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The title of the article is misleading, it's not programming that is the real issue, it's billing (the progamming issues are just a part in the article). Since

by LarryL 8y ago

The title of the article is misleading, it's not programming that is the real issue, it's billing (the progamming issues are just a part in the article). Since the Credit Card companies & banks create lots of problems as soon as sex is involved (see FetLife's misadventures in HN previous articles for instance) in addition to the big chargebacks issue, and given that customers lie a lot (because they can), I think that the best solution for pornsites would be something similar to prepaid cards used for Google Play, consoles networks and the like. You buy a card, this puts a limited amount on your "PornPlayButDontSayItIsForThat" account, it's easy to control, anonymous, limits risks even if the account is compromised or the porn site dodgy (hidden automatic renevals & the like) since at most you'd lose that limited amount, then you can buy porn without the issue of the SO (a big problem it seems) and without any banks (or whatever) knowing about your -still badly perceived- habits. In fact, I'm surprised such a system (not specific to a porn site/network) is not already widely available. Of course, it would not present itself as "the Porn Prepaid Card" because of the stigma... Note that some sites/networks accept gift cards already (I've checked), but it's not very practical (not fine grained, you must use the whole card) and they don't accept ALL cards, what do you do when you're living in France and they only accept American gift cards? You can also buy "tokens" in many sites (especially Webcams) but they still require a CC, so the problem is not solved. A more general "ePurse" system would be better. This is much more realistic -IMO- than using Bitcoins or the like (too difficult to use and too volatile). Of course, to REALLY solve the problem you'd "only" need people to stop seeing sex (and porn) as bad, dirty, taboo, etc. But this won't happen anytime soon :-(((

chopin 8y ago
You're looking for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysafecard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysafecard. It's pretty common here in Europe.
dangom 8y ago
That's really a nice idea. One of the possible issues here is that some of these cards, specially anonymous ones, may take time to validate. Users may not want to wait 24hrs+ for their digital content to arrive. This should be a solvable problem, though.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  WHy would it take that long? If anything a new currency system would work _outside_ the broken international money transfer system.
greyman 8y ago
> Of course, to REALLY solve the problem you'd "only" need people to stop seeing sex (and porn) as bad, dirty, taboo, etc. But this won't happen anytime soon :-((( It won't, since it is not universally true, that seeing porn is not bad. There are thousands of personal accounts, or even a whole communities of people, who are trying to get rid of porn watching due to damage it brought to their lives.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I'd say that gambling does a lot worse damage and that is much more widespread and "legitimate" (here in the UK at least). Online gambling sites are even advertised on primetime TV! Or for a better example of a perfectly above-board and healthy activity enjoyed by huge numbers of people that can become addictive and "a problem" - how about gaming? (I'm not trying to belittle your point or resort to "whataboutism" here, just pointing out some examples from other industries). The problem with porn is that it's sex and sex is dirty and bad and you should feel ashamed for having anything to do with it. /s
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    With pornography, there is the added stigma of an industry that has a lot of exploitation, abuse, and sex trafficking.
  - bena 8y ago
    Here in the US, on every lottery and gambling advertisement, there is a small notice or disclaimer for gambling addiction hotlines. So yeah, like you, I'm not buying the entire "because some people are addicted" angle either. We are sold addictive substances all the time.
- doombolt 8y ago
  Why can't they just close the web page as opposed to affect other people's behavior? If that fails, go see a doctor with your own money. E.g. I watch porn and I don't need their efforts on liberating me from it, thank you.
bumholio 8y ago
The problem with this approach, and the related proposals like 3D Secure and Bitcoin, is precisely that it puts a low ceiling on what the site is allowed to charge to exactly what the customer is willing to spend on porn. The bread and butter of porn and most other internet subscription models is to get hold of the consumer credit card data and then setup a long run recurring payment stream, on the expectation that while most people will cancel it, a profitable minority will forget or enjoy and pay for the service further. If just 25% of the customers let the subscription run for an average of 1 additional year, you will net 4x more money compared to a site that needs to renew the purchase every month, with zero customer acquisition costs and zero marginal costs for the provider - the content and platform are a sunk cost and traffic charges are negligible. Only now you have 4x more money to produce the content and generally be more competitive, pushing out of the market those who don't adopt the same tricks. This is what The New York Times and porn sites have in common, and that's why you will see similar dark patterns of making subscription hard to cancel. In the porn's case, it's a much steeper uphill battle to get the money from the customer and his bank (and his wife), so they are forever relegated to the high-chargeback bin and must internalize that into their business model. Which might explain some of the "breakage" the original author is observing.
- phkahler 8y ago
  If there was a prepaid card that make these payments easy and even anonymous, I'd spend a lot more on the internet. I refuse to get into subscriptions. I pass on a lot of articles that I'd like to read. A prepaid card that not connected to my finances and widely usable? If drop a hundred on it today. How many people like me will it take to have this make sense?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    All prepaid cards are anonymous. You pay for the card with cash.
    - skykooler 8y ago
      Last time I bought a prepaid card (I believe it was Visa), to register it I had to be looked up in the credit card database. As I did not have a credit card at the time (hence buying the prepaid card), I was not in the database, so they would not sell me the card.
joecot 8y ago
The problem is that most consumers don't plan ahead for wanting to buy a porn subscription. It's a spur of the moment decision. Any form of barrier you put in front of that decision -- whether it's extra verification, or a different digital currency they need to buy, or a prepaid card just for adult content -- drastically reduces the percentage of surfers that go from "guy looking at the site's preview page" to "guy that became a member." This is why few Adult companies have setup Verified by Visa or 3-D Secure (though as I noted elsewhere, 3-D Secure rarely actually works) for verifying cards before charging the transaction. This is why Adult companies in the UK started scrambling when they passed legislation requiring driver's license verification. This is why no prepaid adult content card -- and there have been numerous, including one promoted by Howard Stern -- has ever really caught on. Any extra step required to pay for a site increases the percentage of people that just click off to somewhere else. Luring those people to your site in the first place is expensive, involving all sorts of advertising and affiliate deals, so anything that reduces the conversion ratio is a deal breaker.
- hakfoo 8y ago
  I wonder if fraud could be reduced by creating a "push" payment model instead of pull. Not just for adult sites, but for e-commerce in general. The form says "To subscribe, remit $25 to account 12345678, and paste the transaction ID into this field." The merchant could then verify that the transaction ID matched up with a payment he received and complete the sale. With a standardized microformat for the payment data, this could probably all be detectable and streamlined into browser plugins or apps-- you'd just see a button that redirects you to log into your bank's site with the transfer details prewired. I figure this has plenty of benefits: * The only remotely sensitive data you pass to the merchant is a transaction ID. You'd probably be able to actually do the sale without SSL, but certainly without most of the PCI compliance hassle. * The merchant can't use the info you provided to enable an unexpected second charge or subscription. * The bank can choose to make their process for executing the push transactions as "easy" or as "secure" as they (or the users) want. The merchant doesn't have to know, care, or worse, spend money to retool their site to support changes. In a way, PayPal's flow is sort of push-oriented, but it's ugly in a lot of ways.

by LarryL 8y ago

chopin 8y ago

You're looking for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysafecard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysafecard. It's pretty common here in Europe.

dangom 8y ago

That's really a nice idea. One of the possible issues here is that some of these cards, specially anonymous ones, may take time to validate. Users may not want to wait 24hrs+ for their digital content to arrive. This should be a solvable problem, though.

tomjen3 8y ago
WHy would it take that long? If anything a new currency system would work _outside_ the broken international money transfer system.

greyman 8y ago

> Of course, to REALLY solve the problem you'd "only" need people to stop seeing sex (and porn) as bad, dirty, taboo, etc. But this won't happen anytime soon :-((( It won't, since it is not universally true, that seeing porn is not bad. There are thousands of personal accounts, or even a whole communities of people, who are trying to get rid of porn watching due to damage it brought to their lives.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I'd say that gambling does a lot worse damage and that is much more widespread and "legitimate" (here in the UK at least). Online gambling sites are even advertised on primetime TV! Or for a better example of a perfectly above-board and healthy activity enjoyed by huge numbers of people that can become addictive and "a problem" - how about gaming? (I'm not trying to belittle your point or resort to "whataboutism" here, just pointing out some examples from other industries). The problem with porn is that it's sex and sex is dirty and bad and you should feel ashamed for having anything to do with it. /s
- jjeaff 8y ago
  With pornography, there is the added stigma of an industry that has a lot of exploitation, abuse, and sex trafficking.
- bena 8y ago
  Here in the US, on every lottery and gambling advertisement, there is a small notice or disclaimer for gambling addiction hotlines. So yeah, like you, I'm not buying the entire "because some people are addicted" angle either. We are sold addictive substances all the time.
doombolt 8y ago
Why can't they just close the web page as opposed to affect other people's behavior? If that fails, go see a doctor with your own money. E.g. I watch porn and I don't need their efforts on liberating me from it, thank you.

bumholio 8y ago

The problem with this approach, and the related proposals like 3D Secure and Bitcoin, is precisely that it puts a low ceiling on what the site is allowed to charge to exactly what the customer is willing to spend on porn. The bread and butter of porn and most other internet subscription models is to get hold of the consumer credit card data and then setup a long run recurring payment stream, on the expectation that while most people will cancel it, a profitable minority will forget or enjoy and pay for the service further. If just 25% of the customers let the subscription run for an average of 1 additional year, you will net 4x more money compared to a site that needs to renew the purchase every month, with zero customer acquisition costs and zero marginal costs for the provider - the content and platform are a sunk cost and traffic charges are negligible. Only now you have 4x more money to produce the content and generally be more competitive, pushing out of the market those who don't adopt the same tricks. This is what The New York Times and porn sites have in common, and that's why you will see similar dark patterns of making subscription hard to cancel. In the porn's case, it's a much steeper uphill battle to get the money from the customer and his bank (and his wife), so they are forever relegated to the high-chargeback bin and must internalize that into their business model. Which might explain some of the "breakage" the original author is observing.

phkahler 8y ago
If there was a prepaid card that make these payments easy and even anonymous, I'd spend a lot more on the internet. I refuse to get into subscriptions. I pass on a lot of articles that I'd like to read. A prepaid card that not connected to my finances and widely usable? If drop a hundred on it today. How many people like me will it take to have this make sense?
- scarface74 8y ago
  All prepaid cards are anonymous. You pay for the card with cash.
  - skykooler 8y ago
    Last time I bought a prepaid card (I believe it was Visa), to register it I had to be looked up in the credit card database. As I did not have a credit card at the time (hence buying the prepaid card), I was not in the database, so they would not sell me the card.

joecot 8y ago

The problem is that most consumers don't plan ahead for wanting to buy a porn subscription. It's a spur of the moment decision. Any form of barrier you put in front of that decision -- whether it's extra verification, or a different digital currency they need to buy, or a prepaid card just for adult content -- drastically reduces the percentage of surfers that go from "guy looking at the site's preview page" to "guy that became a member." This is why few Adult companies have setup Verified by Visa or 3-D Secure (though as I noted elsewhere, 3-D Secure rarely actually works) for verifying cards before charging the transaction. This is why Adult companies in the UK started scrambling when they passed legislation requiring driver's license verification. This is why no prepaid adult content card -- and there have been numerous, including one promoted by Howard Stern -- has ever really caught on. Any extra step required to pay for a site increases the percentage of people that just click off to somewhere else. Luring those people to your site in the first place is expensive, involving all sorts of advertising and affiliate deals, so anything that reduces the conversion ratio is a deal breaker.

hakfoo 8y ago
I wonder if fraud could be reduced by creating a "push" payment model instead of pull. Not just for adult sites, but for e-commerce in general. The form says "To subscribe, remit $25 to account 12345678, and paste the transaction ID into this field." The merchant could then verify that the transaction ID matched up with a payment he received and complete the sale. With a standardized microformat for the payment data, this could probably all be detectable and streamlined into browser plugins or apps-- you'd just see a button that redirects you to log into your bank's site with the transfer details prewired. I figure this has plenty of benefits: * The only remotely sensitive data you pass to the merchant is a transaction ID. You'd probably be able to actually do the sale without SSL, but certainly without most of the PCI compliance hassle. * The merchant can't use the info you provided to enable an unexpected second charge or subscription. * The bank can choose to make their process for executing the push transactions as "easy" or as "secure" as they (or the users) want. The merchant doesn't have to know, care, or worse, spend money to retool their site to support changes. In a way, PayPal's flow is sort of push-oriented, but it's ugly in a lot of ways.