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.

The alternate is crypto. That will service anyone for ANY reason.

Well, that and cash.

Btw, crypto (like bitcoin) is only an alternative because of convention.

The complete history of bitcoins is globally trackable, and people could all decide that they'll pay more for bitcoins that came from Satoshi's initial hoard, or that they'll refuse to accept bitcoins that were ever seized by the FBI.

(Yes, there are mixers. But you'd just refuse to accept any bitcoin that took part in the mixer transaction, if any FBI coins were in there.)

Europe is clamping down on cash, with in some countries placing caps on cash transactions as low as €1000.

https://en.econostrum.info/europe-restricts-cash-paymentss-n...

https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cas...