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Selling commissions without paypal
3 years ago
TL;DR: due to recent developments. Use https://boosty.to .
It is the current "best" option.
Also: it supports paypal.
Max Single Payment Limit is usually 10K₽ per single payment: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10201164
Does not work on week ends (starting after friday work hours in russia, they seem to have a cache so it lasts until that cache lasts)
tutorial https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46271108
Patreon also still works and there is a guide made by 
SunnyWay https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....YEPKfRhWExgEEM (not anymore 😓)
SunnyWayA sequel to this, https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10145978 but broader and going into more detail.
a guide in russian being maintained by a different person https://digitalbroccoli.com/2022/03.....o-crisis-2022/
Let me be frank, everybody loves paypal, and that is a big problem if you cannot use it.
Thai artists, Ukrainian artists, now even Russian artists. I have commissioned many with this problem.
Usually they all used a storefront which took the money from paypal and then turned the money to them.
Now. I am not an artist so i do not know which storefront is the best for you or how they actually work.
But i paid for commissions on several sites because the artists could not access paypal directly or paypal would not pay them directly.
So. Not being an artist i cannot know which service will work for you. But these have been a few i have used to pay artists in the past:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com which i have confirmed to work for ukrainians and thai artists the negative reviews i am reading mainly concerns people who did not read the terms of service and complaining they abide by their publicly available terms of service. The service still works but Payoneer does not work anymore so if you are a professionist use https://boosty.to
https://boosty.to is basically patreon but done by mail.ru that's all. It also supports getting paid via paypal.
https://flattr.com this does support thailand but does not support ukraine or russia
https://www.subscribestar.com seems to support ukraine and thailand but as for russia.,.. you better check with support[at]SubscribeStar.com in any case all the negative reviews i have read are from "fundamentalists" (right and left wing alike) that are disgusted by the content so if anything it means that they allow any content.
https://flurly.com is based on KaoRen, LLC which is the usual USArian company so you might get problems but it has been reported to me as working towards THAI people.
https://solar-staff.com russian based site that interfaces to you and to the costumer works for any "freelancing" job.
https://www.arbonum.com https://talentpowered.team i was told about these and... uhm.... okay this is the first time i see these sites, they sounds useful for... uh... the customers. 🤣😅🙂🤔🤔🤔🤔 hmmmm... *pockets*
storefronts that support digital goods:
https://lavky.com which i have confirmed to work for ukrainians.
https://www.ecwid.com this accepts many forms of payment including paypal, offers many forms of payment options: cash on delivery, phone order, bank deposit, invoice, etc. In the negative reviews i have read, their staff seems to be helpful in that they actually read and reply to them, aside from people who complain randomly about random things or are conspiracionists or did not read the ToS as usual in many negative reviews.
https://paysend.com when it works it works. BUT. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46232540/ seems like 5% to 9% of transactions have this problem.
https://dundle.com is an intermediary which takes various payment methods offers a wide variety of payouts the customer support seems helpful in that it reads and answers bad reviews offering people alternatives.
https://qiwi.com is basically ALIBABA with another name bad reviews mainly concern sellers OUTSIDE russia/china which complain about the high fees detailed in their ToS
https://squareup.com is another storefront it's based in USArian laws so though luck to be fair, the company owning it is Block inc. and it is INFAMOUS for draconic rules. Among others, clearly stated in their ToS: if you move outside your country of origin you will not be paid anymore. So if you plan on moving out of your country... yeah. In any case it supports very few countries and they are the usual
the following are services based on commission work that will pay the artist only AFTER the commission is done but require that the customer pays BEFORE the commission is done.
https://commiss.io which works wherever stripe works this includes thailand
https://arty.ooo this works wherever either WISE or PAYPAL work as they use either for payouts (this excludes RUSSIA)
https://artconomy.com this does direct bank transfers so if russian you might want to equip yourself with a "passthrough" bank.
https://www.artstation.com/ does direct payouts of commissions asked to the artists using their service using a variety of bank transfers including alternatives to SWIFT so you can get paid even in ukraine and thailand and (i hope) future russia. The customer pays with paypal as usual. the negative reviews i am reading seem to be mainly about buyers getting their accounts suspended for "no reason" which usually means the buyer did not read the ToS or tried to "do stuff" that artstation does not allow.
if you have a streaming service you can use these:
https://tipme.in.th which is a thai system to get people to pay a stream, it therefore bypasses paypal but bypasses SWIFT requirements, it interfaces with streamlabs so people can pay with paypal.
https://donatepay.ru this is an estonian system that is the equivalent of the above. It should work for russians doing streams, but i have never used it, sooo... uh... yeah
So. what if you are in Russia which is currently starting to get heavy sanctions and probably be excluded from SWIFT?
Eh. 😅 the only way is to do loops upon loops. And circles within circles. And you will lose a lot of money regardless, but you can keep going.
For now i suggest opening an account on an online bank that can operate without SWIFT and then transferring funds from that online bank to your bank.
https://www.bunq.com does not support SWIFT it is based on the NETHERLANDS and therefore uses those regulations the bad reviews seem to be mainly complaints about customers not being accepted as bank customers due to their IDs coming from countries like
https://www.revolut.com this supports transfer with and without SWIFT, however it is UK-based so it follows that state's regulations and in the bad reviews it is highlighted that it has recently blocked Russia and Belarus.
https://n26.com this supports incoming SWIFT transfers but not outgoing ones it is ITALY-based so uses that country as base regulations, in the bad reviews the staff is being helpful but it seems most of the problems are customers not putting up with bureaucracy. Spoiler Alert: if you wish to use any bank you will have to put up with bureaucracy and if your state, like germany, requires stuff like video identification as stringent identification... you will have to use that.
https://www.truemoney.com/foreigner this is basically a prepaid credit card you can use online and offline, it is based in CAMBODIA and therefore uses that country's regulations i suppose you could keep your funds there and then buy stuff in your country with the same credit card. 😅 it is confirmed to work with THAI users
http://www.dukascopy.bank a swiss bank because... uhm... you know... technically switzerland is free enough that it allows you to get a bank account there.
https://payeer.com , https://cash.app , https://www.binance.com are virtual currency banks. If you like having 50$ to 150$ of overhead fees per single transaction, highly random that change on a 10 second basis and cannot be known until the transaction is over with a chance of the transaction failing and the overhead costs be completely lost... be my guest. As i stated multiple times, the problem with virtual currencies is that the only people making money off of them are the miners. The ecology problem is overblown and frankly unbelievable since it states more than the total sum of power used by all data centers existing and due to a research that has been misread or read too quickly without understanding it. The real problem of cryptocurrencies is that the people profiting from it will not be YOU, the artist. Avoid this stuff. BUT IF YOU MUST here is a primer https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10152289 if anything there is no way to block crypto in any country so it's the kind of stuff you can use as a last resort.
So, the way to do it would be:
customer (usually using paypal) => storefront => online bank =>your bank
I know: this constant change is fees upon fees.
Fees from paypal.
Fees from the storefront.
Fees from the online bank.
Fees from your bank.
I... honestly do not know any way around that. Unless the customer has any way to do a wire transfer without using swift directly to you... uh... yeah though luck.
While for the last few journals i left the comments turned off... i honestly would like some feedback here.
I do not sell art myself, so, any way around idiotic ways devised to "hurt" Putin that are not going to hurt Putin at all are welcome and artists are already adding belt holes on the regular, i have received several comments from artists who sought to leave russia.
in any case.
• if you want to help ukrainians, here is a collection of links: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10148731/
• if you wish to help russian protestors, here is how: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10149166/
Thank you!
The best way would be for all Russian artists to use one service so that foreign commissioners have less problem with transfering money. But I guess it will take some time to get used to
For us mere mortals we have to make do.
And if the transaction fails... the money might as well have *poof*ed out of existance because paysend offers zero support, as they only use an AI for support which keeps repeating in a loop the same 4 or 5 unhelpful FAQs.
if you go online and check the reviews people complain a lot about this "detail".
i can’t found any info but with you and your journal now i think that i can try to find alternatives. thank you so much, really.
Patreon. You can make commission tiers there, then payout to Payoneer, then to your local bank account. This is using SWIFT tho, on Payoneer's end.
Friend of mine, ukrainian, used to get commission from me via patreon, everything has currently been held because they are changing their ToS. Apparently they wish to reduce fees to 0 for ukraine alone, but this "will take time" so they cannot pay out ukrainians right now... which... you know... they need it effin' now.
A different friend, who is russian, saw his funds "conscripted" to help "ukrainian refugees".
both these friends wanted to get out of ukraine but are currently fund-less and without the ability to get their funds online in any way. 😅
Which is not really helpful for my friend who is trying to get a ticket on a bus out but will not get paid.
In any case it's in the big ass huge TL;DR at the top of my journal right now because i am still updating this as we speak
3rd4rth grade crapshoot service.Have you heard about CashApp? Looks reliable and simple, but I'm not sure
But i overspent myself and i have very few funds left.
So now i am doing my part by spreading information, using what i learned while working with these people.
Since thai and ukraine and iranian artists all had these problems i have learned a few ways to "go around" the limitations.
🤣👍💖💯
trueBut now the Russians need to choose 1-2 options in one, so that it is convenient for everyone. It remains to wait a little.
Thank you for your great work, I know a little about you from other artists, it amazes me how you wholeheartedly support a huge number of artists. I just wish you good health and long life ❤️
it's mean a lot to all artists you willing to help!
If you like having 50$ to 150$ of overhead fees per single transaction, be my guest.
As i stated multiple times, the problem with virtual currencies is that the only people making money off of them are the miners.
The ecology problem is overblown and frankly unbelievable since it states more than the total sum of power used by all data centers existing and due to a research that has been misread or read too quickly without understanding it.
The real problem of cryptocurrencies is that the people profiting from it will not be YOU, the artist. Avoid this stuff.
i'm not against crypto but it's "finnicky" at best and the most popularly publicized ways seem to be the ones that make "other people" rich.
And people will not understand the difference, sooo... yeah.
Agree on user unfriendliness and am characterising it as such, it is a last resort. But it IS viable, essentially impervious to being geoblocked, and a very cheap one if you know how to use it correctly (which I do, I literally use it every day as an active trader lol). Just trying to get info out so people have as many options as possible
Still do not understand why everybody goes on and on about "burning forests" since i am a small scale photovoltaic producer and i could by myself with my measly 4740633 kWh produced last year power the entire cryptocurrency market of that year with a lot to spare, and i have a 3.7 MW total of photovoltaic plants, so i'm like... a microproducer just one step above than the dude who has no clue and puts solar panels on his roof. 🤣👍💖💯
🤣💯
So yeah, primers like yours are very useful.it is based off of payoneer which sounds like your payeer so i do not know if that is a misspelling.
Oh, i checked payeer is crypto stuff. Too many overhead costs and highly random. You could be charged 50$ for 1 transaction and 150$ for a different transaction and you cannot know in advance. They change on a 10 second basis.
Thank you very much!
For looking for a solution to this problem and sharing it with others. I almost started to panic, your post is a ray of hope for the best. Thank you very much.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/.....ia-2022-02-28/
The main downside here is that these systems come with a learning curve for all involved. Ideally, transactions would be continued using USDT (AKA: Tether) a "stable coin" that maintains the same value as a US Dollar.
...the risk of trying crypto without knowing what you are doing means loosing a lot of money really quick without having any clue what you did wrong or why you are being charged so much.
Keep in mind that most people barely know Bitcoin and Ethereum. And they only know Ethereum due to the backlash it received due to its NFTs.
I agree that there is a lot of disinformation about this stuff... but that is EXACTLY why i cannot (in good honesty) recommend this system.
Got payment
p.s Shall I telling about Paysend anyways?
As for buymeacoffee, they take a huge cut and I think they require paypal for withdraw.
So at this moment the most reliable alternative for commissions is paysend. Also if your commission is pricy you can use transferwise, it's good for direct payments between banking cards.
If you use buymeacoffee you can have payoneer do the intermediary. I did my research. 😅
Somebody else asked this and yeah unless you are one of those businesses that payoneer works with they will not deal with you, so you will need stuff like buymeacoffee as an intermediary.
I agree on the huge cuts. But right now it's the "least offender" everything else is more complicated or requires people to know a lot more. Let's face it: furaffinity is not exactly known for well researched and economy-savvy people and stuff. a ton of them are trying to make do while feeling like dried up slugs. I did not do all this work because people were well prepared and happy to work through all the loopholes.
😬😓
Transferwise (aka WISE since they changed name) is good for ukraine, on that i can agree, far better than most other alternatives. But WISE as of a few days ago does not allow russians to deal with them. https://www.reuters.com/technology/.....ia-2022-02-28/ the customer can send the money but the artist will not get it because the artist will see it as "suspended" or "waiting verification".Everything is changing right now.
And a lot of people did not even get to have a say.
I checked on Wikipedia and it says Germany. (Also remember it like that.)
Ok checked also their website and their imprint says Berlin. https://n26.com/en-de/imprint (Where did you see the Italian address? I mean sure could be they have different addresses for different countries.)
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent.....hXfiSrToqfewHQ
You can still withdraw to your bank, but you cannot ask a card.
Also if you are not "a professional" you can use buymeacoffee to withdraw directly to your bank.
Now thinking about Buymeacoffee and Paysend. However, still have doubts in the case of Paysend.
Any more updates on your journal would be greatly appreciated as I'd like to help suggest such alternatives to the innocent in need.
Only one i did not cover is Payoneer.
But Payoneer can only be used by companies, so you only can set it up to receive the money to your account but you need a "front company" (like buymeacoffee) to use payoneer on your behalf to get paid.
Yes, and I'm still wondering about Payoneer, and thanks for letting me know! Still looking out for anything on that if they say otherwise, but for now I just see what my tweet feed suggests or what other artists I follow update on.
But change may come later again this year. So most people already find alternatives.
Details:
https://www.paypalobjects.com/marke.....er-faqs-en.pdf
I've choose Wise as alternative. Actually they got very low fee and better conversion rate, just need sender to register an account.
For real usage, it's no need to use of Swift code or wire transfer at all if sender has Wise account. More fee because sender need use of Paypal but not follow up to register there Wise account.
"We have made the decision to suspend the ability for new customers in Russia to use Payoneer services and discharge our obligations with our current global partners and customers operating in Russia in accordance with their contractual terms."
p.s. These days I kinda feel like a poor boy being bullied and thrown stones at by literally everyone, companies doesn't want to work with Russians anymore
Or is it not working?🥺
But restriction just lifted recently.
Long details:
- It was since November last year. Paypal going to relaunch in Thailand after a whole year of suspension (no new registration allow)
- They reopen Business account registration. With request of commercial license, but block the payout system(which is a must for funding website such as Patreon)
- Freelancers also need to rush to register individual commercial license, some unable such as one who live in dorm. Finding alternatives begin here.
- Around late January, it's confirmation the restriction will going to apply. Personal account may only withdraw money, also not allow to link to bank account.
- Early February, anothr change has been request as they raise the restriction. Only juristic person(One who found a company) allow to use business account. With confirmed deadline, 7th March. A freelancer group decide to raise and send complain to government.
- Right before restriction going to apply, 2nd March a good news reveal they'll lifted all restriction because "It's just misunderstanding"
- Now, confirmation of lifted restriction has been distributed. But not totally ends here as they just go back to preparation state again(no new register) until later this year. Timer refresh.
- Don't know what fuzz will going to apply later, but it'll be just fine for a while.
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10155892/
🤞
i am doing almost nothing, unfortunately. That is what pains me.
But while i totally know a ton of games that allow you to convert your money into game money... uh... i honestly am unprepared as to which games allow you to reconvert game money to real world money.
I am sure somebody thought of it, as i know of NFT games that actually do that, and NFT have invented nothing that was not already there so that means there undoubtedly are games around that allow you for that kind of stuff without having to resort to translation into virtual currencies.
I guess people do some kind of stuff like that as (i kid you not) some artists asked me to be paid in STEAM or GOG gift cards, but in any case those options are surely now precluded to Russian artists as the Steam and GOG credit stuff literally vanished along with the marketplace a few days ago.
And to add insult to injury some idiots think they are being "funny" by setting russian ruble prices for their games in the value of millions. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....66/unknown.png
But yeah. I never researched the topic because it was never among my interests.
So... uh... yeah... apologies for not being prepared. 🙇♂️
Damn those steam game prices are horrendous. How awful. :( Gosh..
And yeah, I was thinking along those lines too with the steam items. But I figured steam wasn't an option right now. Seems like popular game items are a hell of a lot safer and environmentally conscious than NFTs though, that's for sure. :/ But still not great.
The overall annual energy consumption of all the data centers in the world (AKA: "not just the entirety of internet but also other stuff") is a fraction of what i read and NFTs are not yet to the level of being "the baseline infrastructure of the internet". Seriouisly to get those numers all the computers of the world wold need to do nothing but mint NFTs... and i make mone off of photovoltaic energy so i know a thing or two about energy consumption.
So... NFTs are bad because they are a scam towards the artists and because artists get insulted for making them and for the art that results due to how NFTs have to work. This is compounded with people inciting art theft as a good practice to "punish" artists that work with that, while having to deal with customers that don't really appreciate the art they get, rather they use said art as (basically) trading cards for rich kids. Finally the artists themselves make next to no money off of NFTs, due to hyperinflated overhead costs.
MEANWHILE the actual people who make actual money off of NFTs as well as robbing data centers of precious computing time "to count money in order to make money" are going completely unnoticed as they get no mention nor blame while everybody and their cousin is jumping in this crappy bandwagon that's hurting the wrong people.
i wish i could do more.
Today I tried to get a donation through Donationalerts, and I succeeded!
Dollars are automatically converted into rubles. There is a nuance: a connected stream is required so that the profile is not blocked (this is not necessary, but they say so, although I used to receive donations without a stream). For Russian-speakers, I recommend linking Donationalerts to Boosty (there is a link in the control panel) and launching a private stream on Boosty.
In Donationalerts itself, it is possible to withdraw funds to a card, to Qiwi, to Paypal, VKPay, ЮMoney, WebMoney (does not work for rubles) and a mobile phone.
The second nuance: there is a commission. For beginners: 7%. The commission can be covered by the customer (optional).
A big plus for those who pay: there is an opportunity to choose payment through PayPal in dollars and euros, also through Visa and Mastercard in dollars and euros.
The third nuance: money is withdrawn automatically to the selected account after 24 hours, not earlier. Now I'm waiting to see if they can withdraw funds to my bank account or Qiwi (I have 2 withdrawal systems connected). I'll let you know later.
Support wrote to me that the withdrawal of funds received in dollars through PayPal carries risks for DonationAlerts themselves. They require transaction receipts from those who made the transfers (customers). This is real bureaucracy.
The work of DonationAlerts is intended only to support streamers, but even if you stream, a large donation can be frozen (it will hang in the wallet and cannot be returned or withdrawn in any way until you prove that the payment was made).
Let's look for alternatives...
i do not think it's a full on block but... "something iffy" is definitively going on.
except several russians, and also several non-russians were able to visit it without any problem, visiting russian and non-russian creators alike.
So the problem seems limited to a small subset of people in the EU.
If i had to venture a guess is that some Ukrainian DNS got shot and it perpetuated some errors that have yet to normalize.
Or it could be that some idiot wanting to go on an ideological crusade saw the stuff i was suggesting and put it in the EU blocklist.
I have seen people asking DNSes to block russian IPs to "stop the russians".
Like literally people asking "so: what are you going to do about all those russian IPs?" as if that were a sensible question to ask.
If anything this war has shown not only how poorly trained russian troops are, but also how many of the russian population really do not like what Putin is doing.
If that's what western leadership wants to do, then they should step up and say it out loud.
I'm against it. I can see full well it will be used against everyone else in the future.
the crazy man is not jus one, but yeah, too many are paying.
"Payoneer and Wise (bank deposit) have temporarily suspended payouts to Russia."
https://www.reuters.com/business/ma.....rk-2022-03-01/
We are quickly running out of options.
i tried.
1. Find a US/EU client you trust.
2. Reroute PayPal payments to their PayPal account.
3. Ask your client to transfer the funds through any online Chinese bank supporting CIPS to your bank account.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIPS
CIPS requires your bank to work with it but if you live in Russia you have a big chance of already using one that works with that system.
There are literally a ton of chinese services you can hire that do exactly that
Basically you hire a dude that accepts payments on your behalf and then sends them back to you.
You would need a cross-border credit card to do so, which at this moment is either Unionpay or MIR.
https://youtu.be/_XPHr-cRnyo
I've already noticed Tor being super slow these days but i thought it was just because:
1) i was trying to reach ukrainian places like everybody else, and tor is ill suited for mass visits in a single place.
2) ukraine was being bombarded, so lots of computers offline... and is peer-to-peer.
However, the way blockchain works is.... NOT... how it is described in that video.
Blockchain is (reducing it to its core) a database.
What the dude is suggesting is not "merging the database" (which is what actually happens) but "dropping the older copy in favour of the new copy" (which is the dumbest way possible to merge two databases).
Yes. If that were to happen, SOME amount of money will indeed be affected it is unavoidable. But not "all of the russian crypto money" will be affected.
Moreover, due to how crypto works... uh... you would have to cut russia off the rest of the world completely... and that is not how that would happen.
What is more likely to happen is that russia will be blocked from directly going to european and northamerican sites, i'll be generous and add australian and egypt sites too due to their political connections.
But southamerica, africa, oceania, and asia don't care much (generically and politically, cannot speak about the single individuals) about this whole situation.
So... tor, blockchain, and everything peer-to-peer based will totally keep working and interfacing, just a lot slower, because all the "big direct links" are cut off.
That will affect these databases in some minor way, but... unless you manage to get everybody in the action and physically cut the cables... you cannot stop peer to peer.
TL;DR the dude there hits on some problems that could arise but jumps to the wrong idea of what the problem might be and was absolutely zero clue how the system works, so he reaches the wrong conclusion on what problems might arise from that.
So. Let's start with geography. The dude assumes Russia can be "cut" from the world's connection.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....88/unknown.png
Russia confines with europe on one side. Specifically with (north to south) Finland, estonia, latvia, belarus, and ukraine.
Finland and ukraine will most likely cut russia, but even there, due to the hugeness of the borders involved (the border of Ukraine is just as big as the border with finland and about the same side of the border of belarus, latvia and estonia combined) people have been "mingling" with russia for decades/centuries.
You literally have families who are being divided by this war down at the nucleic level where an husband might have a russian passport and a wife might be ukrainian (that is indeed the case with the ukrainian family i am trying to host) and that is not an isolated case, in fact it's a big chunk of population.
And finland has more borders with russia than with the rest of the scandinan countries, so family ties are the same.
And once you have family ties you will have political problems because people will be unwilling to choose among family members. I mean. Look at the video i posted https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10143573 this perfectly ddescribes why "border states" between two powers are ... "a touchy situation".
Ukraine was long held at bay from entering the european union exactly over concerns about these ties with russia, because it was increasingly clear that russia was being governed by a kernel of autharchs that did not care about their own country and having a LARGE swat of your own population be concerned about the wellbeing of a most probably political enemy is... yyyyeah.
Now, estonia and latvia, (heck i'd even put lituania here because technically Russia here has the kaliningrad province which is an "island" that confines with lituania on one side and poland on the other side) have similar ties.
Belarus is currently getting hammered because it allowed russian troops to move over their country to assist in the siege of ukraine.
so... once you take all of this in consideration.... yyyyeah you could (conceivably) cut off russia from these countries but "how" becomes difficult.
What will most probably be done is that IPs will be blocked at a DNS level, cables will not be cut, but most computers will not know where to go.
Which... i guess works for "the big traffic", but blockchain (and peer to peer in general) does not work that way.
Let me make a comparison. Say your internet traffic is like a car. You need to go from paris to moscow.
This telling your DNS to block russian IPs is akin to (say) "removing the maps from the GPS system" and blocking people from directly downloading them.... if you live in specific states.
If you live in paris you want to find a parcel delivery service to get you stuff to moskow.
So if you use this analogy most computers are like a lazy bastard running a cheap delivery service who will look it up and will say "yeah, nope, not worth the effort" and drop it, saying "yeah, mate, undeliverable, the address does not exist".
But if you find a delivery service who is determined... the deliverer reaches Estonia by car then sits there with your parcel.
He was not blocked from downloading the maps of estonia because estonia is "not guilty" but he knows if one goes there estonia finds hard to go hard on russia and suddenly his car can download the new maps... but it will take a while, because russia is freaking huge.
So he waits there until the gps goes "ding" and then he can proceed to go to moskow and deliver your package.
So... this is the difference of comparing between, say, "a streaming service" (you trying to use the postal service and the lazy bastard who says "undeliverable") to "email" (the delivery service that takes its time).
But using that very same comparison blockchain is (basically) a bunch of dudes on a bike with camping gear on their backpacks that barely even use roads because they are dangerous for them, as they get run over pretty easily or detained by suspicious officers... and these dudes never used any map aside from what they can see, because that is not how they do. And they are all relaying packages among them by hand.
You tell them to deliver a package from paris to moskow... instead of being an email that would get the message there in a few second blockchain requires... about ten times more time.
Because it's freaking brownian motion of a bunch of these dudes on bycicles and camping gear saying "i know it's more or less in that direction" and relaying the package to some other dude on camping gear and bicicle who reads the address and says "I guess i should correct the direction one bit, i know a guy who knows a guy" and relays the package once again with the new dude going "pssh! noob! nah, the message should have gone in that other direction, but don't worry i gotcha, i know a dude who knows a dude" and relays the package to yet another dude.
And the similar comparison can be made about the rest of the world. Georgia and azerbajan might not like it... but they have bigger ties with russia than turkey, armenia and iran.
Kazakhstan is basically as big as europe itself and its confines with russia span a third of asia.
Mongolia is as big as france, germanly, poland and all the small states combined... and squished between russia and china. Politically it has "not a good relationship" (euphemism) with either but that divides the country itself as those confines are immense andd at an individual level families are mingling. So families know all too well the problems that come from living in a state that does not like the people in half your family.
China is often shown as a "friend" to russia, but (ridculously enough) it has very small contact with it compared to the other big players there (kazakhstan and mongolia) Almost all contacts that china has with russia are twith the easternmost part of russia which is also the least "ideologically aligned" part of russia compared to where Putin resides because... if you look at russia Moskow, where putin and all the head honchos reside... is a good 1/4 of THE WHOLE WORLD distant from where china has the largest swat of contact with russia.
So while it has a bunch of people who totally mingle with russian people, most of the ties come from its government, which (exactly like russia) does not care about its own population, as it's a totalitarian regime and therefore it's mostly all about powerful people having friends with powerful people and not caring about their subjects.
But.... you know... powerful people are people too and they see that the money coming from russia is not that much and russia to them is like "that fiend you occasionally write to and you can totally understand who occasionally does you a favour and occasionally you do him a favour" but if china were to be caught in a vise... they would probably turn a blind eye and "say" they will abide to stuff like DNSes locking russia out but will have "technical problems implementing it" and act like a lazy bastard who cannot be bothered doing a job and waits until "the problem solves itself".
Russia also technically confines with japan... and i find it hard seeing japan cutting off one of the richest sources of import-export... to favour decisions of... say USA.... who is about... a LITERAL half a world distant from them. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....20/unknown.png
And say USA decides to cut its ties with russia... what about Alaskans? https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....22/unknown.png will they be willing to cut ties with people they see daily for fishing and ferrying?
Basically "politics are hard" and "internet is harder than politics" and i guess it looks simple to some dudebro who thinks he "understands internet" because he plays destiny but has no clue how the internet is connected, how politics work how the blockchain works and how databases work.
I am honestly trying to find a similar metaphor to explain how database merging works here... but ...uh... yeah, no.
That is like trying to explain how an orange's insides works inside to an apple.
My simplest comparison (the spreading of a virus) would probably make no sense and/or sound repulsive... and the next simpler version i can think of would be "you basically do a branch inception" which sounds too similar to what the dude is suggesting for me to be frankly at ease using it.
So yeah apologies... but i cannot think of a good comparison to use here.
But yeah, the main problem here is that the video "oversimplifies" (euphemism of the last aeon or so) a problem that totally does exist and manages to miss where the problem will be because of that oversimplification.
And the problem is... that if you know the system has to be slow because of that... you can maliciously (or inadvertently) overspend your funds, which is "a big nope" in crypto and has created big "disaporas" in the past where databases just refuse to merge due to the extent of the overspending and how it branched, and while that sounds a lot like what the dude is suggesting (which is why i said he got the wrong conclusion by going close to the real problem) it is completely different and really only works when people do it maliciously or in the event of a mass influx of rapid chained transactions which is quite rare.
At most you lose a single transaction or a short branch gets pruned. Crypto is neither as pervasive as some people state nor as ... useful as some people state, so most of the transactions are actually done by virtual bank-like entities.
Or you can loose money due to failed transactions.
But barring that... yeah. It's quite hard to say crypto are dangerous and you could lose money. If anything crypto (even with its wild fluctuations), is retaining value far better than rubles.
DNS blocking is toy stuff. and isn't what they mentioned.
They talked about dropping BGP peering. (Route tables at the core of ISP's) So any of your peer to peer stuff like Tor isn't going to work either. as there is just physically no route from your Core ISP to the rest of the world, same for other ISP's trying to reach russian nodes.
Agreed your current holdings arent going to evaporate, but any money you make whilst your segrated might get pruned and I think that's what they were trying to get across.
What happens is that closed system branches will be updated only when they interact with the more open system.
this opens up scams but the more sensible party is the one with the most branches to update each time as the smaller database will be (effectively) checked more easily and thoroughly than the larger database. So the situation you will have is a decrease of trust in crypto from every russian scammer that will try to hack their personal version of their closed database when interacting with the larger database.
And that is only achievable because it is a smaller and closed off database that gets published occasionally with specific transactions to the open system.
The easy way out is to just completely cancel all the funds in those branches... but that option is next to impossible to implement because it was just not made to work that way.
So you either implement a function that crypto was specifically made to be unable to implement... or you accept the situation will create exploits.
And i literally did try and pay a russian artist right after you told me via boosty using paypal (as a check) and it totally worked.
And we are referring to this article. https://www.americanbanker.com/paym.....ing-off-russia
So maybe it works, but I don't know as it blocked us both initially.
okay, i understand, yeah it's probably the usual "politics" and my country is not yet completely blocked or something.
And yeah, i double checked after you said that. Netherlands too cannot pay using boosty. (ノへ￣、)
Also: let's make it clear: what actually happened is hard to pinpoint when one gets "hearsay" recollections from people who may not be professsionals and may have not tried how this works.
It's not "misinformation" it's just how human communication works. 😅
Government said nothing about this but I started to suspect they did blocked our transactions to Russian accounts.
https://arbum.art/feed
https://komimart.com
https://arty.ooo
mostly you can also try to make payoneer work via the various
https://www.buymeacoffee.com
https://www.patreon.com
Payoneer appears to """just""" be super slow these days (takes several months) if one is not in the "approved countries" and one needs to use a VPN to do the entire process, but otherwise it seems to still work.
I also tried Paypal and it was stuck on loading and then it gave me an error.
I tried it once more and maybe it went through...
I'm not trying to to start trouble on your page, please forgive me. I am just not sure if it's going through right now...
Also I do see that if it did go through, it took it directly from my bank, and not from my Paypal balance.
Again, I just want to know what's going on and my apologies.
There are protections in place against frauds so:
• if it is the first time one pays boosty
• and is not using paypal or another intermediary like qiwi...
Then yeah. Your payment might need to be verified and if you have protections in place (maybe your internet provider trying to be "helpful") the verification might not happen.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....28/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....26/unknown.png
But essentially what works right now is "custom pledges" via boosty where you ask people to pledge for a given amount and paysend.
Everything else is unverified or requires long loops.
Boosty is a scammy russian site that is known to sell information to the police.
Paysend straight up fails random transactions and if it does not work it does not work.
Soooo uh... yeah "hard times require etc. etc.".
Of the two i still like boosty better because it's more reliable and people can use paypal, which is what they normally use for most stuff anyway.
Most people keep asking me about solutions for russia.
Buymeacoffee allows you to get paid easily.
Lavky allows you to make people pay with paypal by setting up your shop and making custom commissions,
What you can do is make a few SFW commissions to use as thumbnails and then clarify that the client should discuss it with you, like this person did. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46283797/
tech supp of buymeacoffee told me they will not work with russia because they use wise and payoneer (theyre not a variant now too), subscribestar seems to be working but i dunno when i can take out the money coz they allows it only when user get $150 and 5 subscribers, could take time...
it's part of the mastercard program, so it will not allow transfers to russia.
Just saying
You do realize that Putin has been there for 32 years and the last election where anybody could choose not to elect him was 14 years ago, and it was rigged by literally having the police dragging people to vote and enforcing a certain vote... then they decided it was too much effort and now the elections are chosen before the election even starts, right?
So... yeah. I'm doing my best to support ukraine too. But telling people "i guess you should die" is what i call "quite rude".
If you want to help deposing Putin check the links here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10163494/ and also here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10149166/
If you want to help people of Ukraine, here are the links: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10148731/
If you want to instead guilt trip a bunch of people who could not even choose to start this war. The door is over there.
In Ukraine we hate them all atm for their silent position. While our people hide underground, they think "how to make money on art"!!!
Second: telling russians "just die" is how you make a conflict worse, because most of them have zero clue what to do or even what is happening. What most of them know is just "yeah i do not like this". But they have zero clue about anything else. Telling people "you are guilty" when they suffer does not make them "repent" if anything it makes them hate you.
I do agree that i do not like the fact that this specific journal entry has gotten 250 comments while the ones where i urge people to help russian protesters or the one where i tell people how to help ukraine barely got any comment at all... heck one of them basically got a comment "do not incite infighting" when infighting is the best thing that could happen to russia right now because Putin needs to fall.
Third: Whatever name "Putin" has. Be it Yeltsin or Medvedev. "Putin" is not a person. It's a puppet, a "face", manipulated by a group of very specific supporters.
Is it a crime what is happening? Of course it is.
I see people dying on one side who (rightfully) are resentful of the situation. And on the other side there is complete apathy because people do not want to be jailed or killed. Heck one russian grandmoter of one of the ukrainians i am going to host literally told her grandson "Well if you die by a bomb at least it's quick. We are going to die pennyless from starvation."
Zelensky's appeal to peace i posted too (got exactly zero comments on that and i also do not like it https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10143573 ). And he literally said that Ukrainians have long intermingled with russians. So that ukrainians are not "a people" that is so separated from russia to want to kill them all.
I have 3 people i have worked with in the past i will probably never hear again as they have been silent from 10 or more days. https://www.artstation.com/jacksworks
Kharkiv, Mariupol, Odessa, Sumy. 3 people (i am not doxing them so they are not in the same order of the people i mentioned up there) who i never met in person but we talked and i may never meet at all and a 4rth that i might never talk to anymore... abruptly. Because this conflict has possibly killed them.
Meanwhile i have people like
And then i have friends who fight with friends on my own server for petty stuff like "you only started protesting when they cut your money off" which... okay, not true in this very specific case since several of them were also protesting 8 years ago, and those who were not ... were kids 8 years ago. But it certainly made a ton of russians upset in my server, so they went from showing sympathy and support to "yeah, let's discuss about money and not talk to the ukrainians" which led to more and more isolation between the two parties. One of the 5 who were actively protesting Putin in my server literally left my server over this. Because after all he gave and after seeing 2 friends getting jailed for 10+ years... getting told he was just protesting to get some money back was the last straw.
Right now what i do not need is people telling russians they should all die or russians telling ukrainians they should just submit. Because that's how you make a war worse. Radicalization is the opposite way of solving a fucking war... radicalization is how you go from "people are killing each other" to "it will never end until one side is extinct".
Guilt tripping people has never worked. All it does is making the guilt tripped resent you, you will lose any support.
Just like you had no say in getting bombed, they had no say in bombing you.
So fighting among those who are not responsible just because of stupid national bounds is just idiotic and cuts out any hope of solving the situation in ways that are different from "more war, and more death".
I'm sorry for English here (Google Translator was used)
I hate that i have to hear my Ukraine friends with family in russia hearing what their family members say.
I hate that i have friends in russia who were barely surviving before and are below the levels of survival now.
I hate that i am literally seeing ukrainian friends "disappear" without knowing if it's just lack of electricity on their phone... or what.
But most of all i hate Putin. And i hate people who are apathetic towards Putin, but while i am trying to nudge them towards WTF Putin is doing, i see a bunch of people who are downright making sure they hate ukrainians more than they would have hated Putin.
Because hatred and yelling "you are guilty" never convinced people that their view of the world is the wrong and misinformed one. All it does is making sure they will defend their view of the world.
It's a view of the world that was carefully made by the people behind Putin and their stupid propaganda.
It's a view of the world imparted by 409 years of "bowing down to an higher power".
There is a lot to scrape off. And it will not work if one does not keep scraping off.
In WW2 all the germans were considered evil. So they shouldn't be surprised about our hate as well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eai5yBvhhr4
And 80% of russians still support this, I know people here on FA who are happy seeing this!
So please, don't piss ukrainians off
But then you would need a way to move the money from the card to you or use it to pay.
It's nothing more complicated than a pre-paid mastercard in the end.
My comments on it are here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10163494
Other than that it works and does not pull weird stunts.
And since you can use it via paypal you can use the standard paypal's methods to protect your payments.
It had too much to lose.
👍
though most of the people i was trying to help moved out of russia. 😅