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Steam Users Rally Behind Anti-Censorship Petition (gamerant.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 38 points 1 year ago (59 children)

Everybody needs to also stop using Mastercard/Visa/Paypal.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    And use what instead? Swollen off PayPal is pretty easy because frankly it's an awful service and businesses are better off not using it anyway so they tend to offer other options.

    But MasterCard and visa are the only payment options. Everything requires MasterCard or Visa

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    There's Discover and American Express if you're in the US. I don't know the porn policies of those companies but they are the alternatives.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    JCB?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Businesses are better of not using Paypal or Creditcards, both of the are a hassle and cost more time to process than a digital pin transaction or an old school bank transfer.

    You have to use what is available in your country, a lot of countries have their own payment platform and they are being consolidated into one Wero.

    As long as people keep using Mastercard or Visa they will have this power.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yeah people keep using them because there are no other options. That's the point that's why they're powerful because they have a monopoly.

    The thing is the only alternative is to use cash and steam won't take a bank transfer.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    yeah I'll start bartering right now

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    Ummmm.

    ACH is how you get your paycheck, and it's being updated to FedNow.

    Zelle is an independent network as well.

    And of course, there is Discover and AmEx.

    There is also cash, check, money order. They still work today, just people largely forgot how to use them.

    IIRC some Brazilian network was getting very popular off of this. If you want to look at non-US options.

    There are plenty of competitors to Visa/Mastercard/Paypal.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    can i offer trade you a nice egg in this trying time?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    eggs are about $0.28 right now that's 0.0000024 BTC which is ~ 239 sats + another 200 or so for transaction fees.

    I really didn't want to go bitcoin, but it's likely the only reasonable competition we can put up against stuff the size of Visa.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago*

    I WAS going to follow-up my "it's always sunny in philadelphia" quote but I got completely distracted by TWENTY-EIGHT CENT EGGS. I can literally buy eggs from the source (there's a farm nearby that "donates" a portion of their income directly to the chickens and puts it into quality of life upgrades for them) and it still costs me $4.50-5.00 a dozen depending on weight.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    How else are you supposed to buy something on Steam? You just listed every available option.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    What country are you in? None of those options exist in Canada so I think you're going to need to reframe your point.

    Also I can state that giftcards do not exist where I live as I just went though 4 kids birthdays and check 20 different stores and winded up having to give up on Steam cards and buy prepaid Visas.

    EDIT: To clarify, two years ago the cards existed. Last year they were scarce, and in 2025 they are no where to be found.

    What are those other options you have anyway? I've never seen or heard of any of them.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (6 children)

    I can understand that you don't have those in Canada, but there should be other options right? Maybe contact support?

    I think you’re on the verge of understanding the problem. You’re so close. Just trust that the guy you’re replying to isn’t an idiot and you’ll finally understand.

    Sure in the Netherlands you have options. But other places aren’t the Netherlands. Different countries have different options, but Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal work pretty much everywhere.

    Edit: Completely unrelated, I’m munching on some licorice Mentos I found in the Dutch section of my local grocery store here in West Michigan, and I just want to thank the entire population of the Netherlands for the wonderful things y’all have done with licorice. No one likes it here, so no one bothered. But the variety your country comes up with for this stuff, it’s fantastic.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal

    PayPal doesn't even work on Amazon.com

    I can talk about the Netherlands, or Belgium or the vast majority of the other first world countries with different options to pay online. Even in North American you still have gift cards.

    You can also contact support and ask them for different payment options, they aren't going to accept bank transfers, but they will probably allow you to pay with JCB or some others that aren;t native to the Netherlands. (Heck, JCB is apparently something made for the Japanse market so idk why I can pay with it).

    Heck, you can get your payment country changed, and then you can pay with different options. Yes, America (and Canada) have a lack of options for payment providers apparently and also for physical stores, but there is a chance that there are more options, like buying gift cards online even from different countries.

    Wero will also be something everybody can use, but it's like the next thing, we (as in Europeans) have had so many payment providers over the years it isn;t even funny.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    Getting money to organizations outside Canada and the US, once you remove credit cards and paypal, is exclusive to wire transfer from within Canada. If i want to get my money to any entity outside of Canada those are my options. None of these alt payment providers exist in Canada, and we are barred from buying crypto from our accounts.

    JCB seems like the Interac system here in Canada, which I doubt Steam would take payment from. Its essentially a bank transfer. Nope, apparently JCB is a Credit Card company like Visa et al.

    Yeah, JCB is not available in the Americas

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Unfortunately rich and developed countries with an iron grip on the markets by a few billionaires that control them you see. They ensure our options are limited.

    Canadians have very limited choices in terms of services. Even our grocery store shelves are bought out by major corps and local options struggle to get their products on the shelves.

    As another example, our banks have no interpayment systems outside the interac system, and they have no standard apis for payment services. So things like apps for managing budgets involve downloading a csv after our billing date passes and a lot of manual work. Most banks offer their own budget apps and they only work with their services.

    We have effectively have 3 phone and internet providers.. or little guys that resell access to the big 3.

    The monopoly man won the game in Canada.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Hmm, in the US, people have at least Simplefin to connect their banks to Actual Budget f.e.

    Man it sucks to live in Canada as well it seems, probably the best thing you can do is buy local as much as possibile and if they still accept cash use that.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    anti-censorship international credit union owned by members that can conduct transactions internally without having to ask for visa or mastercard's FUCKING permission when?????

    I'm saying we should build Dual Power and go around them.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I would hate to see that credit union comply with the financial regulations of EVERY country.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    Clearly I think it would be preferable if they didn't do business with Russia, israel, or any other states actively engaging in the invasion of other people's sovereignty, but that doesn't have to be the only disqualifying factor. There are plenty of nations in the world that are toxic by other criteria. I highly doubt countries that murder civilians for wearing the "wrong" clothes or espousing the "wrong" opinions, for instance, would be conducive with the operation of such a credit union. Also, countries where if they find out you're gay they execute you. That's not very anti-censorship and tacit complicity with that fuckery would not further the mission.

    So it would definitively not be bothering with the laws of countries it will never interact with.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Sure. But they are pretty much the only options in a lot of places. Yes they are shitty companies, but I personally can't think of a good way to get away from them.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Local/national banks with their bankcards and payment platforms? Buying steam gift cards using cash or by pinning? Even if your bank cards are halfway towards visa or mastercard using it through another party is still better.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Local/national banks with their bankcards and payment platforms

    I don't know what it's like where you're from, but here in the UK all banks use Visa, MasterCard or Amex for their bank cards.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    You can pay using SEPA bank transfer or direct debits or some other options.

    That the bank is using VISA/MasterCard etc for their cards is still a better option than using them directly because they barely do anything. Heck European debit cards don't even work like they do in the US. You HAVE to 2FA them.

    Most of the time in Europe our transactions go through things like iDeal, Bancontant, Wero etc

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Not only that, but even if you manage to find a platform that isn't directly owned by them, they are payment service networks. They are there along the way to facilitate transactions and manage relationships with merchant services. There is no escaping them.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    In Italy we have PagoBancomat, but that's a debit card, not a credit card.

    If you buy online, you can also use PayPal connected directly to a bank account, no credit card necessary (PayPal is also a shitty company, but sometimes there's no alternative...)

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Creditcards just exist so people buy more shit to fund corporate greed anyway.

    For businesses they are annoying since it is more work to do the administration, they cost more and there is a greater risk involved.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    There are some surviving national circuits like PagoBancomat (as the sibling comment from Scrollone) and Dankort (Denmark) and girocard (Germany). My personal impression is that they are slowly going out of fashion in favor of visa/mastercard only (probably because they can't offer better prices than them).

    I don't see a solution to the duopoly, apart from lobbying politicians to support this national payment infrastructure. Especially in recent times I can also see how some governments might not want to rely entirely on two US companies for running their entire economy, so something might move on that side, so there's hope on that side.

    The EU has already been moving on this front in the last years by forcing the banks to provide programming interfaces to initiate bank payments, and that's why you can now see more and more options to "pay by bank" online in EU. These online payments generally skip card circuits and run over normal SEPA bank transfers.

    More info here on the last part: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Because crypto isn't really a currency as much as it is a volatile asset. Businesses require stability to run coherently, and utilizing something like crypto currency which could massively increase or decrease in value following a breaking news report isn't something that large organizations can really tolerate.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    The death grip that they have over everything is more than anything in history.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Well, banks here in NL have been using VISA and Mastercard cards, but that is more so people can use them in America/Canada and some other countries which are still behind on chipped cards.

    But over the years I have seen 40-50 different payment platforms and most of them do not use Visa or Mastercard.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    I have been exploring ways to pay for things anonymously... in Canada and the US they do have prepaid credit cards (rhat are sadly visa or Mastercard based) that can be paid for in cash and activated without the need for a name or anything. Meaning unless you activated it on your phone or clearnet without a VPN it will be difficult to link it to you directly. Doubly so if you wait long enough for the store's surveillance footage to be cycled through (few places keep security camera footage in perpetuity, many delete stuff from a few months back or a year or so back unless something suspicious happened, meaning the footage of you buying the thing will be gone.)

    So that's one trick to be able to pay for something with a credit card without it being immediately obvious who you are. Much like paying in cash, another thing i am getting back into.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Ow and btw Mullvad can be both by sending them an envelope with cash

    I am afraid I don't understand. You can buy credit cards by mailing cash to Mullvad?

    Using your bankcard with chip to pay is already obfuscated in most situations on the receiving end since a lot of cash registers will group the transactions together and way out once.

    I actually rarely pay for things with my bank card. I usually buy with credit card and that will always leave a trace. But it is good to know that.

    The whole no cash purchase over 3K or 10K is honestly crap. They did that in Quebec last year and are going to do that throughout Canada. I never paid for anything with that much cash, but I still find it shit.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Large cash payments may be needed in places and during times where non-cash are difficult or impossible. I have family who live in countries where having bank transfers would be cumbersome and are riddled with corruption, so I bring them cash. I once did get 9,500$ in cash (below the 10K limit) and they were paying for repairs for their home and the workers could only accept cash. Having a digital platform would have made all this impossible.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Well that is generally not an issue it is more the receiving end they check. If you take it from your bank there is a non issue besides maybe at a border.

    And most completely corrupt countries don’t care either way

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    i wish gnu taler was widespread

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Something like that will kinda work, but using it will flag your transactions if you use it as a business. That's the issue with a lot of these things is that we need to have some kind of balance between privacy and authorities being able to do anything against terrorism etc. And yes you can find terrorists based on transactions.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    No I have seen real world examples of criminals being prosecuted because of what people on my field (accountancy) found during our work. That shits there for a reason.

    This was company data though, which should be semi transparent anyway

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Welllllllll, Taler is actually exactly the wrong suggestion for this usecase, because Taler requires all spends to be redeemed from Vendor to Issuer non-anonymously, which gives the Issuer 100% control and say which vendors are allowed, which is exactly the thing Visa and Mastercard are using to exert control.

    If there were competing Taler networks and Steam supported all of them, that might be okay because one of them might happen to not be dicks, but if there's just one or two then Taler is designed from the ground-up specifically to enable this bad outcome. It's actually one of their features!

    Sorry.

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