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Wow, you spend years thinking crypto is convoluted nonsense…and then something comes along that impacts a lot of your friends, and you start to change your mind
by perardi 5y ago
Wow, you spend years thinking crypto is convoluted nonsense…and then something comes along that impacts a lot of your friends, and you start to change your mind.
I have a fair number† of friends and acquaintances who have OnlyFans. Some for side income, some for a substantial portion of their livelihood. And to see that get taken away because the payment processors want them to fall in line…I guess I’m on the crypto train now.
†Yes, I have a slightly strange life, I know.
- im3w1l 5y agoI'm curious, what fraction of their material, income is nudes (still allowed) and what fraction is sexually explicit?
- perardi 5y ago…well I am not going to go through and do a full audit, but a fair bit is explicit, and realistically people are paying for the videos and not the stills.
- bob33212 5y agoSomeone else will replicate of
- perardi 5y agoSustainably? Or will they replicate, survive for a while, get to a critical mass, and then get nuked from orbit by Visa?
- bob33212 5y agoIf crypto was ever going to be useful, this is where it will do it.
- breadzeppelin__ 5y agoadult industry once again on the cutting edge of tech
- nwienert 5y agoI know of people building OF in crypto, I’m sure they’re happy right now.
- FabHK 5y agoRight. So I just looked into it a bit, and the idea has been around. There's (adult content warning...): - Sexcoin, launched in 2013 [https://sexcoin.info https://sexcoin.info] [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sexcoin/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sexcoin/] - Titcoin, TIT [https://titcoin.github.io https://titcoin.github.io] [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/titcoin/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/titcoin/] - Tittiecoin, launched in 2014: "TittieCoin Accelerates Your Digital Transformation", now Limitless VIP? [https://tittiecoin.com https://tittiecoin.com] [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/limitless-vip/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/limitless-vip/] - Spankchain, by Spanktoshi Nakabooty [https://spankchain.com/ https://spankchain.com/] - Fapcoin [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fapcoin/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fapcoin/] defunct - Pornrocket [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pornrocket/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pornrocket/] - PornStar [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pornstar/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pornstar/] - Intimate [https://intimate.io/ https://intimate.io/] - Okoin [https://okoin.io/ https://okoin.io/] defunct? - Analcoin [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/analcoin/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/analcoin/] - VGINA [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/vgina/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/vgina/] Has it been useful? I doubt it.
- bob33212 5y agoWow, this is really bad for crypto. Even though they can circumvent VISA technically with coins, OnlyFans doesn't want to go down that path. Probably because it immediately becomes partially funded by money laundering or sex trafficking, and they get shutdown eventually
- cblconfederate 5y agothere are already a few competitors, and afaik pornhub cleaned up its content in order to follow that model. If they are registered to hands-off countries they ll probably steal OF's thunder overnight.
- tofuahdude 5y ago"This is all garbage" followed by "Oh, it happened to me or my loved ones and now it's not garbage" is such a classic pattern across so many controversial topics. I wonder how we can be more open minded as a society while still keeping enough skepticism to not accept literal garbage.
- tmp_anon_22 5y agoReminds me of all the politicians who were anti-LGBT until one of their kids came out and then they miraculously flip flop.
- tofuahdude 5y agoExactly. Pick any "we should oppress this thing that other people want/like/are" and there are people who miraculously realize that actually, there's a reason people want/like/are that thing once it happens to them. I think it starts from some combination of factors like fear of the unknown, superiority complexes, downright stupidity, etc., which are only un-blinded when it smacks you in the face.
- the_lonely_road 5y agoIt works I’m reverse as well. The owner of a socialist magazine just recently fired most of his staff for trying to unionize. He wrote a bunch of articles purporting to support all these ideals but the moment those ideals threatened his power he shut it down.
- abnercoimbre 5y agoWhoa I'd be very interested to read more about this, if possible.
- ihattendorf 5y agoLooks like Current Affairs maybe? https://twitter.com/lyta_gold/status/1428011761635143681 https://twitter.com/lyta_gold/status/1428011761635143681
- rkalla 5y agoSerious Question: Do they all use it for adult content? I've never used OF but see the porn/adult references all the time so I assumed that is all it was (obviously not it seems?)
- killingtime74 5y agoOf course they do. No one paying to see Someone put legos together
- K5EiS 5y agohttps://onlyfans.com/legowhore https://onlyfans.com/legowhore
- lukeramsden 5y agoSaying anything on the internet these days is a risk, you're almost guaranteed to be wrong somehow.
- Tade0 5y agoBetter: any made up story may become true eventually. I've experienced this first hand. I was a compulsive liar in primary school and one time I told my friends that I saw a webcomic that had this gimmick that every panel ended with the phrase <insert topic> is EVIL(BAD) ("Złe/zły/zła" in Polish). Oddly specific, isn't it? Well here it is in the flesh: https://www.deviantart.com/oliko/art/Pablo-Webcomic-ep-221-136801170 https://www.deviantart.com/oliko/art/Pablo-Webcomic-ep-221-1...
- biztos 5y agoI think this must be the most overlapping possible Venn diagram of HN and OF, no?
- rgoulter 5y agoExploiting this, you get Cunningham's Law: "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
- moonchrome 5y agoIf crypto was actually a viable alternative they wouldn't be doing this. I'm not against the promises of crypto - but the tech so far has failed to deliver anything but a platform to streamline illegal activity, asset speculation bubbles and a whole bunch of wasted energy/hardware along with reliving the problems people had historically with bank fraud in free banking and the likes (banks printing their own notes without cover till you get a bank run - this is why central banks were invented ...)
- dvdkon 5y agoThe properties of certain cryptocurrencies that make them good for illegal transactions also make them good for pornography and other "not illegal but touchy" areas.
- moonchrome 5y agoNot really - these are high volume low value transactions and need to be low friction. Money laundering and similar illegal transactions are fine with the opposite.
- dvdkon 5y agoThe cryptocurrencies I consider viable for this kind of thing (mostly Monero) are actually better for low-value transactions than conventional card payments, since they have a low, fixed transaction cost (well under 0.1USD, try that with VISA/MasterCard). I'm not sure about scaling volume, but the current situation looks promising. Friction is a problem, but I don't see why sending Monero has to be any harder than with conventional payment methods. The hard part is overcoming the network effect of payment cards.
- fksadfji12 5y agomeet the lightning network
- lynx234 5y agoThe tech is there but mainstream adoption and understanding is still coming along. It's incredibly easy and cheap to send USDC or DAI to OnlyFans if they accept tokens on a sidechain (like Polygon or Fantom). You don't have to sign up for an account or provide any personal info, just use your wallet to send certain tokens to an address, then you can use that wallet as a sign-in. OnlyFans can then use Coinbase or an off-ramp to go from crypto to fiat. It's a more seamless user experience and solves the payment processing issue. In my opinion it's a matter of educating the masses to a very different method of paying for services and using services (both on the business and consumer side).
- cblconfederate 5y agoIt's none of our business if your life is strange, the question is if it's illegal, which it isn't.
- perardi 5y agoI’m sure there’s got to be other full-time UI designers/part-time circuit queens out there. Can’t be that weird. But yes, these are consenting adults (a fair number of them quite highly educated and absolutely aware of what they are doing) selling solo videos or videos with other consenting adults. It’s legal, it’s a huge business, and it’s dumb to push it further to the fringes.
- adamcharnock 5y agoA number of my friends and loved ones will be affected by this, and many more have been thrown under the payment processing bus before. And forgive me if this seems ranty, but it isn’t just payment processors, it seems to permeate so much that comes out of the USA. See the various App Store rules too. And this isn’t about fraud rates. Because why are the fraud rates high? It’s because the sex whole industry is pushed to the fringes, and loaded with shame. “Oh that payment wasn’t me, my card must have been stolen”. I feel pretty angry how much this puritanical nature in a foreign country affects the people I care about around me. If you can let China censor your platforms, you can let Europeans have porn. Ok, rant over. Please don’t downvote too heavily.
- draw_down 5y agoI’m afraid this one’s more about illegal content and KYC than fraud. Sorry.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- observer23 5y agoChina allows online porn and their citizens have no trouble with Chinese payment processors accepting purchases for porn.
- Wameaw 5y agoI would suggest some research on China and porn-prohibition.
- shalmanese 5y agoChina most definitely does not allow online porn. It's tolerated as an underground enterprise but explicitly illegal.
- throwawaylinux 5y agoWho is "you"? What point is this rant supposed to be making? They're private companies, they have the freedom to do what they like, and "you" are free to start your own payment processor.
- agilob 5y ago>And to see that get taken away because the payment processors There was a story about an online dildo seller who couldn't sell specific colour of dildos because American Express didn't like them. I think it was lovehoney
- cbdumas 5y agoThe fact that OnlyFans isn't even trying to move to crypto to keep their business alive is a stunning indictment of the state of crypto as a viable payment method.
- marvin 5y agoCouldn't the explanation be as simple as them lacking imagination? They're not a Silicon Valley funded startup. My impression is they lucked into the golden goose, and this move makes me think they're downright clueless about their options when things get adversarial.
- cbdumas 5y agoI guess that's possible, but it's hard for me to imagine that with billions of dollars at stake they didn't even consider it. I think they made the calculation that forcing their customers and creators to use crypto would lose them even more business than banning their core product.
- marvin 5y agoI just can't fathom such a risk-averse decision. I mean, their business is dead. Even if you're not normally the type of leader to bet the farm on a wild shot, certainly it's the rational choice when the other option is a guaranteed 90% loss in expected valuation. What are those last 10% worth to you? Unless it's still the difference between personal financial independence and wage slavery for the majority owner, I can't see how that's the rational choice. That's why I'm concluding lack of imagination and borderline incompetency.
- WC3w6pXxgGd 5y agoUSD are the only legal tender in the US. Thus, there are unfortunate regulatory hurdles for a business to accept cryptocurrency.
- Acrobatic_Road 5y agoWho says they won't? PH did when this happened to them. Now they accepting like 60 diffferent cryptocurrencies.
- thepasswordis 5y ago>†Yes, I have a slightly strange life, I know. No you don't. There are many people who are become porn actors as a result of only fans. That is likely why this is happening.
- superfrank 5y agoI worked at a webcam pornography company (as a software engineer) a few years ago and honestly, I get it from the processors perspective. I wasn't privy to all the conversations, but I know at the time, some higher ups were toying around with the idea of basically building an entire in house payment processor to handle transactions. I think a lot of people think the processors are doing this out of some moral high ground to try and kill off the pornography business, but that's not what's happening. It's all about risk and opportunity cost. I forget the exact numbers, but pornography and gambling are near the top of the list when you look at industries with the highest number of fraudulent transactions. When someone reports a transaction as fraudulent, the money to refund the customer comes out someone behind the scenes pocket and often that money gets tied up in limbo while everyone points fingers at everyone else. Dealing with fraudulent transactions is a massive headache that wastes a ton of time. Most major processors just don't want to deal with the hassle and the ones who do charge extremely high fees to offset the extra risk. OF has probably been using a processor that doesn't allow for pornography this whole time, but the processor has been letting it slide. My guess would be the risk has finally grown too large and the processor is cracking down. Like I said, there are other processors out there who are happy to work with the porn industry for a much higher fee, but it seems like OF has decided for one reason or another that that isn't as lucrative as just banning explicit content all together.
- ryanlol 5y agoBig Porn like onlyfans and pornhub are not being targetted by cc companies because of fraud rates, but because of the weird Christian fundamentalist lobby in America.
- superfrank 5y agoPornhub's live cam service was a white label of the company I worked at. I can tell you pretty definitively that you are wrong.
- shkkmo 5y agoI don't see how working at a porn company that was white labeled by another porn company gives you detailed insight into the decision making at major credit card companies.
- brundolf 5y agoIt also puts crypto in an interesting new light: circumventing sovereign governments and regulations was always a fool's errand in my opinion. But circumventing private payment providers that have decided to do extralegal morality-policing... that's a much more realistic and interesting thing to aim for.
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoTo make a minor nitpick, Bitcoin was created in response to the GFC bailouts, which was essentially forced government action as a result of private banking greed, fraud, and / or incompetence. The circumvention you mention is incidental, not primary. "Something better" was the, admittedly lofty, goal. And if not purely "something better" then at least "an alternative".
- young_unixer 5y ago> circumventing sovereign governments and regulations was always a fool's errand in my opinion. For big companies that have to respect laws anyway, yes, but it still brings lots of opportunities for regular people and small organizations that can fly under the government's radar.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ibejoeb 5y agoLooking like GabPay might find a big new client
- quickthrower2 5y agoYou are blaming the wrong party! Your friends shouldn't rely on income from one customer who holds all the cards (did your friends negotiate a contract with OF with the help of a lawyer?). Lesson learned for them. They can now run their own sites and do marketing etc. themselves and learn how to run a business.
- concordDance 5y agoYet more skills they have to have... also, I presume OnlyFans helps with the pipeline. (Much more likely to be comfortable clicking on an onlyfans link than a link to an unknown website)
- quickthrower2 5y agoYeah but it’s almost a trope of the 4 hour week beach laptop business decimated by the big tech company, be it SEO changes, AdWords changes, being banned from Twitter, relying on a Facebook page, yadda yadda. They are in business and need to adapt. If they can’t hack it take my route: employment in a demand industry.
- bigdollopenergy 5y agoSo i don't necessarily like OnlyFans and I think it's a dangerous game to play for contributors. That said, why are payment processors deciding which businesses get to exist? I understand that the fraud rate is higher than normal, but how high is it? Could it not be handled by a higher than normal transaction fee? It bothers me that they have the power to shut businesses based on what appears to be their own subjective moral code. If a website is shutdown for any reason it should be due them breaking some law, not the payment processors feelings. Regulation should passed to stop this from happening. While a lot of people may agree with their actions so far, it shouldn't be their decision to do this.