cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/18457741
I realize that, after all this time, I have never payed for my all-time favorite games I grew up playing (Fallout 3 & Skyrim). I can pay for it, but I really do not want to pay the money to the Bethesda’s marketing team, CEO, and whoever bullshit middle man who wants a cut of that. I want to give directly to the team that made the damn game, the artists, the sound designers, the voice actors, the programmers. If there was a way to do that, i’d be more happily inclined to spend my money on a decade year old game.
Just thinking
What are your ideas on how this could actually be implemented?
Why does it have to be cryptocurrency
@breadsmasher Not OP, but for me, donating by cryptocurrency is about a million times easier than in any other way.
Same here, using the US backed SWIFT system seems absurd. I’d be mindful of the shit around Crypto though, it’s why I like
https://nano.org/en
As always converting to fiat will be the issue.
What is absurd is that US banks offer accounts without an IBAN/SWIFT number, or ask for large commissions on those, and people are still relying on bullshit non-standardized forms of identification like account number, bank codes and routing numbers. USA, get yourself and your banking system into the XXI century.
I believe any other payment method has someone in the middle taking a cut. What would you propose?
Gas fees, fees to convert to fiat, electricity bills for miners / initial investment for stakers… No matter how you frame it, there are still associated fees. Might as well use the standard we have at the moment.
I wouldn’t use it then since I don’t feel as comfortable sharing my bank account as I do sharing a cryptocurrency address.
But you don’t need to share identification if you’re sharing to receive money.
@CoderSupreme I just discovered that if I pay with my MasterCard, and the vendor saves my card details even against my wish, and then they make a new transaction, my bank is not able to reverse it. So yeah… I guess I’m never paying by MasterCard ever again.
There are many ways around this, like using intermediary services like PayPal or a privacy.com credit card with ephemeral numbers.
Crypto, while one way, is not the only way.
@TrumpetX Sorry but your two proposed solutions are not available to me, and both would put me at the mercy of big American corporations. I’m not saying crypto is the only way, but all the other ways are either not available in 90% of the world, or not acceptable for anyone a bit privacy conscious. Out of the remaining options, crypto is by far the easiest to use. And no intermediaries necessary.
Medium of payment isn’t the problem. The problem is to convince people to pay for free software. I don’t think there’s any good solution to this.
@magic_lobster_party I beg to differ. The medium of payment has always been the bigger problem for me, whenever I wanted to donate. When I found out it can be done through F-Droid Bitcoin button by a single click, I started sending monthly donations to some OSS apps. PayPal is cancer, even MasterCard and Visa are much more hassle (and risk) than Bitcoin, and sending an international wire transaction is completely out of the question.
Wikipedia removed the option to donate by Bitcoin because too few people used it. I don’t deny that some people prefer to pay by cryptocurrency. It’s just that these people are too few to drive a change.
@magic_lobster_party I mean… cryptocurrency fans are also regularly bullied to the point that it’s a bit risky to even mention my preference. And having a bitcoin wallet costs nothing, so the wikipedia decision must be caused by something else - maybe also more of a marketing thing. The crypto haters caused so much damage, it’s really sad.
It costs money to exchange Bitcoin to some actual useful currency.
@magic_lobster_party And yet, here we are talking about the use-case that is best fulfilled by Bitcoin…
I’m sure most of Wikipedia’s staff prefer to get their salaries in their local currency.