BuyMeACoffee silently dropped support for many countries (2024)

Potentially unpopular opinion but ultimately it's a private service and they decided to disable payout methods which negatively affects Ukrainian users for the sake of integrating new changes/avoiding legal risk. They don't have to support all countries. I feel sorry for the users though, especially I imagine by asking supporters to move to another platform will result in some of them dropping which is the result of platform lock in..

Sure, it's a private service and they can do whatever they want, but why block Ukraine? I spent an inordinate amount of time and resources over years blocking Americans from the casino I ran, so I can somewhat sympathize with the point of view that one wants to avoid legal issues. But the only reason I spent the energy to do that was that I needed to be on the right side of the law, personally, if I ever found myself physically back in the US. The only reason I blocked certain other countries (like Myanmar and Iran) was on moral principle because I didn't want to potentially help launder money to revolting dictatorships. I did not, for instance, research or give two fucks about online gambling laws in Malaysia, or a dozen other countries I'd never step foot in where I had players from. I certainly wouldn't have cut off a country that was under siege and partially eaten by a nasty dictatorship. If I were running it now, I'd have probably set up filters to block anyone conceivably in Russian territory, and that would be that. If one guy can do it against an onslaught of thousands of Americans trying to fake their IP addresses daily, I'm sure a good sized company can handle blocking Russian money laundering through a tip jar.

>but why block Ukraine?

Ukraine is on the one hand a fairly small market, on the other hand a very corrupt totalitarian country, where a huge part of the "donations" will be bribery, money laundering, fraud, buying illegal goods.

So, probably, the company simply decided that it was easier to abandon this market rather than to solve the potential problems.

>moral principle because I didn't want to potentially help launder money to revolting dictatorships.

It is quite applicable to Ukraine as well.

People are literally being grabbed off the street and sent to die in storm troop units. Massive corruption, the main method of protection of which is that those who fight against it (or all their male relatives) are simply sent to die.

But I think it's more about the legal problems created by a small, toxic market than about high moral standards.