
Donations to arXiv - adulau
https://arxiv.org/help/donate
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augustl
I’m in the habit of donating $1 a month to everything I come across that seems
useful to me and that accepts recurring monthly donations , Patreon style. But
I had to donate a minimum of $5 for my donation to be accepted. I wonder why
they set a minimum amount. Confusion? Greed? Regulatory or practicality
issues?

~~~
nathancahill
I manage online donations for a small non-profit. Amounts below $5 are
significantly eaten by fees and overhead (getting worse as amounts approach
$1). Please consider changing your giving to $12/year. Right now half of your
money isn't going to the causes you're trying to support.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Huh. Patreon takes 5%; Paypal takes 1%. How does that eat up $5? I ask in
order to find out.

~~~
nathancahill
Small volume CC processing is 2.9% + 30¢. For $1 that's 33¢. Another 10-15¢ in
overhead with accounting, sending tax-deductible receipts, etc. Little things
add up.

In the above example:

12 donations of $1/month: organization sees about $6.50.

1 donation of $12/year: organization sees about $11.20.

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kragen
After clicking through four pages and being told my home phone number was
required (‽), I found that they don't take Bitcoin donations, only credit-card
donations. ArXiv does really good and important work, but I'm going to donate
to Sci-Hub instead, because it's so much easier. It takes three minutes and
doesn't put me at any risk of identity theft, getting carded, getting
spearphished, or getting telemarketing calls.

(There are still "middlemen merchants skimming money", though, despite what
another commenter implies about cryptocurrencies. You pay a transaction fee,
and coin/fiat exchanges have a spread. The amounts are often lower, especially
for small transactions, but they're often close to the 3% cost of a credit-
card transaction.)

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per4
Reading all the complaints about this, seems like a way to donate via Ethereum
would be a perfect fit for this. No middlemen merchants skimming money.

