Businesses I have successfully suggested accept crypto include a web development school, a fitness camp and a real estate agent. My usual spiel is something like this, but tailored to the particular merchant:

By the way if you guys accepted bitcoin for payments it would benefit both of us. With a payment processor like Bitpay or Coinbase you get USDs in your bank account the next day with low fees, 0 chargebacks and 0 fraud. I would be the first customer and we could promote it to other bitcoiners as well.

I was having difficulty paying for Spotify because I signed up from Canada, but I no longer have Canadian payment methods. It was no use making a new account here in Thailand because Spotify does not accept any Thai payment methods.

We know that crypto is the answer but Spotify has not figured that out yet, so I suggested it via email support. Here is the response (emphasis mine).

Hey BitEdge, Thanks for staying in touch. That’s a great idea! We’re currently looking into this and we will get back to you once we have some more information. To make this happen, we’ll need to have the support of the community and the local government that would facilitate it. Can you lead a movement and a working frame for governments to accept it so that we can monetize it and pay our artists? If you’re ready with the idea, you can go ahead and submit that here. You’ll also need to gain the support of the whole Spotify community to make that happen. Keep us posted! We’ll keep an eye out for your reply. From a fan that believes in you, Spotify Customer Support

Spotify thinks governments needs to facilitate them accepting bitcoin? In fact Spotify can use bitcoin with no government involvement any time they like.

Spotify thinks they need governments so they can monetize bitcoin? Bitcoin is money; that’s like saying “how can we monetize US dollars?”. If all they meant is pay expenses with bitcoin and/or convert bitcoin to government currency that is easy and does not involve government.

I had to check if Spotify was based in Russia, China, Iran or some authoritarian state. In fact it’s much worse… Sweden! Spotify’s yearning for permission and help from big daddy government comes from simple statism.

Happy ending

The good news is I was able to pay for Spotify with bitcoin indirectly by buying a Spotify gift card from CoinCards Canada which works great. They don’t process orders overnight so I had to wait quite a while, but apart from that It’s a nice service. I didn’t even find myself wishing for government permission or help to monetize my bitcoins 🙂