Pay for What You Want & How You Deserve

Author: Şelale Malkoçoğlu | Original Date: 2024-01-24

We’re living in a crazy era where we’ve gone from being owners to major renters. It’s not just cars and houses anymore, but even the content we consume. Not to forget about those accounts we set up, which aren’t really ours — so often just stealing and reselling our precious personal data.

Don’t even get me started on loans, mortgages, and leasing. Let’s focus only on these: books have gone digital with Kindle and Audible; a huge chunk of music is now on Spotify; videos are dominated by YouTube, and for movie buffs, it’s all about Netflix, Apple TV, and Amazon.

The sad truth is that nearly everything and anything is now in the hands of big corporations, creating an all-encompassing monopoly and making us slaves. You fight it back, but at the end it feels like we're all stuck in a never-ending game.

'You will own nothing...' is already happening in its subtle way.

As Bitcoiners, we have been fighting against this for 15 years, and as you may already know, it’s neither easy nor fast enough to defeat. It's gonna take more than just knowledge and values to win this fight. We need the right infrastructure and tools that can actually make an impact on everyday folks and businesses alike. We need something that can reach more people all at once. Something that will allow for scalability.

Inching Closer to Success With a New Solution Joining The Game

Looking at the flip side, we're actually living in a time where a totally new and better era of the Internet is slowly but surely taking shape. It shouldn't surprise you when I say that Bitcoin is playing a major role in making it happen!

On the social front, it brings together many talented and fearless individuals who aren't afraid to challenge the existing system. And financially? Well, it hands us a rock-solid base to escape the entire economic and business landscape built on the slavery-oriented values of fiat.

Ultimately, it paves the way for a market that is truly liberated—unlike anything we've seen so far. Not controlled by mostly tech giants and monopolies. In today's world, we may think that we have a choice, but let's face it, we usually end up with limited options that don't really feel like they belong to us.

Thanks to Bitcoin serving as layer one, along with the Lightning Network—layer two, and the Nostr protocol as layer three, a wide range of possibilities are finally open for those who are really willing to use them.

• WHAT else is missing? Perhaps some more user-friendly tools that can scale on and cater to a larger market. There's still a gap that needs filling, and a new project like Flash could step in and do that.

One Snippet to Change It All

Before I dive into a few details about this project, just imagine being able to pay only for what you really use, and even if you decide to broaden your access, you would be able to easily resign whenever you feel like. No more hassle of entering credit card numbers just for considering a subscription. No more frustrating days when trial accounts didn't automatically expire, forcing you to fill out countless forms or waste time on hotlines to avoid fees. 

It looks like we've finally reached a point of cutting out from the fiat system in many areas of our lives. Thanks to Flash, any kind of business can now accept payments via the LN. It’s up to us as users to decide what and when we want to pay for, actually using sound money, without additional fees and at a lightning-fast pace.

Basically, Flash is a gateway for Bitcoin payments on the Lightning Network. It lets publishers, bloggers, music and video streaming platforms, online sellers as well as gaming sites and apps get in on the action with the LN through simple (no-code) solutions and the open library API.

And please wait, before you start raising your eyebrows when you hear the word ‘gateway’. I know that there are countless projects already claiming the same thing. 

Flash is NOT JUST ANY PROJECT! But THE ONE that focuses on Bitcoin + Lightning + Nostr, which makes a significant difference. Not only does it enable LN payments but also cuts out traditional banking, as well as the nightmare of KYC.

If you still can't see how much of a difference Flash can make, given that instead we could focus on on-chain transactions, please keep in mind the challenges that businesses and developers may face, not to mention the cost of transaction fees. When taking all these factors together, it becomes clear that the on-chain doesn't really help with scalability. Does it?

Revolutionary Protocols Working as One

Bitcoin Layer-2 is here to enable lightning-fast payments, even for the smallest amounts, excluding high transaction fees. When we add the third layer, Nostr, and seamless integration with any LN wallet along with effortless integration for business applications, we get endless possibilities. That's what Flash — "the payment solution for tomorrow’s web" is all about.

If everything sounds too good to be true, and maybe you're looking for potential flags, I'd like to add that Flash does not handle your money directly. It is just ‘software’ that makes payments possible. 

Of course, those who integrate with Flash will be charged a fee. However, this only makes 1% and is actually paid by the ‘Flash owner’, i.e. the projects that integrate with it, not by the end users. It sounds reasonable to me.

For more information, you can always visit Flash directly on its website or one of its social channels. Though I may still write a few more things about this project in the future :) 

I am really thrilled about its potential and wish it all the success, which is why I’ve decided to write this piece. Maybe it has already caught your attention enough for you to want to spread the word about Flash to others as well.

Personally I think that Bitcoin, LN, and Nostr (all that makes Flash reality) deserve our support. As much as we deserve to move from being content slaves to decision makers once again.

Until next time. Bye for now!

Şela