I've noticed it can be tricky to avoid PayPal at times due to their partnerships with other large companies.
Are there any decent alternatives that are viable competitors to PayPal that one might want to move to if their terms become unacceptable? If not, I guess there's always the notion of refusing to do business with those who use PayPal as their one and only payment processor.
> Are there any decent alternatives that are viable competitors to PayPal
I guess this lack of competition is the exact reason why PayPal can behave as such. I'm writing this as a very happy 10+ years PayPal user, however the number of complaints and horror stories I've read during all those years is so large that it probably means I'm rather the exception than the rule, for now (touches various things).
Every time we see a 'PayPal bad' report here, it's someone running afoul of a perfectly reasonable condition. The biggest one is people running businesses that take money now and deliver a product at some time in the future, putting all the liability for chargebacks on PayPal, and then freaking out when PayPal puts a hold on the business's funds till their product is delivered.
I'd say it's not the lack of competition that allows PayPal to have the user agreement they do.
It's the fact that PayPal's user agreement is as liberal as running a successful money transmitter business can allow.
Are there even that many businesses that only let you pay via PayPal? I don't think I've ever encountered one. I use PayPal often enough for convenience (and to avoid giving out my CC number for a one-off purchase from a new website), but I don't think I'd be too bothered if I had to close my PayPal account. And yeah, if I ran into a website that only accepted PayPal, and didn't have an account, I'd just move on and buy somewhere else.
Are there any decent alternatives that are viable competitors to PayPal that one might want to move to if their terms become unacceptable? If not, I guess there's always the notion of refusing to do business with those who use PayPal as their one and only payment processor.