4 ms·

I 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

I 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 ago
Big 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 ago
  Pornhub'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 ago
    I 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.
    - superfrank 5y ago
      You're right, maybe "definitively" was over the top. I got a little excited because one of the companies he mentioned was at least partially something I had worked on. What I am basing my statement off of is second hand knowledge from multiple people at one of the companies mentioned saying that the reason payment processors don't work with porn companies is because of fraud rates. That's not definitive, but considering the person I was responding to gave us 0 reason to believe his statement is anything other than his opinion and his comment history shows a pattern asserting his opinion as fact. I'm going to assume he's talking out his ass and that I'm slightly more informed on this issue.
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        > multiple people at one of the companies mentioned saying that the reason payment processors don't work with porn companies is because of fraud rates. This is a widely given explanation so I would entirely expect you to have heard it repeatedly in that context. It is far less clear to what degree this explanation is accurate. Yes fraud rates are higher but they could easily be covered by charging higher processing fees (something that is often done for other risks.) There is pretty good evidence that other factors than fraud risk are at least partially responsible. If you have an issue with people aaserting opinions as fact, maybe you should be more careful as you what you state as fact from a position of claimed authority.
        ryanlol 5y ago
        > Yes fraud rates are higher but they could easily be covered by charging higher processing fees (something that is often done for other risks.) This is exactly what happens, there are several payment processors (probiller, ccbill, epoch …) focusing on high risk transactions like porn.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  What year do you think this is?
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-evangelical-group-with-trump-ties-waging-war-on-pornhub https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-ev... 2021
belorn 5y ago
I have seen several times stories on HN about the problems porn sites has with processors, but I never heard that gambling sites had the same issues. It would be interesting to hear more about that.
- nacs 5y ago
  It's probably as simple as: 1. Addict puts $1000 into gambling site via their credit card 2. Addict loses $1000 in the next few minutes at gambling site 3. Addict realizing they can't afford it files a charge-back 4. Addict repeats cycle anyway
bjowen 5y ago
The dispute rate is certainly true for companies under the general umbrella of “subscription services”, usually meaning porn / webcam sites, and there are trigger points where the payment processor will switch off a facility that exceeds a certain dispute volume. OF has been increasingly making use of step-up authentication to avoid disputes, which is the way the non-US payments industry is heading. My guess would be that if disputes are in fact the reason, it’ll be because the step-up authentication isn’t available or working for some significant slice of the market. That said, I don’t think that’s the reason. Switching off porn altogether means the vast majority(citation needed) of OF’s content will be gone, which means this has to be a life-or-death move. MC has been placing legality/consent/age restrictions on adult content, including real-time monitoring of content / chat [0]. My guess is that this is onerous enough that it breaks OF’s business model. [0] https://www.webshield.com/post/mastercard-introduces-revised-standards-for-adult-merchants https://www.webshield.com/post/mastercard-introduces-revised...
- cphoover 5y ago
  Why? Why can't they use stripe identity verification https://stripe.com/identity https://stripe.com/identity to verify age/consent of user's who upload adult content?
  - manquer 5y ago
    The person uploading may or may not be in the video, or the other participants could be under age. Figuring out the age of people in a video is lot harder. Also stripe identity really works for US users the most , with a global audience like OnlyFans that could be limiting as well
    - cphoover 5y ago
      Hmmm I guess you could use it and have snail mail as a backup...It'd be better than nothing probably? Yea I'm not sure how you validate everyone in the video has a verified identity and age... Perhaps machine learning could automate some of this. Stripe has selfie validation... so if you could do something like that on the video where faces in the video are compared to the identities provided... If there isn't a match then the video is flagged for review.

ryanlol 5y ago

Big 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 ago
Pornhub'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 ago
  I 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.
  - superfrank 5y ago
    You're right, maybe "definitively" was over the top. I got a little excited because one of the companies he mentioned was at least partially something I had worked on. What I am basing my statement off of is second hand knowledge from multiple people at one of the companies mentioned saying that the reason payment processors don't work with porn companies is because of fraud rates. That's not definitive, but considering the person I was responding to gave us 0 reason to believe his statement is anything other than his opinion and his comment history shows a pattern asserting his opinion as fact. I'm going to assume he's talking out his ass and that I'm slightly more informed on this issue.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      > multiple people at one of the companies mentioned saying that the reason payment processors don't work with porn companies is because of fraud rates. This is a widely given explanation so I would entirely expect you to have heard it repeatedly in that context. It is far less clear to what degree this explanation is accurate. Yes fraud rates are higher but they could easily be covered by charging higher processing fees (something that is often done for other risks.) There is pretty good evidence that other factors than fraud risk are at least partially responsible. If you have an issue with people aaserting opinions as fact, maybe you should be more careful as you what you state as fact from a position of claimed authority.
      - ryanlol 5y ago
        > Yes fraud rates are higher but they could easily be covered by charging higher processing fees (something that is often done for other risks.) This is exactly what happens, there are several payment processors (probiller, ccbill, epoch …) focusing on high risk transactions like porn.
xanaxagoras 5y ago
What year do you think this is?
- ryanlol 5y ago
  https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-evangelical-group-with-trump-ties-waging-war-on-pornhub https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-ev... 2021

belorn 5y ago

I have seen several times stories on HN about the problems porn sites has with processors, but I never heard that gambling sites had the same issues. It would be interesting to hear more about that.

nacs 5y ago
It's probably as simple as: 1. Addict puts $1000 into gambling site via their credit card 2. Addict loses $1000 in the next few minutes at gambling site 3. Addict realizing they can't afford it files a charge-back 4. Addict repeats cycle anyway

bjowen 5y ago

The dispute rate is certainly true for companies under the general umbrella of “subscription services”, usually meaning porn / webcam sites, and there are trigger points where the payment processor will switch off a facility that exceeds a certain dispute volume. OF has been increasingly making use of step-up authentication to avoid disputes, which is the way the non-US payments industry is heading. My guess would be that if disputes are in fact the reason, it’ll be because the step-up authentication isn’t available or working for some significant slice of the market. That said, I don’t think that’s the reason. Switching off porn altogether means the vast majority(citation needed) of OF’s content will be gone, which means this has to be a life-or-death move. MC has been placing legality/consent/age restrictions on adult content, including real-time monitoring of content / chat [0]. My guess is that this is onerous enough that it breaks OF’s business model. [0] https://www.webshield.com/post/mastercard-introduces-revised-standards-for-adult-merchants https://www.webshield.com/post/mastercard-introduces-revised...

cphoover 5y ago
Why? Why can't they use stripe identity verification https://stripe.com/identity https://stripe.com/identity to verify age/consent of user's who upload adult content?
- manquer 5y ago
  The person uploading may or may not be in the video, or the other participants could be under age. Figuring out the age of people in a video is lot harder. Also stripe identity really works for US users the most , with a global audience like OnlyFans that could be limiting as well
  - cphoover 5y ago
    Hmmm I guess you could use it and have snail mail as a backup...It'd be better than nothing probably? Yea I'm not sure how you validate everyone in the video has a verified identity and age... Perhaps machine learning could automate some of this. Stripe has selfie validation... so if you could do something like that on the video where faces in the video are compared to the identities provided... If there isn't a match then the video is flagged for review.