5 ms·

Stripe suspends payments to BitChute

18 points by djsumdog 8y ago

philipov 8y ago
What is BitChute?
- detaro 8y ago
  Video hosting service using WebTorrent: https://www.bitchute.com/ https://www.bitchute.com/
- jboogie77 8y ago
  Asking the most important questions
- stevehawk 8y ago
  From what I can tell it's a P2P hosted video service. But it looks like it's predominately used by.. Alternate thinking /lifestyle people
  - hd4 8y ago
    IOW, people who want to say things which would be allowed under the 1st amendment but which wouldn't be allowed under the TOS of typical Silicon Valley companies.
  - anonbanker 8y ago
    Friendly reminder that YouTube started off being predominately used by.. Alternative thinking /lifestyle people
bitreality 8y ago
Par for the course for any business operating outside of traditional industries. Payment processors are continuously dropping merchants who they consider "high risk". Unfortunately for the merchants, they are not given any explanation on why they are "high risk", nor are they ever offered any chance to appeal the decision. The result is a huge amount of businesses which are operating legally, filing taxes, and doing their best to abide by the payment processor's TOS being dropped without explanation. Furthermore, considering how incredibly monopolistic the online payment processing industry is, there's few alternatives once a merchant has been dropped. Outside of PayPal and Stripe, you'll be hard pressed to find a payment processor suitable to handle worldwide online payments. The next step down from those 2 options are incredibly limited in comparison. An account closure on either of those two platforms is essentially a death sentence for any online store. Imagine, these payment processors have the ability to terminate your operations at any time, for any reason they wish, and they do not even need to provide you with an explanation. Your business is at their mercy, and you never know when or if they will pull the plug. Just another example of how the modern landscape is hostile to small businesses. These trends will continue, and you'll see plenty of innovative startups and small businesses get cut off from payment processing simply for being different. It's as if the payment processors are saying "Go open a traditional business! Sell toilet paper! Sell toys for kids!" But the reality is, nobody buys typical physical products from small businesses online anymore. They almost exclusively use Amazon and Walmart, or other major retailers. It's really depressing out there.
- SamPatt 8y ago
  This is where cryptocurrency is meant to come in. No reliance on third parties needed. Infrastructure still being built but things like OpenBazaar are out there.
luso_brazilian 8y ago
From the image itself, it seems Stripe was compelled instead of acting on their own volition > Please know, Richard, that it would be our absolute preference to continue working with your business, and this decision is in no way a reflection of our feelings towards your business, from either a moral or legal standpoint. > Rather, this is a restriction imposed upon us directly from our financial partners, who use have an archaic and frankly antiquated view of non-traditional businesses. As such, our hands are truly tied here, I hope that you can appreciate that. These financial partners, I assume, are the same forces that engaged in a blockade against Wikileaks back in 2010 [1], except in this case the motivation are not as cut and clear as they were back then [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m...
yazr 8y ago
Can someone explain how these "financial partners" pin point and single out a site like BitCute The whole point of stripe/paypal (i assume) is that the credit card company does not know about individual businesses using stripe ? Do they have a team of people looking for weird sites which use a 3rd party and demand removal ?
justaj 8y ago
Mods, please fix the title. Should be "BitChute".

18 points by djsumdog 8y ago

philipov 8y ago

What is BitChute?

detaro 8y ago
Video hosting service using WebTorrent: https://www.bitchute.com/ https://www.bitchute.com/
jboogie77 8y ago
Asking the most important questions
stevehawk 8y ago
From what I can tell it's a P2P hosted video service. But it looks like it's predominately used by.. Alternate thinking /lifestyle people
- hd4 8y ago
  IOW, people who want to say things which would be allowed under the 1st amendment but which wouldn't be allowed under the TOS of typical Silicon Valley companies.
- anonbanker 8y ago
  Friendly reminder that YouTube started off being predominately used by.. Alternative thinking /lifestyle people

bitreality 8y ago

Par for the course for any business operating outside of traditional industries. Payment processors are continuously dropping merchants who they consider "high risk". Unfortunately for the merchants, they are not given any explanation on why they are "high risk", nor are they ever offered any chance to appeal the decision. The result is a huge amount of businesses which are operating legally, filing taxes, and doing their best to abide by the payment processor's TOS being dropped without explanation. Furthermore, considering how incredibly monopolistic the online payment processing industry is, there's few alternatives once a merchant has been dropped. Outside of PayPal and Stripe, you'll be hard pressed to find a payment processor suitable to handle worldwide online payments. The next step down from those 2 options are incredibly limited in comparison. An account closure on either of those two platforms is essentially a death sentence for any online store. Imagine, these payment processors have the ability to terminate your operations at any time, for any reason they wish, and they do not even need to provide you with an explanation. Your business is at their mercy, and you never know when or if they will pull the plug. Just another example of how the modern landscape is hostile to small businesses. These trends will continue, and you'll see plenty of innovative startups and small businesses get cut off from payment processing simply for being different. It's as if the payment processors are saying "Go open a traditional business! Sell toilet paper! Sell toys for kids!" But the reality is, nobody buys typical physical products from small businesses online anymore. They almost exclusively use Amazon and Walmart, or other major retailers. It's really depressing out there.

SamPatt 8y ago
This is where cryptocurrency is meant to come in. No reliance on third parties needed. Infrastructure still being built but things like OpenBazaar are out there.

luso_brazilian 8y ago

From the image itself, it seems Stripe was compelled instead of acting on their own volition > Please know, Richard, that it would be our absolute preference to continue working with your business, and this decision is in no way a reflection of our feelings towards your business, from either a moral or legal standpoint. > Rather, this is a restriction imposed upon us directly from our financial partners, who use have an archaic and frankly antiquated view of non-traditional businesses. As such, our hands are truly tied here, I hope that you can appreciate that. These financial partners, I assume, are the same forces that engaged in a blockade against Wikileaks back in 2010 [1], except in this case the motivation are not as cut and clear as they were back then [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m...

yazr 8y ago

Can someone explain how these "financial partners" pin point and single out a site like BitCute The whole point of stripe/paypal (i assume) is that the credit card company does not know about individual businesses using stripe ? Do they have a team of people looking for weird sites which use a 3rd party and demand removal ?

justaj 8y ago

Mods, please fix the title. Should be "BitChute".