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Comment by shmerl | Hacker News Reader

It's good to be distanced from this kind of crowd ;)

Yes, but I was rather inquiring about whether it was even possible to do so. That list is huge and most likely growing. One of the companies on the list is McGraw-Hill Education. I have to use their products at my school - how do I get around that?

It doesn't really matter which textbook manufacturer you get your books from. They are all morally bankrupt institutions. The entire textbook industry is a scam.

I love how you can pick nearly any topic in almost any subject(especially computer science) and find an amazing book for free, or for about $60, yet every textbook my school uses gets < 2 stars on amazon and costs $150.

My "favorite" was a biology book written by a guy with a B.S. in journalism. He published the book years ago and every year he releases a new edition with the chapters out of order.

> I have to use their products at my school - how do I get around that?

Be a proud pirate.

Buy used textbooks whenever possible. If you're stuck in one of those situations where there's a new edition every year, make sure to ask the instructor if you can use the previous edition.

Both MasterCard and VISA are there. What to do? :(

Spend less.

How is this relevant? I don't spend much, and use cash in real life. But I need a card for online purchases for my business (hosting, etc.) and for access to my bank accounts in a different country. Maybe I can replace most of it with wire transfer, but Amazon, Rackspace, etc. won't accept it.

You can give Amazon direct access to your checking account: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1...

Thanks. It's ACH-enabled U.S. checking account only, so won't work for me, but maybe others will find this useful.

It's a compromise. If VISA and MC bother you in this context, use them less. You can't practically eliminate them, but you can, if you choose, reduce their use.

Discover? I've been a happy customer of theirs since the 90s, and their coverage has gotten near total within the US. Sparser in other countries, though.

No Discover or Amex in my country, unfortunately.

(Edit: found a bank that offers Amex, but there's no debit corporate cards, plus I'm not allowed to get a credit card here because I'm not a citizen).

Ah, duopoly.

I am planning on using my Amex everywhere they take it. I know they're not non-evil with their commissions, but I'm picking from what we have.

On the customer service end, I've found Amex to be leagues above the other two. Speaking from my 2 cents.

BitCoin

Use cash as much as possible and use wire transfer for online payments whenever you can.

With my credit union in California, wire transfers are $20 + 2-3 business days. This is cost prohibitive. Western Union is similarly pricey. Dwolla is an interesting competitor ($3/mo for unlimited instant transfers), but it needs wider adoption before it can be used directly.

In Sweden wire transfers within Sweden[1] generally do not have a per transaction cost and most utility bills are paid through wire transfer. Recently many online stores have started allowing purchase with invoice (many use a company called Klarna[2] which handles the sending of invoices and the risks) which you then have to pay through wire transfer.

1. I think it is usually free to all EU countries too as long as you use IBAN.

2. https://klarna.com/en/business

You guys should look at Dwolla http://www.dwolla.com

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