[axelthegerman]

> payment process have absolutely no way of knowing anything except those few last numbers of the card

This is just plain wrong.

1. Payment processors know everything because they process the payment

2. Application developers don't know anything besides the last 4 is closer to reality because they're probably not PCI compliant to access the remaining information. BUT some processors such as Adyen will try to provide a unique identifier for each card (that has no further information except linking multiple purchases across vendors and channels).

Now with this unique identifier X still wouldn't know WHO you are but they could provide that information to advertisers that might know or at least use it to track you online and in person

[SXX]

> 1. Payment processors know everything because they process the payment

They know all the information you given, but in practice they can't even verify "name on the card" that you entered in most of countries. In some countries they can check your billing address ZIP code, but that's all about it.

And there absolutely no way for them to find out if you are unique user with one card or you just have 10 cards for the same credit account or created 10 supplimentary cards for all your family and the dog.

[prepend]

Apple and Google and Stripe do not allow the same card on multiple accounts.

Also, having a fraudulent Apple Pay account is pretty rare and requires an entire apple account. That can be shut down if shenanigans.

My original point is that having a credit card greatly reduces the anonymity of accounts and allows for greater ability to trace back to the user. Both for uniqueness (ie, does prepend front 500 twitter accounts?) and for legal reasons (eg, prepend just did a crime, let’s find out who prepend is).

This doesn’t mean people can’t get around it. It means most people can get around it.