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Probably the reputational risk to them from being associated with porn is not worth whatever OnlyFans brings in.

by emodendroket 5y ago

pell 5y ago
Why would OnlyFans not simply move to another payment processor then? This all seems a bit strange.
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  It's not so easy. The obvious candidates all ban adult content, and the ones used by the porn industry are either owned by the same or take cuts that make the AppStore look reasonable.
  - pell 5y ago
    From what I understand OnlyFans has essentially no other product except for this type of content though. So I would have assumed negotiating with one of these processors for a somewhat more reasonable contract despite higher fees would still be more lucrative than giving up what seems to be their core business and revenue stream.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Taking a 30% cut doesn’t seem that bad compared to the alternative. Why lose 90% of your revenue and all your profit just to not give a 30 or 40% cut to shitty middle man? Unless Onlyfans actually has some decent traction outside sexual stuff. I find that hard to believe. If photos are still allowed, that’s something. But still. Maybe I’m completely misinformed though!
  - gpvos 5y ago
    They could set up their own payment processor (unless it's really Visa or Mastercard pushing this).
- judge2020 5y ago
  If the party pushing is Visa or Mastercard (of which 'other' processors like Paypal, Venmo, Cashapp are beholden to as well) that would only really leave cryptocurrency, which is a large barrier to taking payments and would likely mean >90% revenue loss anyways. Reminder that payment processor pressure is what has caused a lot of (legal) art to be pushed off of Patreon[0]. 0: https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbqwwj/patreon-suspension-of-adult-content-creators#:~:text=%22We%20have%20been%20ramping%20up%20the%20proactive%20review%20of%20content%20on%20Patreon%20due%20to%20requirements%20from%20our%20payment%20partners%2C%E2%80%9D https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbqwwj/patreon-suspension-of... (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 )
  - throwawayvisa2 5y ago
    To add: Bans some forms of anime art: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-anime-porn-ban/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-anime-porn-ban/ Banning for activity/art outside of art hosted on Patreon: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-gay-hypnosis-artists/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-gay-hypnosis-artists/ (articles may contain nsfw imagery)
  - arebop 5y ago
    Strike and Coinbase prohibit any use in connection with adult services in their ToS. Building/maintaining fiat onramps at scale is hard.
make3 5y ago
not sure why you're getting downvoted, this is textually what is said
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I think sometimes people downvote you for stating some fact that they think shouldn't be true. No big deal.
  - cronix 5y ago
    I just ignore all downvotes that don't give some sort of rebuttal. I just assume I pissed someone off by stating fact they didn't like otherwise. In fact, I think that would be an excellent feature - you can't downvote without an honest reply.
    - plorkyeran 5y ago
      I think that is the exact opposite of what a downvote should be for: comments which aren't even worth replying to.
      - gpvos 5y ago
        Both types exist, I'd say.
- gpvos 5y ago
  Ignore a few downvotes in the first hour or so, they're likely to be compensated with upvotes if you're saying anything substantial.
elliekelly 5y ago
Payment processors and financial institutions like to use the (IMO mostly political) cover of "AML regulations" to decline service to sex workers and sex worker-adjacent businesses. Prior to the internet and OnlyFans there was at least a tenuous connection: sex work was a cash business and all cash businesses are at "higher" risk for money laundering. Pizza shops, nail salons, car washes, etc. Of course the pizza shops and nail salons and car washes still get to open bank accounts even though they're subject to higher scrutiny behind the scenes. But that pretext for excluding sex workers from banking and payment processing really falls apart with OnlyFans. These are small, repeated, digital payments that are highly traceable because they're coming from and going to known people. And the existence of the underlying work product is easily verifiable: are the accounts actively posting content or not?
- brador 5y ago
  The issue is sex trafficking not money laundering here.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    It's six in one and a half dozen in the other. Banks only care about sex trafficking because sex trafficking is a crime and processing money from criminal activity is... money laundering. But regardless, what's the risk of sex trafficking here? Again, these payments are coming from and going to known parties. In fact, this should be a KYC dream come true. Because of the adult content OnlyFans collects (and in the case of payment recipients, confirms) the name, DOB, and address of everyone buying and selling on the platform. If human trafficking were the actual risk banks were trying to mitigate here then it would be difficult for any business sector that relies on migrant workers to obtain banking services but I've never heard of an almond grower having trouble opening a bank account.
- rapind 5y ago
  You had (still have?) the same issue with marijuana businesses. Not easy to open a bank account for a marijuana business.
cronix 5y ago
I don't think I've ever been on onlyfans, but anytime I've heard the name in a news context it is associated with pay-for-porn. I don't think I've ever heard of a non-porn thing on there, whether its in the news or people advertising their fan site. Do they actually have some sort of non-porn reputation that exceeds the porn reputation that I've never heard mentioned before? From what I gather, their reputation is about the same as pornhub, when it comes to "porn." I don't see how they fix that, and stay in business. This is just an opinion of a passer-by who casually hears the name. I don't think I'm much different than most people who have never been on there, which I'm assuming is most people in general.
- kyleee 5y ago
  I suspect they have a lot of models that toe the line of sexual explicitness; but I certainly have the same perception of the site
JohnBooty 5y ago
Not a reputation thing, unless that's changed lately. You can use credit cards for all kinds of porn and various shady things, they don't care. For decades, the specific issue was with the huge chargeback/fraud rates associated with online porn. - People paying for porn with stolen cards - Or, more frequently, people disputing the charges when their wives see the credit card statements and get mad, so they claim the card was stolen etc.

Probably the reputational risk to them from being associated with porn is not worth whatever OnlyFans brings in.

pell 5y ago

Why would OnlyFans not simply move to another payment processor then? This all seems a bit strange.

sascha_sl 5y ago
It's not so easy. The obvious candidates all ban adult content, and the ones used by the porn industry are either owned by the same or take cuts that make the AppStore look reasonable.
- pell 5y ago
  From what I understand OnlyFans has essentially no other product except for this type of content though. So I would have assumed negotiating with one of these processors for a somewhat more reasonable contract despite higher fees would still be more lucrative than giving up what seems to be their core business and revenue stream.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Taking a 30% cut doesn’t seem that bad compared to the alternative. Why lose 90% of your revenue and all your profit just to not give a 30 or 40% cut to shitty middle man? Unless Onlyfans actually has some decent traction outside sexual stuff. I find that hard to believe. If photos are still allowed, that’s something. But still. Maybe I’m completely misinformed though!
- gpvos 5y ago
  They could set up their own payment processor (unless it's really Visa or Mastercard pushing this).
judge2020 5y ago
If the party pushing is Visa or Mastercard (of which 'other' processors like Paypal, Venmo, Cashapp are beholden to as well) that would only really leave cryptocurrency, which is a large barrier to taking payments and would likely mean >90% revenue loss anyways. Reminder that payment processor pressure is what has caused a lot of (legal) art to be pushed off of Patreon[0]. 0: https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbqwwj/patreon-suspension-of-adult-content-creators#:~:text=%22We%20have%20been%20ramping%20up%20the%20proactive%20review%20of%20content%20on%20Patreon%20due%20to%20requirements%20from%20our%20payment%20partners%2C%E2%80%9D https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbqwwj/patreon-suspension-of... (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 )
- throwawayvisa2 5y ago
  To add: Bans some forms of anime art: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-anime-porn-ban/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-anime-porn-ban/ Banning for activity/art outside of art hosted on Patreon: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-gay-hypnosis-artists/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/patreon-gay-hypnosis-artists/ (articles may contain nsfw imagery)
- arebop 5y ago
  Strike and Coinbase prohibit any use in connection with adult services in their ToS. Building/maintaining fiat onramps at scale is hard.

make3 5y ago

not sure why you're getting downvoted, this is textually what is said

emodendroket 5y ago
I think sometimes people downvote you for stating some fact that they think shouldn't be true. No big deal.
- cronix 5y ago
  I just ignore all downvotes that don't give some sort of rebuttal. I just assume I pissed someone off by stating fact they didn't like otherwise. In fact, I think that would be an excellent feature - you can't downvote without an honest reply.
  - plorkyeran 5y ago
    I think that is the exact opposite of what a downvote should be for: comments which aren't even worth replying to.
    - gpvos 5y ago
      Both types exist, I'd say.
gpvos 5y ago
Ignore a few downvotes in the first hour or so, they're likely to be compensated with upvotes if you're saying anything substantial.

elliekelly 5y ago

Payment processors and financial institutions like to use the (IMO mostly political) cover of "AML regulations" to decline service to sex workers and sex worker-adjacent businesses. Prior to the internet and OnlyFans there was at least a tenuous connection: sex work was a cash business and all cash businesses are at "higher" risk for money laundering. Pizza shops, nail salons, car washes, etc. Of course the pizza shops and nail salons and car washes still get to open bank accounts even though they're subject to higher scrutiny behind the scenes. But that pretext for excluding sex workers from banking and payment processing really falls apart with OnlyFans. These are small, repeated, digital payments that are highly traceable because they're coming from and going to known people. And the existence of the underlying work product is easily verifiable: are the accounts actively posting content or not?

brador 5y ago
The issue is sex trafficking not money laundering here.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  It's six in one and a half dozen in the other. Banks only care about sex trafficking because sex trafficking is a crime and processing money from criminal activity is... money laundering. But regardless, what's the risk of sex trafficking here? Again, these payments are coming from and going to known parties. In fact, this should be a KYC dream come true. Because of the adult content OnlyFans collects (and in the case of payment recipients, confirms) the name, DOB, and address of everyone buying and selling on the platform. If human trafficking were the actual risk banks were trying to mitigate here then it would be difficult for any business sector that relies on migrant workers to obtain banking services but I've never heard of an almond grower having trouble opening a bank account.
rapind 5y ago
You had (still have?) the same issue with marijuana businesses. Not easy to open a bank account for a marijuana business.

cronix 5y ago

I don't think I've ever been on onlyfans, but anytime I've heard the name in a news context it is associated with pay-for-porn. I don't think I've ever heard of a non-porn thing on there, whether its in the news or people advertising their fan site. Do they actually have some sort of non-porn reputation that exceeds the porn reputation that I've never heard mentioned before? From what I gather, their reputation is about the same as pornhub, when it comes to "porn." I don't see how they fix that, and stay in business. This is just an opinion of a passer-by who casually hears the name. I don't think I'm much different than most people who have never been on there, which I'm assuming is most people in general.

kyleee 5y ago
I suspect they have a lot of models that toe the line of sexual explicitness; but I certainly have the same perception of the site

JohnBooty 5y ago

Not a reputation thing, unless that's changed lately. You can use credit cards for all kinds of porn and various shady things, they don't care. For decades, the specific issue was with the huge chargeback/fraud rates associated with online porn. - People paying for porn with stolen cards - Or, more frequently, people disputing the charges when their wives see the credit card statements and get mad, so they claim the card was stolen etc.