Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday
@futzle
> 4.6% ? No, sorry, get a better platform

Agreed, but ... is there one? I've been watching the online payments space since the turn of the century, so I've seen a lot of experiments come and go (BuskPay, eGold). I've seen the DotCom bubble and the crypto bubble come and go.

In that time, the digitised credit/debit card infrastructure become - and stayed - the de facto standard for digital payments. A classic example of what Giblin and Doctorow call "chokepoint capitalism".
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday

Almost all of the online payment providers you interact with is backed by one of a handful of giant payment processors (eg PayPal and Stripe, or in China, AliPay and WeChatPay). That are essentially an API between you and the credit card company your card belongs to. That are, in turn. basically APIs between you and the company that hosts your bank accounts.

In other words, companies are squeezing on chokepoints between you and your bank.

(2/?)

#payments#OnlinePayments#ChokePointCapitalism
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

Email from #Stripe;

"New AI-powered Smart Disputes will be enabled in July 2025"

"We’ll automatically enable this new product on your account ...

If you win a dispute using Smart Disputes, you’ll pay 30% of the recovered disputed amount. If you don’t win, then no fees for Smart Disputes apply. The fee for receiving a dispute still applies to all disputes, including ones countered with Smart Disputes."

We need a vendor-neutral payment protocol that doesn't depend on enshittifiers

#payments