I know they’re all bad for privacy to an extent, which is why I specified “least bad.”
This is for casual use, as someone concerned about surveillance capitalism, digital privacy, social cooling and the like. I do not have a high threat model. I am looking to balance privacy and convenience. I am not going to teach my grandma how to use monero, and it isn’t always a reasonable option to use cash or mail a check.
The big services in the US I know of are:
- PayPal: shares your data with 600+ companies
- Venmo: owned by PayPal
- Apple Cash: Requires an Apple device, not an option for many
- Google Pay: it’s Google, and it doesn’t work on custom ROMs like GrapheneOS
- Facebook Messenger: apparently you can send money on there, but I think “there’s zero chance I’m making a Facebook account and I’m especially not linking my bank to it” needs no explanation in this community
- Cash App: owned by Square, might be a decent option?
- Zelle: Not supported by all banks (I don’t think it’s supported by mine and I definitely have friends that use unsupported banks)
If anyone knows of better options, or tips to minimize shared data while using any of the above options, please elaborate.
Hol’up, your granny can’t be bothered to use crypto but she runs a custom ROM and somehow the financial app that will for sure use Google Play Integrity checks is supposed to work on that? And compared to that sending cash and precious metals is too cumbersome?
You and your grandma certainly have some interesting threat vectors defined for yourselves.