Paypal alternatives
blog.webdistortion.com
blog.webdistortion.com
EDIT: I was surprised to see this comment voted down. PayPal suspending payments to WikiLeaks is a clear signal to any startup hosting potentially-controversial comment needs to be concerned about it happening to them. The article, written earlier, doesn't mention that, so my comment adds value to the conversation. What was the reasoning behind downvoting it?
In my opinion, PalPal should have boycotted for years because of what they did to many other people and organizations, especially to non-profit-making organizations.
EDIT: I don't know why your comment has been voted down, but I didn't vote up because to me it is pretty obvious that the submission of this article is connected to the Wikileaks story.
I've been looking and looking, but the one thing that keeps me with PayPal as a vender is their debit card (and the instant access to cash it give s you). The moment a credible alternative offers that, I'm gone.
That said, the Obopay method of depositing money to your bank account every day may work - I'll have to investigate and see if those deposits happen quickly or if there is a day or two processing delay.
okay, fair enough: if people thought my comment was obvious, i can see why they voted it down. thanks!
Don't piss off the US government.
Here's the wiki: https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki
However, the hope is that once there are some working clients it should be trivial to issue assets and to run a transaction server, so anyone can create and start issuing currency backed with whatever they want. Hopefully some pre-existing currency providers will run servers and issue certificates, but I also hope that with the availability of easy to use clients and simple to deploy servers that the private currency ecosystem will really start to flourish.
N.B., this has not received any real peer review yet, but is based on OpenPGP, OpenSSL and uses Lucre for blind signatures.
"pay for stuff with FaceCash" seems to be what you're all about, right? Why start off by telling us about things you're not. Especially when we don't get your inside references about those things.
However, their main site takes about 13 seconds to load. This is quite slow for a company that advertises their service to be "quick like a fox".
I took a quick look via Firebug/Networking on your site:
31 sub requests, of which 5 form a chain so they can't load in parallel. The server at www.facecash.com waits 2.5 seconds before it sends back the content (this is not DNS waiting time!). On s.facecash.com which you use for the other page components, those are just 0.2 seconds.
The page has 409 KB in total, of which 97 KB are JavaScript code and 135 KB are the main picture (home1.jpg). This big picture changes on each request, smashing the browser caching and ensuring subsequent page reloads will be slow, too.
WTF?!
You should really overcome your ego and to make use of the offer given to you.
> I think any delay may be DNS-related
Here in Germany, your domain resolves within a few milliseconds. However, your whole site takes 12-13 seconds to load. (FWIW, I have a 16 MBit internet connection)
You'll have to learn a lot about basic things like: how to compress images properly, how to decrease web server latency, how to get JS code out of the critical path, how to ensure proper cache use on client side, etc.
Don't get me wrong: It is perfectly okay if a young company's system isn't fully optimized. That's fine, nobody expects this. But if you claim to be "quick like a fox" and to be "fairly optimized at this point", you're saying that you think you are fast enough, so customers can't hope you'll be willing to improve your speed much in the future. And that is a problem, unless you were really optimized, which you aren't.
Also, 400K isn't all that much; one of our competitors sends over 4.2MB on their home page alone and it's a very professionally-done site. Aside from all of that, if our server configuration needs more looking at, we'll look at it.
It's great to have constructive criticism like the points contained in your comment, but had it been written without the sarcasm and small insults I would have found it that much more compelling.
It's great to have constructive criticism like the points contained in your comment, but had it been written without the sarcasm and small insults I would have found it that much more compelling.
Sounds like ego to me. There was no sarcasm in his host, and its critical tone is probably warranted when your site takes that long to load.
Its a nice site, which could be even nicer with some extra speed, and it won't take you any time.
I don't think so. See my other comment. In short:
The main picture changes on each request so it can't be cached properly.
The cache parameters of the assets force the browser to reload them on each request, although the server then just responds with a "304 Not Modified". This can still be improved by making the browser not reloading them in the first place.
Finally, a first time visitor doesn't have anything in the cache, so the assets should be small and well-compressed, which they aren't.
To clarify, I really appreciate everyone's feedback here, I just don't think it's a page problem, I think it's a DNS or server configuration problem.
Montreal, Canada
Allpay.net -- Recommended for U.K. Only
BidPay.com -- Out Of Business 2 Years
CertaPay -- Recommended for CANADA Only
Checkfree -- NOT RECOMMENDED
HyperWALLET -- NOT RECOMMENDED
Moneybookers -- Recommended for ALL
Nochex -- Recommended for U.K. Residents and Certain Others
Ozpay.biz -- Out Of Business 3+ Years
Paymate -- Recommended for Australia & New Zealand
ProPay -- Recommended for U.S. Sellers
Xoom -- NOT RECOMMENDEDIs that not recommended because it is new ? or because it does not comply with X regulatory compliance or just because you dont like them.
Also, all these alternative do not target the same marketplaces that paypal has grown up with. Some address remittance for example. Others P2P payments. some national. other international.
I think this is just anti-innovation, labels that do not mean anything and so easy easy to throw into a new innovation.
When Paypal started, everyone was saying the same.So lets give a chance to the new players and respect their own targets.
I don't mind giving money back to customers who are unhappy. I go out of my way to do so before it comes to a chargeback. As such, my mind can't spin "easier to keep your unhappy customers' money" into a feature for a payment processor.
They seem pretty attractive, esp. since buyers do not need to have an account to give you money - that seems to be the key feature that PayPal has on most competitors. They also do recurring payments which is pretty nice as well.
I would love to hear any reviews of them as I am actively considering adding them as an option for my site.
Are any of these a viable 2nd alternative? Should I consider something else for international markets?
overall, it's a great alternative to paypal for roommates and basic group expenses.
Parent comment, please do supply some more info.
Oh, and there's also wepay.com
Google Checkout has limited availability internationally. Furthermore, it has abysmal, nearly non-existent customer support. That's fine for a hobby site, but not for something a business relies on for its income.
Most of the other sites charge exchange fees for US transactions. That's fine if you don't have customers in the US, but not so good if you do.
Digital River is great (and Microsoft uses them to run its online store)...but not so great for small businesses. It's designed for and sold to large corporations. It can handle small businesses, but it's like using a sledgehammer when you need a hammer.
Amazon is really the only alternative for most situations, but it's also part of the Wikileaks mess...
It doesn't matter one whit that I have a moneybookers account if I can't use it to donate to the projects I support (or buy products, etc) because they are not on moneybookers. And I can assure you that "just signing up" for a money movement service is a _non-trivial_ operation.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/amazon-and-wikileaks-f...