Getting rid of techofascist services
I've been working in the last few years of getting rid of big tech services. PayPal and Amazon are left. I've been questioning the need for PayPal in a world of virtual credit cards. My main reason for using it was security of purchase but I feel this need is no longer there. BTW, equivalent EU service to PayPal that is equally well accepted? Feels like this one may be more difficult to satisfy.
alternative in Europe: revolut is pretty popular, also it's a good cheap way to buy xmr dexes
Revolut is a data mining company that demands you use Google's services or an iPhone to use.
Also they advertise heavily on X which is a very bad sign.
PayPal is the easiest to get rid of in my view. I rarely use it for anything unless some website requires it.
Well then you still haven't got rid of it 🙂
My goal hasn’t been to get rid of it. But, it’s a service I rarely use. I could survive without it.
I need it and or venmo, owned by the same parasitical company, for work for client payments.
I've been happy not using Amazon since 2010!
For paper books, find a good local bookstore first. Then for online ordering, bookshop is good. B&N is iffy ethically - they helped crush a lot of smaller stores in the 90's, but they aren't part of the current tech giant oligarchy either. Target will usually have a section of best-sellers. If you have to buy from a big store, maybe offset it ethically by donating to a library.
For ebooks, Bookshop is good! They point out which of their ebooks have DRM and which don't. For some cases, you can also buy books directly from the publisher - these basically never have DRM in my experience. I mainly experience this with technical books and tabletop RPG books.
I think you're possibly looking for Wero and its predecessors (iDEAL, Giropay, etc)
It's relatively new in its current form, but I think it's being adopted across the EU at an alright rate
+1 for Wero! We have to get it adopted. If anyone's bank doesn't support it yet, and you need to switch banks for other reasons, best include Wero support among your criteria. ING is among those banks whose support for it is the best.
Right, successor of Paylib too. From a user standpoint, it's the same than Paypal except that it uses phone numbers for identifiers. It's supported by a lot of banks already (no need for additional app / account).
My main reason for using it was security of purchase
You can get the same with credit cards.
I find the discussion interesting. It's kind of like telling me you've eradicated Google from your life. I guarantee you that at some point in your daily traversal of the internet, you'll encounter some Google service or skunk works project. It's inevitable. At some point or another you're going to have to hold your nose and get a little dirty.....or go build a cabin on some hilltop and disconnect from all of society. I live in a tiny house on a 22 acre farm. As self sufficient as I endeavor to be, yes, I still have to use Amazon, or WalMart on occasion.
I am in a little place on land in nowhere and need to use amazon for some stuff. Big box stores are 40 plus miles away and they may be overpriced if they even have it.
I try to order direct but for some stuff I need amazon still. As to google I hope to change phone to open source but idk how yet.
We do the necessary with what we have. In the many decades on this planet, I've seen few instances where the 'all or nothing' mindset worked. It's unfortunate, but that's reality 101. So, you have to choose your battles.
Well, this is the point. Eradication may ne unachievable but that doesn't mean we have to stop breaking the chains. Its like saying Israel wants to wipe out Palestine and the rest of the world just watches (which is exactly what is happening unfortunately). We are surrounding our lives to those with power and money. As humanity, we need to find some lost dignity. We need to defend human dignity, and that comprises the right to privacy.
PayPal has always been a scam when credit cards exist.
IMO, the real use case for PayPal was really on the seller side.
When it was 2002 and you weren't a major business but just wanted to sell three old CDs on eBay or offer dog haberdashery online, it was by far the simplest way to accept a credit-card funded transaction.
We're still not a lot better there in 2025. Even with more modern platforms, you can't really get from zero to accepting cards directly in 15 minutes.
Yes, it a scam for us the buyers. They want PayPal, not us.
For Amazon the best replacement would be Bol.com if you're in the Benelux. If not, shop locally (except for malls).
There is also Coolblue
Everybody here arguing over how useful/useless Amazon is for them.
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Poor New Zealanders out there in the corner, still living their lives without ever seeing a single Amazon box thrown at their porch.
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But none of you thought about them Kiwis, did you? No. You only think about yourself. Good job, keep it up.
Keep up the good work. I don't know what you need. Mostly I get by cash, Dankort (Danish "credit" card) or Visa in some rare situations. Don't buy anything from Amazon anymore.
God I love dankort, amazing system. Really wished more people in DK made use of it. Britain selling their own card system out to MasterCard was a actual crime against the population. Apparently cash usage in DK has crashed since I was last there 5 years ago though : (.
EU service to PayPal
Maybe SEPA Instant, but that's a protocol for bank transfer. Or just use a normal payment gateway provided by the website. Or use Apple/Google Pay on sites where it's supported.
Sureley google pay/Apple pay IS eventi worse
I only use PayPal for reoccurring donations to my local library, but I see your dilemma. Using credit cards is also great for exploiting the various rewards systems as well, as long as you pay your balance every month.
I use PayPal way too much. There just isn't anything else besides entering my cc # and I dont dig that daddyo.
https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/education/basics/virtual-credit-cards see if your bank offers virtual credit card numbers
Amazon is pretty necessary in much of the US. Between big corporate stores like Walmart and Dollar General and online shopping it's really difficult for smaller stores to exist anymore. If there's any market, the big stores will come in, undercut whatever they sell, push the small stores out and then probably just go bankrupt and leave the area without anything. And the fact that much of the US is rural and our infrastructure, especially in rural areas, is old and/or underdeveloped means it could take hours to get to a store and back. And because the big stores only really carry the basics, it's really difficult to get your hands on stuff that's less common. That's where online shopping fills the gap.
I live in a medium sized major city that doesn't allow Walmart to get subsidies their business model relies on to buy up land and buildings on the cheap to help take over markets, and does at least try to keep space for small businesses, and I even have a hard time finding stuff. But doesn't help that even in most of the major cities, transportation is crap because politicians are owned by the fossil fuel companies and so public transit can't get much tax money and traffic is insane not to mention the gas prices are quite high here compared to much of the US even. And the property is super expensive primarily because so much prime real-estate is unoccupied by investors to keep the prices high. So its difficult to set up a specialty shop. I'm sure many other cities have similar issues, but I'm most familiar with this one.
As for Amazon in particular, I used them primarily because their return policy is the best and these days all of the online shops are as likely to send you a used or broken item as a new one and secondarily because at least in my city, the shipping is pretty quick. No other online stores can match it. But that said, they have started to move away from carrying quality brands and primarily sell cheap junk since that's where the profit is especially with their ability to price based on data they've mined from data brokers about you. That's why sites like Keepa and camelcamelcamel are essential to check and track actual prices they offer in addition to doing comparison shopping.
Disagree. I lived in bum fuck nowhere most of my life and rarely ever needed Amazon. People are just lazy idiots that cabt do a simple web search for the same product. Amazon sucks ass now too, its not cheaper and the products are trash. Buy direct.
I couldn't disagree more. Amazon is a choice. You have to choose other options and move away from the mindset of immediacy.
Just use eBay