> How do you propose the money will be collected without credit cards?
Well in "civilized" countries with a modern banking system there'S this thing called "direct debit". It's how practically all recurring payment (rent, subscriptions, etc.) in, e.g. Germany, are done.
An updated version for the Internet could work like the following (to the user): Say you want to subscribe to "Bob's totally cool online publication". During the subscription process, when it comes to payment method you're presented with a "reference number" (actually a cryptographic token, but don't scare average joe with that), which you are asked to enter in your bank's internet-banking system. You do so, the banking system goes through the usual 2FA process you already know and that's it.
On the backside like this:
- Encode cryptographic nonce and service URL into token.
- Banking system uses token to identify which service to talk to and query if the contained user nonce is part of an ongoing transaction and within the timeout window.
- If the query passes all checks, ask the user for 2FA (Smart-TAN, HBCI, you name it).
- If 2FA is successfull send confirmation code to the service.
- Service shows the user that the subscription was successfull.
As you've mentioned in Germany you have TAN numbers, in Australia and New Zealand you can send money to any person with their name and account number, free of any fee or charge.
With companies like Paypal, Venmo and Square profiting so much from that gap, I doubt we'll ever see the US banking system work as well as those in the rest of the world.
I'm assuming you're including debit cards in that statement, but if not: Debit cards? Bitcoin? Wire transfer? ACH?