I don't get what the code words, and/or only verifying certain people's contributions does except overcomplicate everything for no obvious reason.
If you absolutely must take tips, and you've lost what sounds like thousands of dollars of apparently critical income on fake tippers, require verified PayPal for everyone. Brain-dead easy.
If some of your bankruptcy-enablers don't want to get a verified PayPal, accept cheers from them instead.
If you *only* accepted cheers, none of this would be a fucking problem whatsoever because the cheering accounts are obviously and clearly identified.
If the chargebacks/fake tips/whatever-the-hell-he's-calling-it-this-week is that serious a financial problem that it threatens his income daily, why would you not do the most easy, straightforward, and secure things first? Why would you add all this unnecessary bullshit to the situation?
Looking at it from Phil's perspective, the code words are the only functional way for Phil to accept unverified tips from whales on the fly. The only alternatives are to prearrange with the whales, or to have them confirm the tip on their Twitch account in the chat. The former takes effort and Phil gets mocked for it, and the latter has both Phil getting mocked and the paypig - several appear to enjoy tipping under aliases. Something tells me OiC is among the ranks of whales that refuses to verify their PayPal to help Phil out, and Phil knows that, aside from maybe the peak of the chargebacks where he didn't know it was coming, their contributions outweigh anything SH can cost him. I think we were right and that Phil may have been disabling unverified tips in December, and then turning them back on when he was expecting whales like Jax.
On the rest, you're absolutely right. Phil has had trouble justifying why he can't switch to accepting cheers and subs from the whales. For one, he deliberately conflates this to mean shutting down tips entirely. And from there, he insists that he absolutely requires tips for immediate expenses, and there is no way at all for him to basically flop so that he is at least one Twitch paycheck ahead at all times in order to not rely on said tips. The issues with this are clear - an adult should be able to budget, he makes $10k monthly so this should not remotely be a problem, and he received an entire extra Twitch paycheck from OverpoweredBoone and OiC alone in November and December and he didn't do it despite being, allegedly, nailed with chargebacks.
This basically leaves the core conclusion that Phil can't budget and mismanages money. Further, it suggests he is absolutely
reliant on immediate cash for some reason, and is willing to prioritize that over safer, equally viable options that just delays when he can get the money.
We know why this is the case - Phil is an addict and likely scales his gacha spending to match his monthly tips. He uses his Twitch paycheck to cover all expenses, and then blows his financial brains out on gacha and take-out.
To me, this is sort of the last line in terms of any belief that Phil is capable of that redemption arc he dreams of. He has had the time, money and support to swing his business structure around, as you described, to something that is more stable, secure, and responsible. And not only is he not doing this, he is going out of his way to find ways to continue operating in the most volatile way possible, and pushing as much responsibility onto his supporters as he can. While doing this, he has also doubled down on his whale-reliance because he created a prohibitive barrier for casuals to tip, and allowed only whales an option to bypass that. It's incompetent. But Phil needs the cash hit so he can keep the dopamine flowing. SH has not financially broken him, but he has really shown how pathetic and irresponsible Phil really is.
