It amazes me that the anti-crypto crowd would rather be at the mercy of the payment processors that they hate than to accept any crypto transactions.
Crypto isn't perfect, don't get me wrong, but these "all crypto bad" types prefer you not to use it, even for donations because otherwise you are catering to those evil ancaps and contributing to climate change.
Unfortunately, there really is no other option for those who want to donate or purchase things online (semi)-anonymously and/or without a man in the middle. Maybe something like GNU Taler will fix that, but I don't know who uses that or how that works.
@Spingebill Apparently, crypto being used as an investment rather than a medium of exchange was a psyop to undermine it's use, but this is all a rumor and I have no confirmation on it.
Work at any wagie job and there's gonna be one coworker who is literally Carlos Matos. There were a lot of pump and dump scams at first, and then when the pandemic hit and everyone jumped on the Robin Hood/Gamestop stock meme the craze after that for the get rich quick types was to make money on shitcoins because they heard the story of the guys in the 2010s who invested and got rich on it.
So a lot of this was being pushed by newly minted "crypto millionares" who went from wagies to living like rappers, and I feel this story resonated with wagies hard. The dream of wagies is to escape the cage.
I'm sure at least some of the crypto millionares very well were psyops as well, but many of them are like Carlos Matos who believe that this shitcoin will make them live large. You can sus them out easily if they're staring at shitcoin graphs on a centralized exchange over using BTC and XMR.
Lately that's not even the biggest psyop IMO, the biggest one is online gambling. No joke, Eddie from Stake is a crypto millionare who makes assloads of cash from people depoting ltc and similar (gamblers love LTC because it's fast meaning the "money's in" faster). If you're bored do a deep dive on Eddie and Kick/Stake. He's using the dodgy regulatory environment with the tactics of Golden Palace at it's peak (which was sponsoring so much shit for fame at one time) to his advantage.
@PurpCat @Spingebill
>The dream of wagies is to escape the cage.
The only true way to ever "escape the cage" is to find a way to be self-employed (and be successful at it) or to homestead and be 100% self-reliant (grow your own food, generate you own electricity, etc). Even before crypto, people who won the lottery were under the impression that they would never have to work again, but eventually the money dries up.
A lot of them think they can get rich quick by being an e-celeb, gambler, or betting on crypto/stocks. The truth is, it never works and they end up back at McDonald's.
Hence the /biz/ memes of wojacks working at McDonald's.
@SockPuppet @PurpCat @Spingebill Unfortunately, it's hard to do the latter without doing the former right now, due to inflation. So unless you win the lottery or inherit a bunch of money/land from a recently deceased relative, there is either scam or be dependent on states and systems.
I mean, even Luke Smith had to scam credit card companies in order to afford all that country-side land.
https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/making-free-money-off-credit-cards/
The whole reason the "Nissan Driver" stereotype exists is because a lot of people found out that you can get a temp tag, never ever get it registered or insured, and save a lot of money that way. I've seen cars with expired temp tags and nothing is done about them. The worst that can happen is you might get ticketed, as long as you don't get into a wreck with no insurance/registration you're in the clear. Cops in my area literally seem to not give a shit about this.
Sure it's only under $100 a year you're not paying, but it's lax compared to Europe where "your car is a Euro 5 diesel and not Euro 6, sorry you can't drive in this city".
@PurpCat @SockPuppet @Spingebill I can never get away with that. So many nearby towns here are the ones that intentionally make their speed limits low and hide cops everywhere because their income comes from ticketing people. I take extra caution in those areas (or try to avoid them as much as possible), but if you are just 1/2mph above the speed limit for more than 5 seconds, expect blue and red.
@SockPuppet @PurpCat @Spingebill Regardless on how you drive, it's inevitable that you will get into some accident or be pulled over, one way or another. That's why employers don't care about traffic violations when they ask about your criminal record.
@PurpCat @SockPuppet @Spingebill That's different. They care about safety and getting the delivery, passenger to their destination on time. You are also driving someone else's car most of the time.
But ubereats/doordash/grubhub? Or many low paying jobs? That's your own car.
In fact there was a contract with a private corporation pushing for a quota for the speed cams.
https://www.techdirt.com/2017/02/13/court-orders-small-ohio-speed-trap-town-to-refund-3-million-unconstitutional-speeding-tickets/
Another one that got shut down was also run by one:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/27/ohio-speed-camera-contempt/2465791/
@SockPuppet @Griffith @PurpCat @Spingebill Aren't most tolls for privatized roads?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio
Another one was more recent and blew up hard with a court ordering them to refund tickets:
https://www.techdirt.com/2017/02/13/court-orders-small-ohio-speed-trap-town-to-refund-3-million-unconstitutional-speeding-tickets/