You kinda need a payment processor unless you want people to start mailing cash in the post.
Before people ruined it this was one of the ideas behind crypto
I hate so much everytime I remember what cryptocurrency was supposed to be and what has become.
For a little while I bought coffee and strawberries with Bitcoin back more than 9ish years ago. It was pretty cool easy with the first apps.
Worked well.
I got some works my a couple of contracts. So not so much Fiat was needed. Only later.
If nothing else it’s a bit of a faff. But again you’d need someone to convert it to fiat for it to be useful in every day life, which isn’t super removed from a payment processor. It’s pretty much difficult to get away from a middleman somewhere.
The idea is it becomes the fiat
Direct bank transfers. Those are a thing.
p.s
They commented, I replied. Is it that exotheric of an idea? I can transfer money anywhere I want, to any bank account. You want to support someone, send them money directly.
There was a world before PayPal.
That’s still a payment processor; just now you’ve completely deanonimized both parties.
What is this? Mafia? If you have my account number that is it. You can send me money but you can’t get anything out of it.
Widely sharing your bank details isn’t usually considered a great idea.
My bank number account is a string of numbers. Besides the country and bank entity code, no other information can be obtained and no movements can be ordered on it by a non titular.
Money can be transfered in but the account can’t be moved by anyone but the titular.
You’d be happy to post it on Lemmy with any required routing information?
If I was a creator of content, looking to have a direct way for people to support me, yes.
Are you interested in sponsoring my idiocy? Save your hard earned income; I wouldn’t pay myself.
A simple no would’ve done.
Good morning! I apologize for leaving this hanging yesterday.
I am aware that making account numbers is highly unadvised by banks but I do know as well special accounts exist for public facing entities and professionals where withdrawing from it requires a very long and tedious process, with several security steps and verifications.
There is a local foundation that almost plasters their windows with poster with their IBAN. Local sports clubs do the same. The opportunities for malicious actors are plentiful, yet these entities do it, safely.
I don’t doubt you can point me to some security flaw or loop hole but, getting back to the where this conversation started, cutting the middle man out should be a priority.
Those same payment processors can unilaterally change their terms of service and deny creators of their income. Paypal has done it. I wonder who else.
In my country I already have a transfer subsystem where I can give you my phone number and you can use it to transfer money directly to me. All national banks are part of and own that system.
Fintechs are shady or have too many strings attached.
Nice to meet you.
The threat model for a local sports club putting a bank account on their window is completely different than a popular content creator posting it on the internet. I can’t speak definitively about your country, but it’s probably safe to assume they have business accounts, which are different than personal accounts, incur fees for having them open, fees for deposits, fees for transfers etc - negating the monetary benefit you see from “cutting out the middle man”.
Banks typically don’t like you running businesses on personal accounts and they will notice. The scenario this particular creator describes will result in lots of small irregular payments and few withdrawals from the account - that’s pretty much a textbook example of usage that will trigger a KYC red flag at a bank. Now your account is being investigated and has a chance of being closed/frozen.
We’ve not even gotten into international transfers, malicious “fans” trying to reverse payments/reporting you for fraud etc which could end up with your account frozen, the fact you now have to build and maintain your own infrastructure for web hosting, video sharing, customer service - which will eat time, money or both (and unless you’re particularly technical you’re likely to need several middlemen). You’ll likely also need to deal with a drop in users/income because you’ve now made paying you significantly more difficult for many users.
Frankly, because you think there’s an easy alternative doesn’t mean there is one. There’s a reason these middlemen exist - because everything I’ve described up there is difficult, time consuming and not what these creators want to be doing. Like them or not, many creators wouldn’t be creators without them.
