yeah I’ll start bartering right now
Comment on Steam Users Rally Behind Anti-Censorship Petition
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Everybody needs to also stop using Mastercard/Visa/Paypal.
pyre@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
dragontamer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ummmm.
ACH is how you get your paycheck, and it’s being updated to FedNow.
Zelle is an independent network as well.
And of course, there is Discover and AmEx.
There is also cash, check, money order. They still work today, just people largely forgot how to use them.
kieron115@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
can i
offertrade you a nice egg in this trying time?rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
eggs are about $0.28 right now that’s 0.0000024 BTC which is ~ 239 sats + another 200 or so for transaction fees.
I really didn’t want to go bitcoin, but it’s likely the only reasonable competition we can put up against stuff the size of Visa.
kieron115@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
I WAS going to follow-up my “it’s always sunny in philadelphia” quote but I got completely distracted by TWENTY-EIGHT CENT EGGS. I can literally buy eggs from the source (there’s a farm nearby that “donates” a portion of their income directly to the chickens and puts it into quality of life upgrades) and it still costs me $4.50-5.00 a dozen depending on weight.
Routhinator@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
How else are you supposed to buy something on Steam? You just listed every available option.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Routhinator@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
What country are you in? None of those options exist in Canada so I think you’re going to need to reframe your point.
Also I can state that giftcards do not exist where I live as I just went though 4 kids birthdays and check 20 different stores and wnded up having to give up on Steam cards and buy prepaid Visas
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Well I am in The Netherlands and the top one (iDeal) is a Dutch exclusive, I can understand that you don’t have those in Canada, but there should be other options right? Maybe contact support?
Otherwise, order gift cards online from somewhere or does that also go through Visa/Mastercard? Even then indirectly doing it is still better especially if you support a local business doing it with gift cards.
Draegur@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
anti-censorship international credit union owned by members that can conduct transactions internally without having to ask for visa or mastercard’s FUCKING permission when???
I’m saying we should build Dual Power and go around them.
Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I would hate to see that credit union comply with the financial regulations of EVERY country.
Draegur@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Clearly I think it would be preferable if they didn’t do business with Russia, israel, or any other states actively engaging in the invasion of other people’s sovereignty, but that doesn’t have to be the only disqualifying factor. There are plenty of nations in the world that are toxic by other criteria. I highly doubt countries that murder civilians for wearing the “wrong” clothes or espousing the “wrong” opinions, for instance. Such as countries where if they find out you’re gay they execute you. That’s not very anti-censorship and tacit complicity with that fuckery would not further the mission.
Novice_Idiot@lemmy.wtf 3 weeks ago
Sure. But they are pretty much the only options in a lot of places. Yes they are shitty companies, but I personally can’t think of a good way to get away from them.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Local/national banks with their bankcards and payment platforms? Buying steam gift cards using cash or by pinning? Even if your bank cards are halfway towards visa or mastercard using it through another party is still better.
Patch@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Local/national banks with their bankcards and payment platforms
I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but here in the UK all banks use Visa, MasterCard or Amex for their bank cards.
nek0d3r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Not only that, but even if you manage to find a platform that isn’t directly owned by them, they are payment service networks. They are there along the way to facilitate transactions and manage relationships with merchant services. There is no escaping them.
Scrollone@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
In Italy we have PagoBancomat, but that’s a debit card, not a credit card.
If you buy online, you can also use PayPal connected directly to a bank account, no credit card necessary (PayPal is also a shitty company, but sometimes there’s no alternative…)
Supercrunchy@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
There are some surviving national circuits like PagoBancomat (as the sibling comment from Scrollone) and Dankort (Denmark) and girocard (Germany). My personal impression is that they are slowly going out of fashion in favor of visa/mastercard only (probably because they can’t offer better prices than them).
I don’t see a solution to the duopoly, apart from lobbying politicians to support this national payment infrastructure. Especially in recent times I can also see how some governments might not want to rely entirely on two US companies for running their entire economy, so something might move on that side, so there’s hope on that side.
The EU has already been moving on this front in the last years by forcing the banks to provide programming interfaces to initiate bank payments, and that’s why you can now see more and more options to “pay by bank” online in EU. These online payments generally skip card circuits and run over normal SEPA bank transfers.
More info here on the last part: en.m.wikipedia.org/…/Payment_Services_Directive
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
You can pay using SEPA bank transfer or direct debits or some other options.
That the bank is using VISA/MasterCard etc for their cards is still a better option than using them directly because they barely do anything. Heck European debit cards don’t even work like they do in the US. You HAVE to 2FA them.
Most of the time in Europe our transactions go through things like iDeal, Bancontant, Wero etc
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
The death grip that they have over everything is more than anything in history.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Well, banks here in NL have been using VISA and Mastercard cards, but that is more so people can use them in America/Canada and some other countries which are still behind on chipped cards.
But over the years I have seen 40-50 different payment platforms and most of them do not use Visa or Mastercard.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
I have been exploring ways to pay for things anonymously… in Canada and the US they do have prepaid credit cards (rhat are sadly visa or Mastercard based) that can be paid for in cash and activated without the need for a name or anything. Meaning unless you activated it on your phone or clearnet without a VPN it will be difficult to link it to you directly. Doubly so if you wait long enough for the store’s surveillance footage to be cycled through (few places keep security camera footage in perpetuity, many delete stuff from a few months back or a year or so back unless something suspicious happened, meaning the footage of you buying the thing will be gone.)
So that’s one trick to be able to pay for something with a credit card without it being immediately obvious who you are. Much like paying in cash, another thing i am getting back into.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Hmm yeah, personally I don’t mind them having access to my transactions or doing things anonymously. Using your bankcard with chip to pay is already obfuscated in most situations on the receiving end since a lot of cash registers will group the transactions together and way out once.
Even platforms like Mollie sometimes obfuscate transactions, which annoys me, considering I have worked as a bookkeeper and now an accountant.
Because of my job, I don’t want people to get the feeling I do shit wrong (illegal or otherwise) since that can cause me to lose my licence. So I want to be transparent for that and for my own administration.
At the same time cash is disappearing here in NL and in some countries cash transactions above 3k are already banned (BE f.e.). I also buy a fair amount by buying gift cards, and I order online a lot.
Ow and btw Mullvad can be both by sending them an envelope with cash
Mwa@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
i wish gnu taler was widespread
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Something like that will kinda work, but using it will flag your transactions if you use it as a business. That’s the issue with a lot of these things is that we need to have some kind of balance between privacy and authorities being able to do anything against terrorism etc. And yes you can find terrorists based on transactions.
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Someone’s drunk the “governments only erode our privacy to stop terrorism” coolaid yeesh.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
No I have seen real world examples of criminals being prosecuted because of what people on my field (accountancy) found during our work. That shits there for a reason.
This was company data though, which should be semi transparent anyway
psycotica0@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Welllllllll, Taler is actually exactly the wrong suggestion for this usecase, because Taler requires all spends to be redeemed from Vendor to Issuer non-anonymously, which gives the Issuer 100% control and say which vendors are allowed, which is exactly the thing Visa and Mastercard are using to exert control.
If there were competing Taler networks and Steam supported all of them, that might be okay because one of them might happen to not be dicks, but if there’s just one or two then Taler is designed from the ground-up specifically to enable this bad outcome. It’s actually one of their features!
Sorry.
Life_inst_bad@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Is there any good reason why shops/Vendors dont really offer any kind of Crypto? Like I genuinely dont get it aren’t you paying way more for using Visa/Mastercard etc. as a shop?
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Because crypto isn’t really a currency as much as it is a volatile asset. Businesses require stability to run coherently, and utilizing something like crypto currency which could massively increase or decrease in value following a breaking news report isn’t something that large organizations can really tolerate.
Life_inst_bad@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Okay, makes sense. Thanks for your explanation!
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Np
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
And use what instead? Swollen off PayPal is pretty easy because frankly it’s an awful service and businesses are better off not using it anyway so they tend to offer other options.
But MasterCard and visa are the only payment options. Everything requires MasterCard or Visa
Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
There’s Discover and American Express if you’re in the US. I don’t know the porn policies of those companies but they are the alternatives.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
So the ones that cost more? You think any of them have different policies? I doubt it .
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I’m not in the US.
poopkins@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Amex works outside the US. I use it in Europe.
imouto@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
JCB?
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
A large digger? How’s that help?
dragontamer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Discover has an alliance with JCB. So that’s just Discover in the USA.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I love using my JCB to buy JBCs
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Businesses are better of not using Paypal or Creditcards, both of the are a hassle and cost more time to process than a digital pin transaction or an old school bank transfer.
You have to use what is available in your country, a lot of countries have their own payment platform and they are being consolidated into one Wero.
As long as people keep using Mastercard or Visa they will have this power.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Yeah people keep using them because there are no other options. That’s the point that’s why they’re powerful because they have a monopoly.
The thing is the only alternative is to use cash and steam won’t take a bank transfer.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
In North America there are no other options it seems, but outside that yes other options exist.
Also gift cards