BuyMeACoffee silently dropped support for many countries (2024)

We have normalized the treatment of the financial and payments systems as things that exist primarily to perform law enforcement surveillance functions. It's the same dynamic that leads to debanking of small accounts - payments firms exist on thin margins and the potential fines for inadvertently servicing a bad actor are stratospheric, so it's entirely logical to play it safe by refusing to service anyone whose profile looks even the slightest bit risky.

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.