For those of you who want to use a Paypal alternative for donating to the blog
I know that some of you have soured on Paypal since the recent censorship brouhaha. One of the signs is that some people who used to be on auto-pay plans for contributing to the blog have canceled them, and I’m going to assume that’s the reason.
I’m planning to set up another payment method – probably either Square or Stripe. I also plan to keep Paypal for those who prefer to continue to use that method. The reality is that the potential of censorship is always present and most alternatives that are secure are not totally libertarian. However, at the moment, most seem to limit their censorship to obscene material and certain other extreme activities that I don’t engage in anyway. Here’s a long article on the subject at FIRE if you’re interested in learning more about all of this.
I probably will go with either Stripe or Square. How does that sit with you?
Dan Bongino has an alternative to Stripe, IIRC.
paralleleconomy.com
Thank you for the link to the FIRE article.
PayPal and Etsy’s banning of Colin Wright’s Reality’s Last Stand products became understandable when I saw them. They typically include the symbol associated with males and the symbol associated with females . Colin Wright’s sin is not including symbols for 37.48 other genders.
How about the Locals platform that Dave Rubin was involved with starting? Looks like it accommodates both one-time and ongoing donations. There are some fees but being part of that platform may have ‘safety in number’ benefits.
https://support.locals.com/en/article/how-much-does-locals-charge-u7tcux/
Paypal revealed some grave intentions to seize money for wrongthink. I don’t believe their backpedaling. It will return when they think they can get away with it. I will be cancelling my account as soon as I move all the connected accounts and services away from it.
Guilty. I also agree that alternatives are sketchy for other reasons or likely to also censor, such is the ESG reach in banking. However, pushback is needed. The current PayPal UA says you can be fined for a transaction related to firearms, which is a legal activity, despite the other fines related to illegal activity. The floated new UA created a new legal activity that could generate fines. The free speech implications are very bad, but the worst part is the incentives provided to PayPal to abuse the system for financial gain. What PayPal attempted to do is what others want to do under ESG. You can bet if they succeed, they will abuse it for their enrichment while claiming others are being “anti-social”.
Neo, is setting up a PO Box at a step removed, such as at a Kinco’s or UPS store, an option for receiving blog donations by check or postal money order [or horrors, possibly even cash]?
Last I heard, the USPS is still required to deliver properly stamped envelopes, regardless of what someone may have said on the paper inside it. Or maybe in today’s world, I am being naïve about that restriction.
Regarding R2L’s excellent suggestion, in California, pursuant to California Businsess and Professions Code Section 17538.5, if you use rent a mailbox at a commercial mail receiving agency, such as UPS or FedEx Kinko’s, the owner or on-site operator of that agency is considered your agent for service of process. That is not the case for a mailbox at a USPS facility. So, if I, being in California, were going to use a rented mailbox, I would use a USPS facility,
I don’t know if there is a similar rule in Massachusetts.
Until there is an explicitly Freedom-based solution those of us outside of Othrodox-Leftism will unfortunately have to continuous rounds of “evil picking” to figure out which Evil is Lesser for the day. Both Stripe and Square have their own censorship issues; they’re just not as far down the explicit path as PayPal. As a consumer, I’ll use either of those services when making on-line payments until they give me a reason not to.
Gab Pay looks good from the Freedom perspective, but given Gab’s security lapses in the not-too-distant past, I’m not quite ready to take the chance of having my Personally Identifying Information involved in yet another leak. From what I can see so far I’m less concerned about the banking information like account numbers, but I’d still set up a separate bank account for it. If their record holds the line towards secure for the near future I’ll take Gab Pay more seriously.
Now that I think about it, though, I’m going to set up an LLC and associated bank account and move my side-hustle stuff over. I’d feel much more comfortable if the personal assets were just inaccessible to anything I set up for running a potential target business for a Leftist Twitter Mob.
I just opened an account at Gap Pay, although you probably have more complicated needs than I. https://help.gab.com/article/gab-pay-overview
I was able to register with GabPay effortlessly but attempting to add my bank is proving more difficult …. for anyone needing help support@gabpay.live is the place to go.
As noted on Sarah Hoyt’s blog GabPay is just a front end for this – https://live.got.money/Secure/App/
I haven’t explored it yet but intend to.