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-0.25 Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant (www.economist.com)
667 points by jcartw 324 days ago | 769 comments on HN | Mild negative Editorial · v3.7 ·
Summary Information Access & Privacy Neutral
The Economist article on Brazil's payments system could not be fully evaluated due to JavaScript and paywall access restrictions. Structural analysis reveals systematic barriers to information access through subscription model and mandatory cookie/JavaScript requirements, creating negative signals particularly on Article 19 (freedom of information), Article 12 (privacy), and Articles 13, 17, 21-23, 26-28 (information-dependent rights). Editorial content remains unevaluable; sentiment is neutral pending content access.
Article Heatmap
Preamble: -0.35 — Preamble P Article 1: -0.25 — Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood 1 Article 2: ND — Non-Discrimination Article 2: No Data — Non-Discrimination 2 Article 3: ND — Life, Liberty, Security Article 3: No Data — Life, Liberty, Security 3 Article 4: ND — No Slavery Article 4: No Data — No Slavery 4 Article 5: ND — No Torture Article 5: No Data — No Torture 5 Article 6: ND — Legal Personhood Article 6: No Data — Legal Personhood 6 Article 7: ND — Equality Before Law Article 7: No Data — Equality Before Law 7 Article 8: ND — Right to Remedy Article 8: No Data — Right to Remedy 8 Article 9: ND — No Arbitrary Detention Article 9: No Data — No Arbitrary Detention 9 Article 10: ND — Fair Hearing Article 10: No Data — Fair Hearing 10 Article 11: ND — Presumption of Innocence Article 11: No Data — Presumption of Innocence 11 Article 12: -0.40 — Privacy 12 Article 13: -0.30 — Freedom of Movement 13 Article 14: ND — Asylum Article 14: No Data — Asylum 14 Article 15: ND — Nationality Article 15: No Data — Nationality 15 Article 16: -0.20 — Marriage & Family 16 Article 17: -0.25 — Property 17 Article 18: ND — Freedom of Thought Article 18: No Data — Freedom of Thought 18 Article 19: -0.45 — Freedom of Expression 19 Article 20: ND — Assembly & Association Article 20: No Data — Assembly & Association 20 Article 21: -0.20 — Political Participation 21 Article 22: -0.15 — Social Security 22 Article 23: -0.15 — Work & Equal Pay 23 Article 24: -0.10 — Rest & Leisure 24 Article 25: -0.10 — Standard of Living 25 Article 26: -0.20 — Education 26 Article 27: -0.20 — Cultural Participation 27 Article 28: -0.25 — Social & International Order 28 Article 29: -0.15 — Duties to Community 29 Article 30: -0.20 — No Destruction of Rights 30
Negative Neutral Positive No Data
Aggregates
Weighted Mean -0.25 Unweighted Mean -0.23
Max -0.10 Article 24 Min -0.45 Article 19
Signal 17 No Data 14
Confidence 20% Volatility 0.10 (Low)
Negative 17 Channels E: 0.6 S: 0.4
SETL ND
FW Ratio 51% 23 facts · 22 inferences
Evidence: High: 1 Medium: 5 Low: 11 No Data: 14
Theme Radar
Foundation Security Legal Privacy & Movement Personal Expression Economic & Social Cultural Order & Duties Foundation: -0.30 (2 articles) Security: 0.00 (0 articles) Legal: 0.00 (0 articles) Privacy & Movement: -0.35 (2 articles) Personal: -0.23 (2 articles) Expression: -0.33 (2 articles) Economic & Social: -0.13 (4 articles) Cultural: -0.20 (2 articles) Order & Duties: -0.20 (3 articles)
HN Discussion 20 top-level · 30 replies
dotdi 2025-04-08 11:32 UTC link
seanalltogether 2025-04-08 11:45 UTC link
Given the fact that the central government uses taxes to fund the creation and managements of a countries currency, it makes perfect sense that in the digital age it should also be funding the infrastructure to send digital transactions with that currency. I wonder how differently the internet would have developed if microtransations were free and easy to transfer.
bestouff 2025-04-08 11:47 UTC link
> Pix has spiced up Brazil’s fusty banking sector, but it gives the central bank a worrying amount of power

I think a largely prefer a government-run payment system than an US company monopoly.

SwiftyBug 2025-04-08 11:48 UTC link
I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years.

Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use.

Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be amazed by how fast money arrives in my Brazilian account when I make a withdrawal directly from my EUR wallet on Wise. I receive a push notification from my Brazilian bank before Wise finishes running the animation of confirmation of withdrawal. It's like magic.

And it's so widespread that nowadays I don't even question whether someone accepts Pix. When I get in a taxi, no matter how old the driver is, it's certain that they take (and prefer) Pix.

I've even had homeless people ask me for Pix instead of change on multiple occasions.

Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

afarah1 2025-04-08 11:57 UTC link
WhatsApp is omnipresent for communication in Brazil, and WhatsApp Pay was ready before Pix, but the government blocked the launch to launch Pix first.[1] I rarely see this mentioned.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/brazil-suspends-w...

kubb 2025-04-08 11:57 UTC link
Sometimes there's no point in having market solutions. You need one thing that works for everyone and is free. It's cheaper and easier this way.
pedrovhb 2025-04-08 12:05 UTC link
As a Brazilian - Pix was a pleasant surprise, especially in that for once it feels like we're not lagging behind. It's convenient, free, instant transfers across banks. You can also easily create or programmatically generate QR codes or pastable codes with preset receivers and amounts. Great UX all around, and it quickly became the de-facto standard in how people send money.

It's technically quite impressive - it's a large scale thing and it works really well. I can think of maybe one or two times in these years where I saw downtime, and in both cases it was working again after a few minutes. The usual experience with the government building technical solutions is to have something that makes little sense, is slow, and goes down frequently with even the most predictable usage peaks, but with Pix they really seem to have nailed it.

It does feel a bit weird to have so many payments go through the government's systems, and it definitely feels like it puts them in a position of having more information than they should. There's a lot of Orwellian surveillance potential there, as any transfers are necessarily tied to both users' real identities. I don't think there's a realistic way around this, though.

Another concern is that people can expose some of their information without necessarily being aware of it. You can register e.g. emails and phone numbers as Pix "keys", and then anyone can initiate a transfer to those keys and your full name will pop up so you can confirm or cancel the transfer. I've seen some clever advice around this - "When using a carpooling app (often details are arranged off the platform using WhatsApp), put the driver's phone number on Pix. If a name comes up and it doesn't match the name or gender of the driver's profile, something is up". Obviously though there's potential for misuse and I'm sure the vast majority of people don't think about this when registering their Pix keys. You can, however, just use randomly generated uuids as keys as well, a different one for each transaction if you so desire, so this one can be a non-issue with more awareness.

Overall though it's a very convenient thing which works surprisingly well, and the downsides are theoretical at this point. IMO it's a rare case of our government nailing something.

DanielHB 2025-04-08 12:15 UTC link
Sweden has had a similar system for several years before PIX in Brazil. It is also integrated with the digital ID system (BankID). The main difference is that the Swedish system is ran through a private organization managed by all the major banks (and the central bank) in conjunction. So the central bank doesn't have direct access to the transaction data technically.

While the Brazilian system is only interacted directly through your bank application, the Swedish application is a separate application tied to your bank account in the backend. Given the... quality of bank apps this is a huge plus. The Swedish Swish app is MUCH easier to use because it only does one thing. My Brazilian mother does not know how to send PIX because her bank app is very confusing and the PIX option is just one of many.

The BankID system of Sweden though is even more impressive than money transactions, pretty much everything government related (including healthcare, taxes, etc) and most private institutions (bank apps, Swish, digital contract signatures) is done through the unified BankID login.

People raised concerns over privacy, but the main problem really is that since these systems cut out the middle man (Visa/Mastercard) and have no fees you also have no fraud protection which is something to keep in mind when using them. Once you send the money it is gone, the banks will not give it back to you even if you got scammed. It creates a whole sort of scam industry in both countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(payment)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID

harrisoned 2025-04-08 12:31 UTC link
I agree its an amazing payment method, it worked for me for most of the time. Still, we depend on bank's stability and technical availability for it to work. Once i needed to pay for something and forgot my card at home, at that same time my bank was going trough technical issues and i couldn't pay.

Despite rare reliability issues, my fear about it is that it requires a phone. Being so popular, i fear when places will refuse any other form of payments and accept only PIX, making anybody not using a phone unable to buy their products, with the common assumption that everybody uses it ("don't you guys have phones???"). You can't install banking apps on rooted phones or alternative mobile OSs (or is very very hard), so you are trapped with Android or IOs to use it.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but it seems it's going that way.

Galatians4_16 2025-04-08 12:40 UTC link
Despite a global move towards a cashless society, 54% of Brazilians now opt for cash withdrawals.¹

2024 has seen a surprising reversal, as cash usage makes an unexpected comeback, defying predictions that the world was moving toward a cashless society. With rising cybersecurity threats, concerns over financial privacy, and economic instability, consumers and businesses are increasingly turning back to physical currency as a preferred transaction method.²

¹) https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazils-shift-bac...

²) https://www.adeptswipe.com/cash-makes-a-shocking-comeback-as...

cosmaioan 2025-04-08 12:45 UTC link
It is interesting that I did no see in the comments the costs of using Mastercard & Visa as a reason for governments to find alternatives for their economies.

Both Visa and MC are US companies so there is where the profits go ....

From US Senate hearing : "This is classic, classic monopolistic behavior. Yet you're testimony...is you don't want any competition...I'm having a hard time finding that position defensible, let alone sympathetic...it's unbelievable the amount of money you're making."

Margin 50% ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks3wP1nlg6U

nirui 2025-04-08 13:55 UTC link
I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China.

Due to it's commercial origin, Alipay is filled with unwanted ads and traps. Almost every time I made a payment with it, a pop up prompts me to enlist their Ant Financial LOAN service either now, or being prompted for the same question again 30 days later (yep, not Yes or No, but Now or Later). It's just fucking ridiculous, I don't need a LOAN for a $400 projector, and I don't need a LOAN for a $4 hair cut (Xi should probably do something about it, really).

I'm glad that at least people of Brazil don't have to suffer that kind of shit. At least their government-run program is better scrutinized and boring, thus more dependable, that's a good thing in my eyes.

cyberclimb 2025-04-08 14:31 UTC link
As a foreigner that visited Brazil for some weeks, I found the ubiquity of the PIX payment system to be a handicap for tourists visiting the country.

PIX is only for locals as you need to register with a CPF (Brazil ID number which is hard and tedious to get as a tourist). I ran into many scenarios where the only option was to pay with PIX and the staff aren't used to tourists and look at you funny when you explain you can't use PIX.

Also beyond PIX, if you try to book buses, planes, or take out a gym membership, while you're within the country, 99% of the time it's shockingly impossible to pay without a CPF, even by credit and debit card. I've even seen this for paying the laundry machine.

I'm sure the PIX system is great for Brazilians, and it was helpful having a local friend to make payments on my behalf, but Brazil really lives in a bubble where it seems a side-effect of their system is making things actively very hard for visitors to operate within the country.

owebmaster 2025-04-08 15:25 UTC link
A fun fact, one of the biggest PIX players is also the company that acquired Cognitec¹, the company behind Clojure and Datomic. Until not long ago, Rich Hickey was part of the staff².

1. https://building.nubank.com.br/pt-br/nubank-acquires-us-comp...

2. https://building.nubank.com.br/clojures-journey-at-nubank-a-...

sephalon 2025-04-08 20:46 UTC link
I wish more of these government-baked payment systems would just use GNU Taler [1] instead of implementing their own walled gardens.

GNU Taler ensures that the paying customer is anonymous while the merchant is identified and taxable. This is great for privacy, but not very attractive for commercial companies as your revenue has to be fully based on fees instead of making extra money by selling your customers data. The Swiss National Bank showed interest in adopting it some years ago, but I haven't heard much anymore since…

[1] https://www.taler.net

c7b 2025-04-08 22:08 UTC link
Pix (and UPI, a related system in India with similar success) are my two go-to examples for how it makes sense for the central bank / public sector to get into the retail payment space. It baffles me that most major central banks (that are considering it at all) are considering doing so in the form of CBDCs [0]. CBDCs are like a bundle of two services, central bank money and a payment system. The central bank money part is the one that has everybody questioning its use cases, the reason why banks generally oppose it (hence making them likely to nudge their customers away from it), and it's a genuine financial stability concern that requires safety measures like holding limits [1] that complicate UX and/or the design.

The payment system is the part that imho makes complete sense, in multiple ways: more competition in a market dominated by two US networks, strategic independence wrt to a critical infrastructure, providing a public good for underbanked demographics,... I don't get why places like the ECB, Bank of England, Bank of Canada, PBC,... (the US Fed is one of the few not pushing too actively in that direction) insist on bundling the two together instead of focusing on the payment system. If you succeed there, the potential for success is massive, without needing a central bank money feature, as shown by Pix and UPI. Getting one such feature right is hard enough, I don't get why they don't just focus on that and leave the central bank money baggage by the wayside.

[0] Central Bank Digital Currency, a form of money that has similar UX to bank accounts but represents a central bank liability, as opposed to commercial bank liabilities like your usual bank account. It doesn't need deposit insurance, it's legal tender and is at the same level as physical cash economically (M0).

[1] see eg https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpops/ecb.op326~d5c223d9b...

digianarchist 2025-04-09 00:52 UTC link
The EU would do well to study Pix and it's rollout as it seeks to replace US payments systems across the bloc:

https://www.businesstoday.in/world/us/story/march-to-indepen...

sparin9 2025-04-09 03:43 UTC link
India's UPI is similar and runs at even larger scale

Reference: https://www.gonuclei.com/blog/upi-vs-pix-unpacking-the-simil...

Febra33 2025-04-09 11:52 UTC link
It's surprising how far Brazil has come in terms of financial transactions. Truly something amazing.

It's also unsurprising to see outlets like The Economist somewhat criticise this, along with fintech corporations, because the government is offering a free and high quality alternative to something that companies would have done exactly the same but for money.

alephnerd 2025-04-08 11:48 UTC link
Tiger Global, Seqouia, and Khosla Ventures invested in a lot of Brazilian fintech and neobank startups in the early/mid 2010s the same way they did in Indian fintech and what became IndiaStack in the early 2010s, and China's equivalent in the late 2000s.

YC has also been very active in the space in both markets by the late 2010s.

A lot of the work around Pix is largely thanks to the fact that neobanks like Nubank have become very competitive in the Brazilian market, and helped set higher consumer and business expectations for transaction processing and management.

nicce 2025-04-08 11:49 UTC link
Payment systems take huge fees. It is always good if they get back to the country and not elsewhere. Digital paying is something fundamental. Like electricity.
mhluongo 2025-04-08 11:54 UTC link
> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

Does it work internationally? Does it send USD as well, or only the real?

If it solves th same problems, why is Brazil considering banning self-custodial USD stablecoins? And why has there been an ongoing discussion about launching mBRL, and stablecoin pegged to the real?

https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2024/brazil-considers-...

yetihehe 2025-04-08 11:58 UTC link
> I receive a push notification from my Brazilian bank before Wise finishes running the animation of confirmation of withdrawal. It's like magic.

After I had to add a special animation for one email system so that user was sure that "the core functionality of encrypting" was indeed working (it took milliseconds in reality), your experience doesn't surprise me that much. But, in my "IoT" system we have a mix of devices. Our service can handle most requests in sub millisecond, but some devices (gprs) need at least minimum 1 second (20sec is still within time limit) to respond only because of slow connectivity. And then I have a parking ticket machines where you press button, wait 2 seconds, it beeps, then after 2sec it changes screen to "printing ticket", then after 2s you get the ticket, where everything can be a local action (free ticket without payment). Technology is wild.

jowea 2025-04-08 12:05 UTC link
Well I'm thanking the government for saving us from yet another Facebook monopoly thorough first mover advantage and network effects.
paintbox 2025-04-08 12:15 UTC link
It's a question of national security not to let Meta eat that cake, and Brasil made the right choice.

Tangentially related, I've heard talk of EU alternative to VISA and Mastercard, which I also believe is the right direction.

dguest 2025-04-08 12:16 UTC link
The worst is a market facade for a government service. Examples in the US:

- Weather apps: various governments do the (very expensive) computing and provide the data for free. Private companies insert adds, or charge you. I use Yr, which is run by Norway and has no adds or fees. They are just sourcing public data [1].

- Taxes: the government does all the bookkeeping and enforcement, tax prep industry copies and pastes numbers into forms it lobbies to obfuscate.

[1]: https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/360004008874-Weather-f...

dtquad 2025-04-08 12:23 UTC link
There are alternatives to both inefficient government-run monopolies and US tech giant monopolies.

Even a small country like Denmark has multiple software and finance companies doing apps and software in the digital payments and banking field.

TrackerFF 2025-04-08 12:26 UTC link
I don't think it is a realistic option in the US, at least in the current climate.

There are so many powerful and influential anti/small-government that are rabidly opposing anything made by the government, and offered to the people.

The argument is always the same:

- "It will stifle innovation"

- "It is unfair to business"

- "It will make people dependent on the government"

- "It will give government more access to spy on the citizens"

and the list goes on.

For decades the American people have been told that anything the government touches will be expensive, inefficient, and lead to a more taxes. Private sector knows best, and all that.

And it is especially bad right now. You had MAGA-influencers outright rejoicing that DOGE had laid off the 18F team, spreading the gospel that free (government-run) tax tools are an abomination.

nindalf 2025-04-08 12:29 UTC link
Same in India. WhatsApp wanted to use the payment system UPI but wasn't granted permission to do. Same reason I think - one app that handled all communication and all payments would have been too powerful.
svantana 2025-04-08 12:39 UTC link
> the main problem really is [...] no fraud protection

It's a problem for the victims, but I don't think it's why there's a scam epidemic in Sweden - scammers don't care if you get reimbursed or not. I believe the root issue is the ease and speed of transactions - it's easy to get fooled in a moment of confusion, and before you realize what happened, the money is out of reach of the authorities - as cash, crypto or in foreign accounts.

panick21_ 2025-04-08 12:40 UTC link
I work in Swiss banking. We also have such a system for payments. Its very popular and used by most people. I keep saying they should use it as SSO, if you can authenticate payments you damn well can authenticate login requests. It makes no sense to go to an online shop, log-in with your shop account or google, and then when you pay, authenticate the payment with TWINT. And banks could even use it to login to their e-banking. Currently literally every bank has its own 'Access' App, that is almost the same but slightly different. And to my irritatingly they don't consistently encode TWINT information the same way into the normal banking transactions.

Our developer phones have like 40 apps on them to log into different test system, its madding.

In our system the pay system is also 'half' branded so you have to download 'TWINT-<bank>' not just 'TWINT'. Making it unnecessarily confusing and its literally the same app (from a user perspective).

It seems this Bank Id is an even earlier system adopted for modern SSO use-case.

xinayder 2025-04-08 12:42 UTC link
Fun fact, before Pix, every bank was trying out different digital wallet solutions. It was a pain to go to a store and realize they support Bank A's digital wallet, which, not surprisingly, doesn't interoperate with Bank's B.

I went to buy açai at a shop one day and didn't have cash. Only way I could pay was with Itau's iti, but I only had money in my PicPay account.

Pix was a godsend that saved us from the thousands of different, non-interoperable digital wallets the fintechs were creating.

ave_b_2011 2025-04-08 12:44 UTC link
This is presented as problematic, but I don’t think it’s a negative thing.

You wouldn’t want a foreign company with billions of dollars in their war chest in charge of your countries payment system.

carlos_rpn 2025-04-08 12:53 UTC link
My suggestion would be to create an account for her with Nubank or Mercadopago, which are easier to use, faster to login than any banking apps, and have PIX more readily available after login, and then keep some money on the new account just for the kind of purchases she'd use pix for. I do that for myself just for ease of use.
Maken 2025-04-08 13:20 UTC link
In Spain we have Bizum, which is also a independent payment system run by all the local banks.
forinti 2025-04-08 13:43 UTC link
I keep a few bills in my wallet, but I hardly ever carry it around.

Everybody accepts cards and Pix. Even beggars on the street use pix.

If I revert back to using public transport I will probably have a use for cash, but that's the only situation I can think of where it would make sense.

guax 2025-04-08 13:46 UTC link
I believe it's more related to economic crisis and informal work (tax evasion). Brazil is very cashless for normal transactions.
jowea 2025-04-08 14:02 UTC link
I think almost everywhere will still accept debit cards, at least until paying by Pix becomes faster.
palmotea 2025-04-08 14:06 UTC link
> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China.

After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run.

For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on government data anyway. It'd be much better the government roll out an API and an app that uses it, so you can avoid the private sector altogether.

throwaway473825 2025-04-08 14:23 UTC link
>have no fees

Both Swish and BankID have fees. After all, they're run by for-profit corporations.

Those apps also reduce competition in the banking sector since they're controlled by a few banks which generally have very high fees on their other services.

What's even worse, since BankID is private, there's no individual right to get it, and I've personally experienced banks abusing their oligopoly (buy this extra service or you won't get BankID from us).

The Swedish situation is a nightmare which nobody should try to emulate. Fortunately, the Swedish government has finally announced plans to introduce a public government eID, although 20 years too late.

Xunjin 2025-04-08 14:31 UTC link
The world needs to implement Pix. I truly believe that is a system which can replace SWIFT with just a intermediary, with a virtual currency that exchange rate between the 2 countries in the operation, this way the world can have a freedom outside dollar and really fast transactions.
marcosdumay 2025-04-08 14:43 UTC link
That second link is completely wrong about Brazil though. Not uninformed, just every time Brazil is mentioned, it says the complete opposite of the reality.

And the claim in the first article is about using cash at any time. And it's by a ridiculous small margin. So in fact it's claiming that almost half of the population doesn't use cash at all.

olalonde 2025-04-08 15:05 UTC link
> I've even had homeless people ask me for Pix instead of change on multiple occasions.

Sounds like WeChat Pay. It's been years now that beggars in China only carry QR codes.

> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

They solve a different problem or have the potential to: predictable/unbiased money issuance and on/off ramp for payment platforms.

diego_moita 2025-04-08 15:05 UTC link
Good!

The president of the Brazilian Central Bank is accountable. Zuckaberg isn't.

whimsicalism 2025-04-08 15:08 UTC link
payment services should absolutely have a public option, as should many other basic eservices like email, mychart, etc. the issue is that our government in particular is incompetent, has legal difficulty hiring for merit, and has public sector unions (which is effectively empowering people to negotiate against the collective democratic will of the people).

i’ve worked on internet projects with the feds before, basically the current iteration of the federal government does not really seem capable of doing these things because of how the rank-and-file is structured.

i think it would also be important to make sure that control over payment isn’t abused. i recall when donations to wikileaks were effectively blocked by public/private coordination. presumably that would be even easier if it just required public action.

0_gravitas 2025-04-08 16:02 UTC link
Ahhh this is what I was waiting to see mention of, figured "nubank has to be in here somewhere"
jakub_g 2025-04-08 17:38 UTC link
Sounds similar to China / WeChat situation, from what I've read previously
WinstonSmith84 2025-04-08 17:50 UTC link
> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

Now, try to use Pix outside of Brazil - it's not even used in other Mercosur countries, what's the chance of having that adopted in other countries... And, that's problem #1.

How much do you trust your government with your money? A system like Pix don't stand a chance to get a worldwide adoption - maybe people are naive but governments won't unify to adopt a common system controlled by just a single entity / country.

What we may however end up with, are dozens of systems like Pix, one for each country, union, etc. Still cryptocurrencies as-is remain relevant (see point 1)

igortg 2025-04-08 18:07 UTC link
> many scenarios where the only option was to pay with PIX

I guess you want to say "only option _beyond cash_ was Pix". Most places should accept Passport ID to replace CPF. But if you found hard to pay using credit cards, that has nothing to do with Pix...

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Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Information about economic systems is gated; limits access to information about social welfare and health.

-0.15
Article 22 Social Security
Low Practice
Structural
-0.15
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Information about economic/social systems (payments system) is paywalled, limiting access to information about economic rights.

-0.15
Article 23 Work & Equal Pay
Low Practice
Structural
-0.15
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Information about economic systems is paywalled; limits free information about work and employment systems.

-0.15
Article 29 Duties to Community
Low Practice
Structural
-0.15
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Paywall model restricts free access to information that could inform duties and responsibilities; economic gatekeeping.

-0.20
Article 16 Marriage & Family
Low Practice
Structural
-0.20
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Subscription model requires account creation and disclosure of personal/family information; privacy in marriage/family relations compromised by data collection requirements.

-0.20
Article 21 Political Participation
Low Practice
Structural
-0.20
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Information restriction limits informed participation in political/economic governance; paywalled governance coverage reduces democratic information access.

-0.20
Article 26 Education
Medium Practice
Structural
-0.20
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Paywalled journalism limits universal education about governance; information access tied to economic capability.

-0.20
Article 27 Cultural Participation
Low Practice
Structural
-0.20
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Paywall restricts access to information about cultural/intellectual property systems and economic policy.

-0.20
Article 30 No Destruction of Rights
Low Practice
Structural
-0.20
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Paywall and access restrictions function as limitation on rights; JS requirement and subscription create barriers to right implementation.

-0.25
Article 1 Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
Low Practice
Structural
-0.25
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Differential access by ability to pay undermines formal equality of information rights.

-0.25
Article 17 Property
Medium Practice
Structural
-0.25
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Paywall model restricts access to property/economic information that could inform decisions about acquisition and protection of property.

-0.25
Article 28 Social & International Order
Medium Practice
Structural
-0.25
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Paywalled access model undermines social and international order in which rights can be realized; information about governance systems restricted.

-0.30
Article 13 Freedom of Movement
Medium Practice
Structural
-0.30
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Paywall restricts freedom of movement of information; geographic licensing restrictions may apply.

-0.35
Preamble Preamble
Low Coverage
Structural
-0.35
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Access restriction via JavaScript requirement and paywall model limits universal dissemination of information about governance systems.

-0.40
Article 12 Privacy
Medium Practice
Structural
-0.40
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Cookie requirement and mandatory data collection without granular consent model infringe on privacy protections. Paywall requires disclosure of subscription data.

-0.45
Article 19 Freedom of Expression
High Practice
Structural
-0.45
Context Modifier
ND
SETL
ND

Core structural contradiction: article is about information on governance but paywalled. JavaScript requirement and subscription model directly restrict right to seek, receive, impart information. Undermines core right to free information flow.

ND
Article 2 Non-Discrimination
ND

No observable discrimination signals at structural level based on available evidence.

ND
Article 3 Life, Liberty, Security
ND

No observable signals regarding life, liberty, security of person.

ND
Article 4 No Slavery
ND

No observable signals regarding slavery.

ND
Article 5 No Torture
ND

No observable signals regarding torture or cruel treatment.

ND
Article 6 Legal Personhood
ND

No observable signals regarding legal personhood.

ND
Article 7 Equality Before Law
ND

No observable signals regarding equal protection before law.

ND
Article 8 Right to Remedy
ND

No observable signals regarding effective remedy.

ND
Article 9 No Arbitrary Detention
ND

No observable signals regarding arbitrary detention.

ND
Article 10 Fair Hearing
ND

No observable signals regarding fair trial or impartial hearing.

ND
Article 11 Presumption of Innocence
ND

No observable signals regarding presumption of innocence.

ND
Article 14 Asylum
ND

No observable signals regarding asylum.

ND
Article 15 Nationality
ND

No observable signals regarding nationality.

ND
Article 18 Freedom of Thought
ND

No observable signals regarding freedom of thought or conscience.

ND
Article 20 Assembly & Association
ND

No observable signals regarding freedom of assembly or association.

Supplementary Signals
Epistemic Quality
0.15
Propaganda Flags
0 techniques detected
Solution Orientation
No data
Emotional Tone
No data
Stakeholder Voice
No data
Temporal Framing
No data
Geographic Scope
No data
Complexity
No data
Transparency
No data
Event Timeline 4 events
2026-02-26 12:19 dlq Dead-lettered after 1 attempts: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant - -
2026-02-26 12:17 rate_limit OpenRouter rate limited (429) model=llama-3.3-70b - -
2026-02-26 12:16 rate_limit OpenRouter rate limited (429) model=llama-3.3-70b - -
2026-02-26 12:15 rate_limit OpenRouter rate limited (429) model=llama-3.3-70b - -
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build 1686d6e+53hr · deployed 2026-02-26 10:15 UTC · evaluated 2026-02-26 12:13:57 UTC