I think at this point it would be preferable for the government to take over the payment infrastructure directly. This is often seen as dystopian, but it's a dystopia that has already come to pass for the most part. If we made it official, at least the rules for what can be blocked or refused or frozen would be out in the open.
No they wouldn't, just like the rules of who can be deported and for what aren't in the open, but often arbitrary.
Also, 100% dystopia is still worse than a "most part" one
Numerous countries are debating the creation of a digital currency:
EU: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
I mean the current US govt is doing all sorts of awful things in the open, so I'm not sure this will be an improvement.
I no longer believe that "sunlight is the best disinfectant", and haven't for a long time now.
The best disinfectant doesn't kill everything. Nobody's ever managed to assemble a government that doesn't do awful things out in the open.
One of my complaints about the Trump era is people are correctly identifying a bunch of problems with how the US government operates but for some reason they're only a problem when Trump does them instead of being a more general concern even if other people are involved.
Eg, Trump is almost certainly spying on his political opponents. Using infrastructure built by Bush/Obama/Trump/Biden that everyone who took notice at the time pointed out would be used by people to spy on political opponents. This isn't a Trump problem. It is people assuming the government is always on their side despite copious quantities of evidence otherwise and regular elections.