Got my new licence plate online a couple weeks ago, here in Germany. Two options to pay: PayPal or MasterCard. This is ridiculous.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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Why tf is a government entity using paypal??
Because people use PayPal and the government entity is trying to be helpful.
but what people in Germany really use is cash or a girocard (card attached to your regular checking account).
but yes, european reliance on america is horrible, usually in addition to the girocard functionality on your card, which is usable only in germany, there's also some mastercard or visa functionality in the card, which allows you to use the card at the very least in the SEPA area (single euro payments area, 41 countries are members, visa vpay or mastercard maestro) and in cases where you get the full mastercard or visa on top of your girocard you can of course pay worldwide with a bunch of asterisks.
that means cross-country payments with your card are locked behind america, which is why wero (europe's new digital payment system for use in the SEPA) makes so much sense.
I wrote them an email asking about Wero and they replied that they'll launch it soon. So let's stay hopeful.
I mean I'm surprised they're not offering SEPA tbh
Girocard is used less and less because many banks don’t issue girocards free of charge anymore. You only get a debit card for free and have to pay extra to get a girocard.
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Because everybody here uses paypal for online payments. Because banks and governments have failed to create a viable alternative. WERO is coming tho. One day. About 20 years after we needed it. soon. still waiting.
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What is that app used for? Never heard of it
The play store description says it's an app for multi factor authentication for various EU services. The reviews are pretty desastrous though.
how hard is it to use standard totp, why do they keep coming up with their own non standaed totp like MFA?
To get you to use an app that’s locked to the Google Play store, so they can identify you and your devices and who you interact with regularly with certainly.
That's what your phone number and email are for; neither of which are explicitly tied to the fascism of big tech.
Reviews are openly gamed, and worthless. I suspect that monied interests have paid to give it low scores with their ai firms, actually indians firms.
Because on Anrdoid at least, every app has a near perfect rating, with fake reviews written, and last I checked they didn't even let you start at the worst first. On amazon it's the same except they allow you to go to worst written reviews first as I recall.
It's openly gamed with the assent of these companies, the platform. Like one of my podcast players, leaves a lot to be desired, especially on the search function, and can't find episodes that exist to an incredible extent. They periodically have a pop up where they ask me to review them, Give them 5 stars, a perfect rating, or do it later, there are no other options.
Logging in to the EU
Damn, I got logged out. I'll now be deported to the US within 5 business days.
Then you will be deported back, ending up in a loop
There can't be a loop if everyone gets deported to latin America.
No, you're booked on contious flights back and forth and the tax payer just pays for all travel costs and the environmental decay.
But the share holders of the airline get rich so who cares?
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How can I log back in? My account was marked for deletion in 2016 and it was deleted in 2020.
spoiler
Yes, this is a Brexit joke.
You can use it to create an ID to login on your Europass CV account and for applying to EU jobs.
https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification/discussions/19
I mean it's been almost a year and nobody from EU officials gives a fuck.
Really need to forward these arguments to MEPs, especially the technology committee. The developers on the repo seem like random contractors.
Someone like @kimvsparrentak@eupolicy.social maybe? I don't know if she's a member of the technology committee, but she does work on tech issues.
Apps pulling bullshit like this is the biggest challenge for me getting out of the iDroid duopoly
Which country does it right and has digital infrastructure without Google?
None, I'm pretty sure. Especially if you include Microsoft and other American companies
And yes, it is a problem. It's something I'm arguing for changing in my country wherever I can
please consider
More like 'you must'
I absolutely hate this phrasing. Thanks, I considered it and determined that I won't do that. Now what?
at best, you get to speak to an AI chatbot
It’s going to take some time to change the entire system. Remember that up until recently, while not super ideal, we still thought that the US, at the end of the day, was our allies. It’s easy to sit and be a captain hindsight, but until recently, it was the smartest thing to keep things as they were, as to not put extra financial strain on everybody. Now we have no choice and I for one am very happy that we are making the move to separating ourselves from America because I have hated the US since Bush and always felt they had too much influence over on us in Europe.
At the same time, I’m not gonna sit and piss and moan about all the American tech we still use or when European countries honor weapons deals they made before America went insane. Change is slow, frustratingly slow, but we are moving. It is happening. It’s just not gonna happen over night to appease impatient people who have no idea how big of an ask it is to have all European systems switch to open source. That is going to take years and a lot of money, but it is happening. My government has already had an entire department switch to Linux to test it and I believe that they will continue to make changes in that direction as the years pass.
But sure, one can also bitch about the current state of things not being perfect and up to your personal standard. Thats also a strategy.
America isn't the reason I don't use Google Play Services... Google is the reason for that specific choice for me.
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Yes, breaking the dependency on cloud providers is already extremely hard. But breaking the dependency on mobile OSes is going to be dramatically harder. What good is digital sovereignty if all users are still tied to American products to access those systems?
I am not just talking about cloud providers. I am talking about all American tech. The whole thing. That’s why it won’t happen over night, but it will happen and is already happening. That’s why Peter Thiel is out there having his weird little religious psychosis and claiming that Europe will fall if we don’t stay with America. He’s scared. He and Trump squeezed too hard on the Greenland issue, thought too highly of their status and power and now they will have to witness the consequences of threatening your own allies over and over. It is done and they know it and now they are scrambling, but the only tactic they know is threats so fneh.
I am very confident that we will see a new tech boom in Europe that will fill in where American tech used to be. So while a lot of things are terrible right now and America seemingly is desperate to self sabotage because success got boring or whatever, I am genuinely excited for the future of Europe. It’s not going to be easy or painless, but we are moving in the right direction in many areas and I see all the bad waves of far right ideologies as a phase. It may take decades, who knows, but Europe is moving in the right direction and I have never been more proud to be one than I currently am.
America will also come to its senses when trump and his morons have been kicked out of power, but the damage done to that nation will be felt for decades to come. I think that when I’m a senile old lady, America will still be dealing with the consequences of electing trump in the 2020s. That’s what I think.
Change only happens as a result of bitching.
Depends on the kind of bitching, but yeah. I don’t think our European leaders aren’t aware nor unwilling to make the changes. They very much are. It’s just taking a long time and terminally online people don’t really understand that because they have gotten too used to getting everything immediately.
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"Please consi" - No. Not now, not ever.
Well dont use the app then. You can access all services on the web. Stay with the open standards that are offered.
"Well, just don't have 2FA on this important government identity then"? Is there something I don't understand?
EU Login offers other types of 2FA like TOTP, Yubikey, or eID.
The EU apps are all very poor. The alien invasive species reporting app is a nightmare on iPhone. It can’t be used at all.
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The almost-monopolist who wants to step up their gatekeeping game, while the EU is distracted with Apple.
What do you mean you're unable to install it? That screenshot is not what the package installer looks like.
I take it microg didn't work either
Works on my /e/OS 3.4 .
Microg only minimizes data sent to Google which is still half as bad.
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