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Jun. 12th, 2015 07:08 amTurned out I had delivered a payment to [censored] in such a way that she'd have to pick it up at a pickup location, rather than directly to her bank account. Got on the phone with customer service to explain what went wrong when I initially tried the latter.
During said call, Dad asked me who I was on the phone with, and I told him. A minute later, he walks into my room to see what I'm doing, and asks what the deal is. I told him I was trying to look into sending a payment directly to someone's bank, and he said to just use PayPal. I told him I was ditching PayPal, and he said something aggravated and walked out. I reach back and shut the door just hard enough for him to make of it what he will, and he says something that I didn't bother making out.
I continue the call for a bit longer, before taking a screenshot to show to [censored], and then emailed Mom about what went on. Dad was watching something on TV, and I wasn't intent on picking a fight with him, but he did ask me over just when I was about to put my shoes on to go outside.
He asked me what the deal was with Western Union, what exactly I'm paying for, why I can't use PayPal, and so on. Just a minute or so into our discussion, Mom called, and I picked up to speak to her before letting Dad do so.
Mom and I had a bit of an email exchange after she and Dad were done on the phone, until her shift at work ended. She had some errands to run before actually coming home, but when she did, I wrote something about this whole boycotting deal while she settled down.
Regarding PayPal in particular, she told me that by digging my heels into the ground and avoiding it at all costs, I will be making it more difficult for myself to have transactions with people. Considering how especially true that would be regarding commissions, I did decide to at least reconsider my stance on that.
-----
Regarding boycotts in general, yeah, I'm fully aware that many just don't pan out. The reason the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956 worked out so well, was because nearly everyone involved (that being the black population) comprised more than half the people who paid to ride buses, and at the same time were the ones directly hurt by the service.
It is true that Autism Speaks has done quite a disservice for the autistic community. However, there are still lots of people even on the autism spectrum (like myself) whose lives aren't actually disrupted by it in any real way, and this creates a lack of motivation to actually get involved. Furthermore, while some companies who back it would be easy enough to boycott by anyone who cares, others would be rather tricky. For example, car companies (in this case, Toyota and Mazda) make thousands of dollars apiece from one-time customers who themselves tend not to care who they're buying from. I also found out from this petition and this WordPress post that Google is in on AS as well, and there's not much we can do to boycott that because its revenue comes from people who host websites on it for a monthly fee. (On that note, why aren't Google and Ebay listed in the affiliates page? You think they'd want to have their businesses promoted in exchange for their contributions to something?)
Still, change on a scale like this doesn't happen overnight or singlehandedly, or else it already would have. It takes time and collective efforts, and that's why it's called progress and why people remember it. It's a process, not an event, and after learning on Chelle's Tumblr how truly corrupt Autism Speaks is (and especially the first post about it, calling for a boycott of Lindt), it would only become of me to do my part in things and leave as much of a dent as possible in anyone's funding that I can, among other things.
The purpose of closing my PayPal account would have been to prevent myself from continually defaulting to it. Given what Mom had to say yesterday, though, I do suppose I should hold off on that. So far, I've only tried out one person to fund via Western Union, and with anyone else I commission for stuff or who might want to donate money to me (in lieu of DeviantArt points), I will definitely let them choose their own payment method while suggesting WU. It also helps that I myself live just two streets away from a WU pickup location, since WU charges lower fees to have funds picked up by a recipient instead of transferred directly to their bank.
So, I'll give until December to see how things work out in general, before I decide whether or not to close my PP account. Hopefully, WU shouldn't be too much of a problem, aside from what might be some misinformation on [censored]'s part or something, because kymyit aside, it seems just as reasonable to expect almost everyone old enough to have a bank account as one would be expected to have a cell phone or email address in this day and age.
During said call, Dad asked me who I was on the phone with, and I told him. A minute later, he walks into my room to see what I'm doing, and asks what the deal is. I told him I was trying to look into sending a payment directly to someone's bank, and he said to just use PayPal. I told him I was ditching PayPal, and he said something aggravated and walked out. I reach back and shut the door just hard enough for him to make of it what he will, and he says something that I didn't bother making out.
I continue the call for a bit longer, before taking a screenshot to show to [censored], and then emailed Mom about what went on. Dad was watching something on TV, and I wasn't intent on picking a fight with him, but he did ask me over just when I was about to put my shoes on to go outside.
He asked me what the deal was with Western Union, what exactly I'm paying for, why I can't use PayPal, and so on. Just a minute or so into our discussion, Mom called, and I picked up to speak to her before letting Dad do so.
Mom and I had a bit of an email exchange after she and Dad were done on the phone, until her shift at work ended. She had some errands to run before actually coming home, but when she did, I wrote something about this whole boycotting deal while she settled down.
Regarding PayPal in particular, she told me that by digging my heels into the ground and avoiding it at all costs, I will be making it more difficult for myself to have transactions with people. Considering how especially true that would be regarding commissions, I did decide to at least reconsider my stance on that.
-----
Regarding boycotts in general, yeah, I'm fully aware that many just don't pan out. The reason the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956 worked out so well, was because nearly everyone involved (that being the black population) comprised more than half the people who paid to ride buses, and at the same time were the ones directly hurt by the service.
It is true that Autism Speaks has done quite a disservice for the autistic community. However, there are still lots of people even on the autism spectrum (like myself) whose lives aren't actually disrupted by it in any real way, and this creates a lack of motivation to actually get involved. Furthermore, while some companies who back it would be easy enough to boycott by anyone who cares, others would be rather tricky. For example, car companies (in this case, Toyota and Mazda) make thousands of dollars apiece from one-time customers who themselves tend not to care who they're buying from. I also found out from this petition and this WordPress post that Google is in on AS as well, and there's not much we can do to boycott that because its revenue comes from people who host websites on it for a monthly fee. (On that note, why aren't Google and Ebay listed in the affiliates page? You think they'd want to have their businesses promoted in exchange for their contributions to something?)
Still, change on a scale like this doesn't happen overnight or singlehandedly, or else it already would have. It takes time and collective efforts, and that's why it's called progress and why people remember it. It's a process, not an event, and after learning on Chelle's Tumblr how truly corrupt Autism Speaks is (and especially the first post about it, calling for a boycott of Lindt), it would only become of me to do my part in things and leave as much of a dent as possible in anyone's funding that I can, among other things.
The purpose of closing my PayPal account would have been to prevent myself from continually defaulting to it. Given what Mom had to say yesterday, though, I do suppose I should hold off on that. So far, I've only tried out one person to fund via Western Union, and with anyone else I commission for stuff or who might want to donate money to me (in lieu of DeviantArt points), I will definitely let them choose their own payment method while suggesting WU. It also helps that I myself live just two streets away from a WU pickup location, since WU charges lower fees to have funds picked up by a recipient instead of transferred directly to their bank.
So, I'll give until December to see how things work out in general, before I decide whether or not to close my PP account. Hopefully, WU shouldn't be too much of a problem, aside from what might be some misinformation on [censored]'s part or something, because kymyit aside, it seems just as reasonable to expect almost everyone old enough to have a bank account as one would be expected to have a cell phone or email address in this day and age.