Some of these, pornography (and other sex-related work) in particular, are sketchy businesses because of the difficulty of operating above-board in those indust

Some of these, pornography (and other sex-related work) in particular, are sketchy businesses because of the difficulty of operating above-board in those industries. Several of my friends are sex workers of various types, and their ability to get paid is always through shady people and businesses, because legitimate payment services won't allow them to use their services. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, in short. If the law or industry forces something underground, it will breed a dangerous culture. I'm happy to hear Stripe has a desire to be more open to these kinds of business...because the people working in them often suffer due to having to use unscrupulous providers for everything. Models having their payment accounts closed without warning and without receiving moneys owed, horrible rates (cam models often receive only about half of the money their customers send their way), etc. But, it's also still very frustrating; when I've advised friends in the industry on technical matters I never have a good answer for payments. There just aren't any really good payment processors that will work with people in the adult industry. It's legal in all 50 states (at least in the case of pornography), there's just no reason for it to behave like a grey market, but it does.