I don’t know if it has to be simple. It has to be what the customer has.
I know a potential user would eventually use Storj as backup who has Paypal but no credit card. And no, Storj tokens are not an option.
Isn’t access to visa/mastercard/amex/whathaveyou is what every customer has? I have never seen anyone who has a jar of cash in the mattress, PayPal, and nothing else. It’s very implausible.
Something tells me that user will benefit from getting a credit card much more than storj from starting to accept PayPal just for that one user (even if I assume it is just a matter of a flicking a switch as they IIRC use stripe).
But this wasn’t the question. The question was “better-than-cards method of payment”. And PayPal is definitely worse.
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This sounds like a very US-American view of the world.
But there is a world outside of the US and people might prefer / have other forms of payment.
That particular user won’t get a credit card. This is a matter of fact.
If Storj does not want Paypal users then be it.
Here is what others are doing:
You may pay with any credit card or PayPal.
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List looking at pricing alone, it’s double of storj. And I don’t think they offer decentralization, CDN, or other goodies to make it a fair comparison. Not sure how is this relevant in the storj context.
it look’s like only for 60 Day?
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Does not PayPal offer a debit card where you live? They were announcing a deal with visa and Mastercard few years back in EU
Last time I checked they were competitor with a similar product. Basically what Storj is now offering (after ImpossibleCloud) as Commercial SNO Program with its data center partners.
And they (ImpossibleCloud) do offer decentralization: https://www.impossiblecloud.com/decentralized-architecture-faq
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Yes looks like it.
Let’s wait what Storj comes up with with the new free trial.
Great, you have successfully defeated a strawman :).
Back to the original discussion: visa and Mastercard networks are the most popular methods of payment in the world. To the point of even PayPal you insist on preferring for some reason (I have a lot to say about the whole company, but will spare this for another time) making deals with the networks to get people to use PayPal even in this roundabout way.
That what was my comment about. Easiest and most popular are visa and Mastercard. And I’ve exhausted my arguments.
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Really I don’t know.
But that is not the relevant point.
The potential user I am talking about (it’s not me) has all payment instruments he needs and can pay basically everywhere where it matters to him. He simply does not want an additional card to manage and to keep track of.
And certainly he is not interested in getting a card only for Storj let alone to start diving into Cryptos. It is Paypal or nothing. (Or other stuff that we use in Germany for payment 
)
That’s fine. Looks like rather inconvenient way to limit him/herself to a single commercial US company as a primary and only payment instrument but it’s none of anybody’s business how they prefer to manage their finances indeed.
This discussion is orthogonal to everything else.
And frankly, if unsupported payment method is a barrier to using a service — that wasn’t a serious user to begin with: the value of using a preferred payment method is minuscule in the grand scheme of things. It’s just a tool.
Like refusing to buy a screwdriver to hang a picture because so far a hammer was sufficient and not hanging a picture as a result… while enjoyment of seeing the picture over years would have totally made up for inconvenience of owning a screwdriver. (I know, my analogies are crap).
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Absolutely. I really can’t say anything negative about Paypal using it for more than 20 years.
I find nothing easier than entering an email and a password into a form to pay.
But really I do not want to convince you to prefer Paypal too. It is just that people are different and have different preferences or reasons. That’s all.
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It’s pretty ignorant to think people pay for everything with a credit card. We live in a digital payment economy with many different forms of digital payment, I don’t need to give an example of this. But i will give you example of how stupid it is for people to depend on 1 source of digital payment like a credit card. Let’s say you have a very high credit limit and you insert your credit card number onto a site that you don’t know if it’s really secure or not next think you know you see a charge onto your credit card for 2500 dollars when the thing you were paying for is 14.99. Then you find yourself in a really bad place chasing the credit card company to get your money back and waiting 4 months to do it or even longer and not getting your money back. If you still think a credit card is the best form of payment, a quick google search of this is right around the corner. I haven’t used a credit card for at least 10 years and for this i’m out. Also I was taught don’t spend money you don’t have which is what a credit card is a way for banks to make money off you.
Reasons to not use a credit card online is also a quick google search away. FYI
I hope it’s autofilled by password manager. So is credit card information.
That fine. A preference. But it sounds for that friend of your is a requirement.
Of course. Funnily the last time I had to use my credit card information it did not fill out the fields.
Then take my sentence as preferences or requirements.
BTW. What I really like about Paypal:
You can add different payment instruments
You can switch payment instruments any time
You can pay late or by installment
And the best thing is the buyer protection which I had to make use of a couple of times during the years with them. Always received my money back.
Aren’t these American too? And no, the potential user I am talking about is not limiting himself to Paypal as primary and only payment instrument.
As said:
In the Netherlands, most people won’t have a credit card. And I think this is true for large parts of Europe. We use debit cards for almost everything. And those don’t have the 16 digit numbers. Online payments here are almost all done through iDeal, which is a universal API for payments that banks participate in. When paying you are directed to your bank’s site to log in and confirm the payment and the bank then confirms that payment over API to the website you are making your purchase on. iDeal has since been taken over by a European cooperation of banks and is planned to roll out across Europe under the name Wero. I’m sure most other European countries already use something similar. The upside of Paypal is that they tie those different systems together. There is a reason why Paypal payments are offered in so many different places.
So yeah, I think your view is a little US-centric. Credit cards are generally quite a bad system. Credit card providers make most their money on late fees, which is kind of predatory to begin with. It’s expensive and inefficient and if you lose your card or your info leaks, anyone can just use it to pay for stuff online. Which is why, while I do have a credit card, I never carry it on me and I prefer to use other methods online. And yeah, you can dispute charges, but someone ends up paying for that and that cost needs to be covered elsewhere. You end up paying for that one way or the other.
Hope that context helps.
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For example:
Or we sometimes even make use of
I do have in Europe issued MC debit card that has 16 numbers and was able to add it as a payment method. Decades ago, while I was still a student, a bank clerk tried to issue me a credit card. Had no idea what the difference was, but I assumed if they are offering it so eagerly, it can’t be good for me, so I declined.
Anyways, I wanted to use tokens as a payment first, but the transaction fees are enormous these days, so elected to use the card. Hopefully it will actually work, but PayPal as a payment method would be nice as well.