I’ve heard for years these companies are horrible (musk ran paypal for a while right?) Are there any easy to use alternatives? Well besides CashApp, I’ve heard they aren’t great either. Just a reminder to anyone using venmo to change your default privacy settings from public to me only.
I must have used PayPal at most three times in the last 10 years. What is the use case making it so irreplaceable? I transfer with my bank.
depending on where you live, most banks for example in the US already use Zelle for direct money transfers from bank to bank account.
generally removes the middleman of the money transfer
Zelle is trash!!
First, a few banks got together to make Zelle to compete with PP or Venmo. Here the issue, when you have a problem the bank pushes you to zelle support, but then zelle says it’s a bank issue and sends you there.
We started using Zelle more at work and ACH (vs check ot CC) but Zelle is often easier as more customers can have a Zelle setup vs ACH (at least for our business). Anyway, when we have an issue, it’s always a nightmare trying to get any help! Zelle is “from the banks” yet independent still. We, like many small businesses, started that bullshit 3%convenience fee surcharge bc they’re looking to cut expenses (and it was this at least vs employees).
Paper money
This or Monero are the best options
It really depends.
I’ve heard for years these companies are horrible
PayPal (and by extension Venmo) is primarily considered bad by people just because they have really crappy fees and account closure policies, as well as owning Honey, the browser extension that stole a ton of affiliate revenue from people and gave it to PayPal instead, while hiding the best coupons to protect profit margins of certain stores.
Well besides CashApp, I’ve heard they aren’t great either.
Cash App isn’t great, but I’d argue it’s better from a usability and feature standpoint for most people, and doesn’t have as many scandals under its belt.
Are there any easy to use alternatives?
Most banks in the U.S. support Zelle, and because it’s widely available on most banking platforms, it’s quite likely someone will have it if you ask, even if they haven’t set it up yet. (it’s not hard to set up, they can just opt-in within their banking app and they’re done)
At the end of the day, the most privacy preserving, and least likely to support a bad company medium of exchange, that most people will actually accept is probably going to be cash. Keep some on ya!
If you want solely digital transfers, meaning no cash, but don’t want PayPal, Venmo, or Cash App either, you’ll be hard pressed to find a good solution. Most banks have easy transfer tools, but only for transferring between accounts at that bank, so it only works if the people you want to send money to have the exact same bank as you.
You can always try Monero like other people here have suggested, but that’s gonna have the issues of it being fairly annoying to acquire (most exchanges don’t let you withdraw it, or will suddenly stop you at random points for “fraud reasons” and it might take a while to get more, and LocalMonero, a really good marketplace for it, shut down), most people and businesses not taking it (most people have never even heard the name in their lifetime, let alone have the app or digital infrastructure required to accept it or take it as payment), and the fact that it’s not your currency, it’s a separate one with its own value, meaning it can fluctuate.
Personally, I’d recommend trying Zelle if you can, if anyone you need to pay uses the same bank as you, see if your bank has built-in internal transfers, use cash for the most privacy while still being something most people will take, and use Monero for anything else you can use it for if that’s reasonable for your use cases.
Monero (XMR).
I’m aware that Fake Internet Money™ is not without issues. But if you’re going to accept tips/payments in any flavor of buttcoins, XMR (for privacy and speed) and BTC (for ubiquity) are the ones to fuck with.
Need help? PM me.
