I use PayPal to be the middle man to protect my credit card information when I purchase items online.
Of course I have grown less fond of PayPal and their scammy behavior (plus the password limit is 20, wtf?)
My question; is there an alternative to paypal to buy things online (without crypto as not all stores take such things), such as privacy.com (but for Europe).
Correct mw if im wrong, but I believe privacy.com is for US, Canada region.
The hurdle is that Europe tends to adopt things that are successful in the US, because it is convenient. Even most services and startups based in Europe are more or less copies of US products, with some notable exceptions of highly specialised applications. This unfortunate trend started in the 1970s, when the largest industrial players in Europe thought semiconductors were just a fad and consequently lost their competitive edge.
It was seen as less risky to invest in commercially proven concepts than to actually innovate. This continues to bite us in the ass to this day.