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I find this worrying, and for the usual reasons. People would often want to make a living by making money from their craft, but it turns out it's not so simple

I find this worrying, and for the usual reasons. People would often want to make a living by making money from their craft, but it turns out it's not so simple as finding "the market", one needs a whole load of boilerplate for it too. One such piece of boilerplate is Patreon, and Patreon's boilerplate is payment processors. So it's strange that whenever this topic comes up, people speak of it as if it's just a little issue, when it's not. Often this idea that "it's their business, so it's their rules" is trotted out, which while of course being technically correct works to shut down any kind of critique of the state of affairs. People rightly or wrongly, depend on such platforms for their livelihood, and it's a shame that, as eurg wrote, nothing happens because it's a niche problem. It doesn't affect the "good guys", because we value their craft more than other crafts. But it comes down to this - I realise that if I ever wanted to monetise my own artistry, I'd have to use Patreon, and the limitation of what I can post (be that adult content, even the more "disgusting" kinds involving incest or bestiality as they mention) means that my creative output is limited. As such, what I can spend my time on is not only restricted by "the market", but also by Patreon, also by Visa, also by PayPal, also by Mastercard etc. I become self-censored, chilling effects.

gruez 8y ago
>People would often want to make a living by making money from their craft, [...] People rightly or wrongly, depend on such platforms for their livelihood [..] I become self-censored, chilling effects. oh please, stop making it sound like one artisanal widget maker's livlihood is being destroyed by The System. the truth is that they're producing and selling adult content, which (among other things) is riskier to transact than artisnal beads. the "mainstream" payment processors simply do not want to deal with the hassle, pure and simple. as other commenters have mentioned, there are payment processors that cater to such "high risk" businesses, but they don't come cheap.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  Unfortunately you are simply repeating the line I set out to criticise: >It doesn't affect the "good guys", because we value their craft more than other crafts. I am not only wanting to criticise the individual payment processors, because I understand the risk of doing business with such things. I want to criticise the whole system in which people must rely upon several centralised services in order to get by with their craft. The fact that such things are difficult to fund is the crux of the issue here, and the point is that it's a sad state of affairs to be in that the alternative options are scarce and expensive/difficult to procure. But the point is still lost. I will reiterate: people would much rather use their knowledge and skill for a craft than to work a minimum-wage job or even in between jobs; peoples' livelihoods are at stake, and it's disappointing to see a comment along the lines of "just use another service" or justifying the situation as simply being the way the world works. The point is that the world shouldn't work that way, and as soon as we realise that, the sooner we can put pressure in the relevant places to change it. The mere suggestion of alternatives (either in the crowdfunding platform or the payment platform) does nothing to help the people who, even if they could afford to move, would suffer a massive loss in audience and revenue.
  - cpmouter 8y ago
    "Their craft", geez. It's whores taking pictures of their tits. What the fuck is going on in this world?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - 18pfsmt 8y ago
    It took me quite a bit of reading and re-reading to understand the point you are trying to make (at least I think I understand now). Nobody is owed a living. I wouldn't try to justify this move just like I'm not going to try to justify gravity to you: it just is that way. How many of the great artists in the history of the world were able to earn money from their art during their lifetimes? It certainly is a more recent phenomenon. The starving artist is not a cliche for no reason. If you would like to get specific and look to solve a problem I bet many on HN would be willing to help, but simply decrying the state of the world over this seems melodramatic and not worthy of HN.
    - gizmo686 8y ago
      What is going on here is a blatant market failure. There are people producing content, and people willing to spend enough money on that content to justify its creation. In an ideal market, these transactions would go through, and everyone becomes wealthier. To be clear, there was a market failure before Patreon entered the scene because there was simply no market for these transactions to take place. But now, Patreon is deliberatly re-introducing that market failure. Further their reason for doing so is a generic excuse of "porn bad for payment processors"; not some specific "we noticed that the porn monetized on our platform results in an unacceptably high level of chargebacks". From the outside, it looks like this is a market failure that has no reason to exist other than institutional bias that is no longer grounded in reality.
      - adultcontent 8y ago
        The market hasn't failed, it's perfectly possible to sell adult content online, it's just relatively more expensive. "From the outside, it looks like this is a market failure that has no reason to exist other than institutional bias that is no longer grounded in reality." I think you're being a bit naive there. Surely those companies would have no objection to tasteful nudity or educational content, but if you want to process actual porn you'll have accept a lot of seriously offensive content that you definitely don't want to directly associate with your brand.
adultcontent 8y ago
I can assure you with full confidence that there's practically no limitation on "disgusting material" that you can sell online, as long as it's legal (which bestiality isn't). In fact, the farther you push the boundaries, the better chance you will have at making money, assuming there still is an audience for it. There's a platform for almost anything. Patreon just isn't the place for it and it never was. Patreon isn't even on the radar. That's not to say you will never run into issues with payment, but your ultimate problem isn't going to be the platforms, it's finding customers.
- icebraining 8y ago
  According to Wikipedia, sale and distribution of zoophilic pornography is legal in a few states, including CA.

gruez 8y ago

>People would often want to make a living by making money from their craft, [...] People rightly or wrongly, depend on such platforms for their livelihood [..] I become self-censored, chilling effects. oh please, stop making it sound like one artisanal widget maker's livlihood is being destroyed by The System. the truth is that they're producing and selling adult content, which (among other things) is riskier to transact than artisnal beads. the "mainstream" payment processors simply do not want to deal with the hassle, pure and simple. as other commenters have mentioned, there are payment processors that cater to such "high risk" businesses, but they don't come cheap.

claudiawerner 8y ago
Unfortunately you are simply repeating the line I set out to criticise: >It doesn't affect the "good guys", because we value their craft more than other crafts. I am not only wanting to criticise the individual payment processors, because I understand the risk of doing business with such things. I want to criticise the whole system in which people must rely upon several centralised services in order to get by with their craft. The fact that such things are difficult to fund is the crux of the issue here, and the point is that it's a sad state of affairs to be in that the alternative options are scarce and expensive/difficult to procure. But the point is still lost. I will reiterate: people would much rather use their knowledge and skill for a craft than to work a minimum-wage job or even in between jobs; peoples' livelihoods are at stake, and it's disappointing to see a comment along the lines of "just use another service" or justifying the situation as simply being the way the world works. The point is that the world shouldn't work that way, and as soon as we realise that, the sooner we can put pressure in the relevant places to change it. The mere suggestion of alternatives (either in the crowdfunding platform or the payment platform) does nothing to help the people who, even if they could afford to move, would suffer a massive loss in audience and revenue.
- cpmouter 8y ago
  "Their craft", geez. It's whores taking pictures of their tits. What the fuck is going on in this world?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- 18pfsmt 8y ago
  It took me quite a bit of reading and re-reading to understand the point you are trying to make (at least I think I understand now). Nobody is owed a living. I wouldn't try to justify this move just like I'm not going to try to justify gravity to you: it just is that way. How many of the great artists in the history of the world were able to earn money from their art during their lifetimes? It certainly is a more recent phenomenon. The starving artist is not a cliche for no reason. If you would like to get specific and look to solve a problem I bet many on HN would be willing to help, but simply decrying the state of the world over this seems melodramatic and not worthy of HN.
  - gizmo686 8y ago
    What is going on here is a blatant market failure. There are people producing content, and people willing to spend enough money on that content to justify its creation. In an ideal market, these transactions would go through, and everyone becomes wealthier. To be clear, there was a market failure before Patreon entered the scene because there was simply no market for these transactions to take place. But now, Patreon is deliberatly re-introducing that market failure. Further their reason for doing so is a generic excuse of "porn bad for payment processors"; not some specific "we noticed that the porn monetized on our platform results in an unacceptably high level of chargebacks". From the outside, it looks like this is a market failure that has no reason to exist other than institutional bias that is no longer grounded in reality.
    - adultcontent 8y ago
      The market hasn't failed, it's perfectly possible to sell adult content online, it's just relatively more expensive. "From the outside, it looks like this is a market failure that has no reason to exist other than institutional bias that is no longer grounded in reality." I think you're being a bit naive there. Surely those companies would have no objection to tasteful nudity or educational content, but if you want to process actual porn you'll have accept a lot of seriously offensive content that you definitely don't want to directly associate with your brand.

adultcontent 8y ago

I can assure you with full confidence that there's practically no limitation on "disgusting material" that you can sell online, as long as it's legal (which bestiality isn't). In fact, the farther you push the boundaries, the better chance you will have at making money, assuming there still is an audience for it. There's a platform for almost anything. Patreon just isn't the place for it and it never was. Patreon isn't even on the radar. That's not to say you will never run into issues with payment, but your ultimate problem isn't going to be the platforms, it's finding customers.

icebraining 8y ago
According to Wikipedia, sale and distribution of zoophilic pornography is legal in a few states, including CA.