Alternative to paypal
Hi all. With the view of paypal CEO being one of the people advancing the currently rolling our agenda in the US, the time is ripe to talk about replacement for paypal.
Here is what paypal bought over the years... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal
There is a paypal button on almost every website, for every donation, for every payment in almost all the shops. And then there is venmo and other solutions that paypal bought... And the result is... we see the news.
There is an alternative, though. It is called Taler https://www.taler.net/en/features.html It is an open source digital payment solution, that has a lot of support from the EU and the NLnet. https://nlnet.nl/taler/
As far as I know, there isn't a commercial implementation of it yet. But there could be.
It could take a cut of each payment, like the paypal does and use its profits to fund initiatives benefitting the Web of Life and us, humans, as part of it.
It could be collectively owned, set up in a way that makes it impossible to sell or take over.
There is soooo much work that needs funding. And there is a project that could show the way...
What do you think? If there is interest, maybe let's set up some calls to talk about what could be done?
Ivana Tue 11 Feb 2025 6:59PM
@Amin Saleem there will be challenges, but the way things are now, anybody who donates to charity via paypal, actually funds also what is going on in the US. Anybody who buys anything and pays by paypal or any of the solutions they bought, also funds the nasty chaos that we are witnessing.
Hugh Barnard Tue 11 Feb 2025 6:53PM
I've had this running on a test system and talked to Christian Grothoff a little, last year. I'm interested in it as a non-crypto alternative currency though.
Not mad about the fact that most of it is Java though.
Ivana Tue 11 Feb 2025 7:01PM
I have talked to the Banque de France (as I am based in Franca) some time ago, and at that point, they said as long as it registers as an EMI, it shouldn't be treated differently to any other projects of that kind. There is a long list of requirements it will need to fulfill to get a license, but that is as expected dealing with people's money.
spirit Tue 11 Feb 2025 9:38PM
Here is a list of other possible alternatives related to PayPal-like services…
https://alternativeto.net/software/paypal/?license=opensource
spirit Tue 11 Feb 2025 9:39PM
Also, in the blockchain world, the stablecoin ecosystem is becoming more mature and in many cases offer instant, near fee-less transactions… so that may be another thing to look into for a solution.
Sam Whited Tue 11 Feb 2025 11:08PM
As far as I know there is no way to actually convert Taler to and from real money; is that what you're suggesting?
Ivana Wed 12 Feb 2025 7:42AM
@Sam Whited if you look at this page.. this is how I understand it: Taler is a wallet that holds 'taler coins'. To get those taler coins, a user needs to send their fiat currency to the 'exchange'. Exchange loads taler coins into the user's wallet (which is installed as an extension to the browser). On a merchant website that has Taler as one payment method, the user can pay with one click. No card number required. No name, address etc. (Unless you want something delivered to your house). So, at this point the Fiat money is still in the 'exchange'. Exchange knows that the customer has paid the merchant, and merchant can retrieve fiat from the exchange into his/her bank account. So Exchange serves as a kind of 'escrow' ie holds money until a transaction is complete, and then it moves the funds to the vendor.
How do you understand it?
Sam Whited Wed 12 Feb 2025 10:50AM
@Ivana that's my understanding as well; as far as I know, there are no exchanges though. What I'm asking is, are you proposing building an exchange, or something else?
Ivana Wed 12 Feb 2025 11:22AM
@Sam Whited The code exists - but its commercial implementation does not (as far as I know). So that is what I am thinking of https://docs.taler.net/taler-exchange-manual.html .
To get a team of people together who can set up an end-to-end solution (in sandbox). To go into production, there would have to be a legal entity, license to operate as an EMI, there will need to be some capital raised, and so on. We could try to get some funding for it, as this payment solution already has quite a bit of support from big entities in the EU?
When it gets to setting up the legal entity, the important thing is to make it impossible to sell or take over, and collectively owned.
Amin Saleem · Tue 11 Feb 2025 6:49PM
Great idea, the challenge would be to get consumer awareness and trust initially. If it can be offered at a lower cost than PayPal and we can get some initial big names in the charity sector to endorse it, it would work well.