We’re open to that of course! The team has mostly been focusing on:
Do you have a road map that you could please link to?
Sorry, not just yet, we’re working on it!
Hi all! We just launched 2 new features that I think y’all would be interested in:
Give it a spin and let me know if you guys have feedback!
Why is Monero disincentivized?
Note: Monero payments require a minimum of 3 months.
Lightning and Credit Card can both purchase 1 Month and 2 Months.
Monero probably has higher transaction fees.
Correct, we’re not trying to disincentivize Monero but the fees are higher.
It’d be cool if we could atleast begin the subscription with BTC. Also, please add support for Bitcoin (and not just Lightning) for top ups too since there are many places round the world where getting XMR is such a pain in the ass especially with fees (even when exchanging).
I see.
In the meantime, I’d recommend trying out a wallet with Lightning support like Phoenix! 
Thank you. I am aware. However on GrapheneOS, play services need to be enabled for that wallet app to work. I checked. Though I guess I can always create a new profile and set it up.
I actually would ask explicitly not to do this. Lightning is far more user friendly for the average person with the right wallet in a lot of ways due to its minimal fees and instant transactions. Further, Lightning transactions are private while on-chain is not, so Lightning is far better to use for privacy services like VPNs.
Not every wallet app supports Lightning still. The goal should be to improve accessibility and compatibility for folks wanting to purchase via crypto. If you don’t like BTC, you don’t have to use it. You can buy however you want.
Well, Lightning is BTC, so I’d imagine if you don’t like BTC you wouldn’t be using Lightning. And I really don’t think there are many people who strongly want to pay for a VPN in BTC and aren’t able to easily figure out how to pay with Lightning. And for someone unfamiliar with either yet but might be curious to try, encouraging on-chain over Lightning would be doing them a disservice. I think the goal should be to encourage privacy and provide a better user experience while doing so. Asking for on-chain payments from a VPN provider that supports Lightning seems a little like wanting to pay for your car’s gas with a wire transfer (although even worse because that doesn’t have privacy implications over e.g. a credit card while this does), and encourage others to do the same.
Do you then also want them to stop supporting Stripe and payments from card if privacy options are the only legitimate ways to make payments in your view?
C’mon.. more options the better. No matter what they are.
Well no, partly because we are talking about specifically accommodating people who want to pay with crypto and Stripe doesn’t process crypto payments, but also partly because credit cards are more private than standard on-chain Bitcoin payments. It’s not just less private, it is one of the least private payment options possible.
I think you’re trying to rationalize your comments into being the only right way to go about it.
Using wallet apps like Cake Wallet with Payjoin where it also by default uses a different address for each transaction provides enough privacy if you ask me, even when simply using Bitcoin.
But I don’t agree with your logic and how you’re seeing things.
This is getting a bit off-topic now, but payjoin does not provide significant privacy as to where you are spending your funds, requires support from the payee, and is certainly less widespread than Lightning.
There is no reason to support on-chain and Lightning for something like a VPN provider: It will degrade the user experience and provide less encouragement of adoption of modern and private Bitcoin transactions.
This seems like projection to me, because your remarks seem a lot more like rationalization of a position that is just much more personally desirable for you than something grounded in any kind of analysis of trade offs. I have provided a list of the downsides of supporting both, and you have only responded by saying you want the option because it’d be nice for you, a single person who I honestly think would be the only person asking for a slower, more expensive, less private payment mechanism for their VPN than any of the other supported options.
Well, the good news is that Obscura needs to decide that for themselves.
You clearly don’t see the need for having more options for more flexibility and accessibility for people who may not even know any better to use Lightning instead. Maybe they only know one way to go about it. Why do you want to restrict them?
No. I also said
Why is this personal to you?
Hey man.. not everyone is tech savvy enough to know which wallet to use and how. Do not gatekeep what is the best or not the best way to go about it. People adopting crypto even using their own Exchange’s app is still a good thing to me (if that’s all they know how to transact). Albeit awareness should be spread to use non custodial wallets instead, always.
I don’t get your preference to not provide more options at the very least for accessibility and flexibility sake. Geez. And any reason you provided to me is not good enough for not having more options. People should be free to transact how they want if given the options. Ironic that you don’t appear to think so when we’re talking about purchasing to use a privacy product aimed at aiding your privacy and freedom online.
It seems they already have. You are the one questioning the decision they’ve made, and I am encouraging them to stand by it.
This doesn’t follow. If someone doesn’t know any better, Lightning is by far the better option. This is actually exactly my point, on-chain payments are providing a significantly worse option for people who don’t know any better.
I’m not sure at all where this came from and it seems like more projection.
It’s not really gatekeeping to say one option is always going to be worse than another so it just shouldn’t be offered.
Can you name a significant exchange that doesn’t support sending via Lightning at this point if these are the users you are concerned about?
Providing more options is bad if the additional option is just a gun for you to use to shoot yourself in the foot.
I have nothing more to add. Good luck to you.