

This is why #Taler has been invented in the first place, to provide an option to exit out of surveillance, specifically in the realm of payments. Being an open protocol ( #Taler ) and being implemented as free software ( #GNUTaler ), it is a genuine alternative to existing digital payment schemes.

Of course, it is not an isolated solution to the challenge of modern surveillance, but part of a broader strategy for digital sovereignty of the individual. We see the Zeitgeist already change and more people adopt less intrusive alternatives and sometimes decentralized services, like mastodon, to enshittified services.

When #Taler will enjoy broader adoption for fiat currencies via supporting banks etc., people and businesses will have a true privacy-preserving yet legally compliant alternative for digital payments, too.

Its openness will allow the development of wallets for all sorts of hardware, software environments and specific user needs, and therefore be significant part of the goal of achieving digital sovereignty of the individual.

Being a digital payment system, it might also become a central part in the funding of free and open source software.

I think this is enough enthusiasm for a Saturday noon.

@scottmstedman

you should live stream video w/o any middleman using #owncast. make video shows available via #peertube. articles via #ghost. and podcasts of course. that's decentralized media keeping us free from corporate control.

and fedi (which you're on here, thank you) allowing the public to collectively decide what ideas and perspectives deserve attention. again without corporate influence.

the last piece is direct funding via a protocol. #interledger and #GNUtaler are working on that.

@WuMing2
I don't know what you mean by "self hosting" (of what?), "integration with banks" and "free for all market" - maybe there is a misunderstanding of what #Taler is?

It is a collection of protocols for three parties: the customer/wallet, the exchange (payment service provider) and the merchant. It consists of all steps necessary for digital payments: initial funding, coin withdrawal, anonymous coin spending, coin deposit, refresh/getting change. The funding and the deposit steps both involve regular wire-transfers from/to bank accounts of the customer/merchant, respectively.

The software implementation #GNUTaler is free software, and anybody can download, alter and run it - all parts of it. The wallet is clearly self-hosted by the user; a merchant can host the Taler-merchant-backend component themself - or use the service provided by somebody who runs it for multiple merchants (taler-ops.ch f.e.).

The exchange component is a different story, though:
For event or local currencies (not fiat currencies), under certain rules depending on your local jurisdiction, you may be allowed to run an exchange legally for that (fake) currency, f.e. for an event or a local community. This would be "self-hosting" the exchange.

What you can not do legally, without having the necessary license, is "self-hosting" an exchange for, say, the Euro (€). This requires an e-money issuer license, that only some banks and some fintech companies have. This is why the GLS bank (Germany) and the Magnet bank (Hungary) are members in the #NGITaler consortium - to legally host the Taler exchanges for the Euro (in Germany) and the Forint (in Hungary).

Other jurisdictions have less tighter regulations, f.e. Swiss law allows to operate as e-money issuer for Swiss francs as long as the total sum in the system is below a threshold (and one is compliant with Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) requirements).

Did I address your question?