You don't have to use a US card processor, there are European options. The fact is that these processors have millions of companies using them, handling probably billions of transaction every year. They are much more reliable than European banks, who will close the bank accounts of sites and journalists writing things the banks don't agree with.
As for donations, fair enough. Why not get your donations to an account outside of Germany to escape that headache?
> Again, middle men. Middle men that are going to censor you for whatever reason - no matter your political direction, by the way.
I'm aware of the censorship concern. Still it's worth a shot to try to bundle your content with like minded, you don't necessarily need middle men for this.
All in all, something will have to change with the way online content is consumed and produced - at least if we want to take full advantage of the blessings of the information age instead of rotting at the mercy of a media oligopoly.
You're still at the mercy of what the US networks deem acceptable. Even if you are German residing in Germany, have a German bank, your customer is German residing in Germany and has a German bank... say, you're a sex worker which is completely legal in Germany. And yet, you'll get booted off of anything where the US card networks are involved.
> As for donations, fair enough. Why not get your donations to an account outside of Germany to escape that headache?
Still tax evasion. Yes, I could create something like a Maltese shell company, but that is even more of an effort to set up and maintain.
As for Visa/Mastercard - yes you are at their mercy. They are not perfect, but what are your options right now, realistically? Except for manual verification of payments?
Yes, yet another middle man, doing exactly the same as PayPal - and at least Google is known for banning people for having too many refunds or tripping some anti-fraud ML model. Not something I'd trust either as an user or as an author.
> Creators need to come together under common umbrellas to get paid. That's what traditional publications were in the end. If people could put their egos aside a little, they could start making some good bundles.
Again, middle men. Middle men that are going to censor you for whatever reason - no matter your political direction, by the way.
> You are dead wrong on accounting. Nobody has to make formal invoices for all their subscribers.
I'm German and I'd prefer to not have my donations re-classified as taxable commercial income. Our government's interpretation on what defines "gewerblich" can be pretty insane - you have to provide a full imprint with name and address on your stupid cat photo blog if you're reaching more people than your family. There have been a number of people in my Twitter feed who got into serious trouble for anything from running donation pools for their pets, beer money-style donations, and most recently Onlyfxns.
Our government is braindead when it comes to realities of digital life, and so are many others. Too many people just rely on never appearing on the government's radar.
> It's easy to accept SEPA payments and many other payment forms without credit cards through Stripe. Those germans who don't have credit cards have debit cards and they work the same.
As said in the first point, you're again at the mercy of a middle man that's hard to hold accountable. My local bank I can at least file a complaint at the banking regulator, good luck with any of the US institutions.