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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

OK, I'll bite. So what kind of Internet content have you paid for? And how do you pay for it without being tracked? Because you know, credit cards payments transmit your personal information. Or have you successfully transitioned to a Bitcoin-only currency lifestyle?

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A recurring monthly payment doesn't track my activity does it. It just tracks that I've paid for something. Many sites offer PayPal so there's no personal information conveyed at all.

I pay for a lot of Twitch subs. I am currently subbed to like 7 channels. I've also payed for the NYTimes and Washington Post through Amazon's payment system. I've paid for Ars Technica. I pay for Pandora. I pay for Reddit gold. I also buy skins and mounts in free to play games like Heroes of the Storm and TF2.

I pay lots. Do I meet your approval now?

I'm sure you're not seeking my approval, but it genuinely bemuses me that you're happy for your shopping purchases to be tracked by Amazon and PayPal, two giants with a history of privacy-insensitive behaviour, yet not for individual sites to run JS-based, self-hosted, same-domain analytics simply to count whether you're one or 10 unique users within a month.

I don't see how PayPal can track anything other than what I've spent money on. My bank can track that too. There's no control over this. I'm not sure there are any viable alternatives to Amazon or PayPal for what they do. There's very little inconvenience to run adblock, it would be a huge inconvenience to boycott major sites to avoid them knowing what kind of shampoo I buy.

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