Crypto is not a better alternative for customers. Crypto is a better alternative for merchants, but primarily because it generally protects merchants against fraud. There are other reasons, but mostly it's a result of credit card companies, banks, and regulations, rather than PayPal itself.
No one wants to actually be responsible for credit card processing, but they want to reap the rewards of it. So PayPal is what you get.
As a consumer though, until crypto offers a compelling reason for me to use, it's nothing but risk for me.
I use crypto as a consumer so that I can self-custody a form of electronically transmissible currency. After seeing the Canadian government, certainly what anyone would call a "free, developed country" extrajudicially freeze citizens' bank accounts because of their political beliefs, I believe it's more important than ever to self-custody one's finances.
Nope. That article glossed over what was going on in favor of quoting the lawyer for the protesting group. TD just didn't want to deal with it and moved to give the funds over to the Supreme Court:
> Speaking to Canada’s CTV News on Friday, a representative for the top 10 North American financial institution revealed that “TD asked the court for the acceptance of the funds. They were raised via crowdfunding and deposited in personal accounts at TD.” Approximately $1 million is the money raised for the Canadian truckers and not refunded by GoFundMe, and the other $0.4 million is made up of direct donations. The bank said it was applying to entrust the funds with the authorities in the hope that “These may be used to distribute them in accordance the donor’s intentions and/or returned to those donors who requested refunds, but whose eligibility cannot be established by TD.”
I have heard this claim before from people about freezing protestors accounts, and it all comes down to either 'someone proposed it but it never happened' or 'some article that mentions something but further digging means it was either a private action or something benign.'
> The freeze is part of a class-action lawsuit filed by residents and business owners in Ottawa against protest organisers and participants, as well as against all those who donated funds after 4 February.
What does this have to do with the government using extra-judicial powers?
The number of people that use PayPal/Stripe/Google other 3rd party instead of acquiring their own merchant account directly with a bank and processing it themselves, or at least own their own merchant account and use a 3rd party to handle the integration.
Sorry, but I see this time and time again, people complaining about PayPal/Stripe/etc.
No one wants to actually be responsible for credit card processing, but they want to reap the rewards of it. So PayPal is what you get.
As a consumer though, until crypto offers a compelling reason for me to use, it's nothing but risk for me.