KeeyaFeb 1

PSA if you do business as an artist or pay/tip others. Since another one of my friends got one of their accounts banned on a platform needed for income, please remember these things:

If you are an artist and create invoices, via for example Paypal, only ever put "art commission" or similar onto them. Do not give them any further information.

If you pay or tip an artist, only ever put your nick/name, transaction ID or agreed text into any description field. If nothing is needed, put nothing there.

Do not link websites or social media accounts that remotely contain nsfw material on your income platforms. It sucks, but it's not worth it.

Do not ever use a Payment/income platform's messaging service to discuss a commission or send media over it. Use something that is completely unrelated and don't "connect" these services unless absolutely necessary. If they are connected, use something else to talk about the work. Things you can use safely include Matrix and Signal.

And finally, if you need to share large files/media, do not use stuff like Google / One / Whatever drive. There are things like wormhole to send larger amount of data encrypted. If you absolutely need to use a corporate "drive", encrypt the files you share there so they can't "scan" it while it's stored there.

These things also do not only apply to nsfw art commissions. Who knows what payment processors will object to tomorrow or what some "ai" algorithm scanner will flag as a ToS violation. And be aware that anything you talk about on non encrypted platforms, will be scanned by the operator of it.

Show threadFennek | Commissions OPEN 🦊🐾Feb 1
@keeya I never will understand their problem and why they make it so hard for us. They get Money from us and would better worldwide payments exist I would leave paypal.
Show threadKeeyaFeb 1

@fennek There is theoretically "Wero", but it'll be a meme at this rate because it's made by banks and they failed to understand what Paypal is nor why it is so successful.

Crypto currencies were the thing that could have turned the balance of power in payments. Banks and con artists discovered that quickly and now those systems are just useless "games" for billionaires.

Show threadArikFeb 1

@keeya @fennek Wero, because it's made by banks and controlled by banks, is relatively neutral. The banks themselves have their own rules, so if your bank doesn't like what you do you can switch banks and still receive money.

There are banks who are friendly to sex work and actively develop features that assist sex workers - for example Yoursafe (at yoursafe.com) allows you to transact without revealing your real name and cooperate with sex work friendly payment processors.

Show threadKeeya

@pq1r @fennek One huge problem with Wero is that it's practically nowhere. I cannot use it for anything, my bank doesn't even support it. Because of this, adoption is super slow and will stall. Ppl will stop hoping for it being a replacement eventually and with the momentum gone, it will be forgotten. That's what I meant.

They need to make tools and APIs readily available. Talk to ecommerce platform providers, actively go to the vendors of those systems and offer them help to implement and listen to what they need. Otherwise it will fail.

Paypal is so much more than just a worldwide SEPA. I feel the ones that make Wero do not understand what Paypal is and why it is everywhere.

Feb 1 at 12:44pmWeb
Show threadArikFeb 1

@keeya @fennek Wero is slowly being deployed in Western Europe. Here in the Netherlands they expect a year long deployment phase where they change iDeal icons and logos to "iDeal | Wero" and slowly get people to transition from the extremely successful and popular iDeal system to Wero.

The big banks are behind it, so given their marketing budget - it will spread in Europe like it or not. The bank I mostly use already converted all the logos and sent me a "don't worry, just keep paying as usual" letter.

I think the slow spread is mostly out of desire for the project to succeed. Banks are not start-ups that prioritise growth over anything, so taking it slow is an understandable strategy. Eventually it will show up in your banking up.

Show threadKeeyaFeb 1
@pq1r But that's not what I meant. Yes, it slowly exists. But Paypal is more than a money transaction frontend. I get nothing from it showing up in my banking system. I need to have the option to use Wero over Paypal and Stripe in shop systems or Kofi/Patreon. But there is just nothing there. What they need to do is actively approach all those ecommerce platforms so it gets integrated into everything where Paypal currently is. And that is going way too slow.
Show threadArikFeb 1

@keeya Yeah, of course.

Here in the Netherlands, iDeal (the predecessor of Wero) is basically in every Dutch webshop. Even international sellers offer iDeal - you can use it to check out of, for example. AliExpress. It comes in the packages that payment processors (for example Ayden) offer their customers.

The problem is the international platforms that have to receive card payments as well, like those you mentioned - Kofi and Patreon. They don't want to lose the income from international customers, so they will have to receive card payments too. That's still going to be a problem.

The US - another large market - is developing something similar to Wero called "FedNow". I think that once that goes live there will be a real alternative to cards for those companies too.