Have you heard of all the people arbitrarily blocked/banned/censored by PayPal? Just for one, I had my Paypal account permanently closed because I (many years prior to the block) registered it when I was still under—age. Separately, I am resident in a new country where for arbitrary reasons I don’t have all the necessary validation to open a Transferwise account registered here.

Relying on a small handful of centralized private service providers for critical infrastructure is a bad idea. My situation is not unique or strange. I could most likely illegally submit false information or register new accounts, with the risk of having payments frozen or even held at any point. Some online vendors only use PayPal, which has lifetime banned me as a person, so by extension I can not purchase from these vendors.

I do trust Lightning more than any of these. I actually regularly use for payments for stuff like you mentioned. Last time a $11 purchase yesterday, which even including amortized channel opening cost was most certainly less fees than PayPal would have been.

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You’re happy with PayPal now, because it works fine for you, but the increasing power they have over individuals and the economy is real, concerning and dangerous.