It's the amazing moving goalpost! So as long as you don't actually use Changetip as intended on any of your own online services but instead limit its use to anonymous reddit profiles for every small transaction, you're good. Sounds easy and customer-friendly!
Uh... yes, it's impossible for me to remain anonymous using a social media account that is already tied to me. How is this surprising? How, theoretically, could this not be the case?
You didn't read the part about Pantera owning both Bitstamp and Circle, did you? So as long as you only use shady anonymous Eastern European exchanges or meet guys in an alleyway to get your $.50, you're good. This all sounds so convenient and easy!
Um... you don't seem to understand how bitcoin works. After one or two hops, especially if you use a mixer, it is impossible for anyone to know who owns those coins. If I transfer from changetip, to my own wallet, to an exchange, there is no way changetip would assume that I still own the coins, if they were going to go try to sell this info to third parties. If you think bitcoin isn't anonymous, tell me who owns the coins from any heist ever. Go on, I dare you.
You look like one of those Ideas Men. You do realize that an idea means nothing? Gathering VC funding, hiring people, creating business plans, renting offices, hiring lawyers to maintain regulatory compliance and a million other things that are all needed to start a Changetip competitor isn't really non-trivial and nobody's going to do it if there isn't a profit to be made?
You're correct; an idea without a market, is worthless. All of these things are much easier to accomplish if there's a market for the new service. If changetip goes rogue, this will create such a market. Also, a changetip competitor does not need to be profitable; it can simply be a protocol. If a large enough demand for something exists, and it's practically achievable, someone will create it. Look at proof-of-reserves, multisignature transactions, and bitcoin itself.
People are building [services](bitmesh.network) on top of micropayment channels already. It would be trivial to apply the same concept to tipping. Changetip just need to mess up pretty bad, and then they're history.