WhatsApp Pay is available today in Brazil. The official reason for blocking the launch was missing paperwork, but word on the street at the time was that it was to favor Pix. This is all mentioned in the Retuers article. The reasons for favoring Pix are left for one to speculate. You say national security, the other says financial surveillance and control over the population. Time will tell.
So do most Brazilians, as today that choice is available. It's interesting how being the first to launch contributed to that preference, regardless of the widespread usage of WhatsApp. There are other interesting factors to consider. For example, a lot of people had WhatsApp but no bank account. As mentioned in The Economist's article there have been changes to the banking sector brought by Pix as well. Anyway, an interesting case study, and that's why I mentioned it.
Yeah, there was already alternatives before pix, like PicPay/Mercado Pago, and Pix just "killed" them (people still use to be clear, but just as a normal payment app)
In this case, maybe. But it's not the only option. The old payment system was a bit more private, as payments went through commercial banks and one needed a court order to access transaction history. According to The Economists' article the instant payment system in other countries adopts a similar scheme, which is more private than Brazil's, and which could have been adopted here too. Also, there exists technology today enabling private micro-transactions, such as Monero. But governments - including Brazil's - prevent exchanges to offer it. Europe is no different.[1] One may argue this prevents abuse, which may be true, but it also prevents financial privacy.
Nothing stops the government from blocking your Pix transactions on a whim. They can just turn off your money whenever they want. They can confiscate your money any time if they want. They can do pretty much anything.
Conspiracy theory? It's cyberpunk stuff, the likes of which we see in fiction. Only it's not fiction. We're watching the whole thing unfold right before our very eyes.
I remember watching videos of people at events from many years ago. They warned us all about this stuff, explored all the possible consequences. It's pretty bleak. And now I'm living in this reality, the knowledge of the danger weighs down on me every day where I have to use the system. And people like you come here and calls us conspiracy theorists.
They have done it before. The difference is you can withdraw your cash if you see it coming. The government's end game is to get rid of physical cash with Pix and soon Drex.
Without physical cash, your finances are one hundred percent controlled by the government. Sure, it's convenient, but you pay for that convenience with your freedom.
