5 ms·

That seems pretty sketchy if the main thing Mastercard and VISA are doing is ensuring age verification is being done.

by TimPC 4y ago

vorpalhex 4y ago
Mastercard and Visa won't do business with adult content providers directly. They force them into very high cost low quality payment intermediaries.
- hellojesus 4y ago
  These are known as high risk payment processors. They do this because of the outsized risk of chargebacks that occur against payments for porn. Wife catches a weird pornhub charge on your monthly statement? Whoops! Those hackers are at it again. Call it fraud and charge it off. The high cc processing rate accommodates the increased risk. Btc solves this as no chargeback is possible.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    There are plenty of other industries which are just as high or higher chargeback risks and aren't forced through hoops. Gyms are a prime example. Food delivery has a high chargeback risk. Gift cards are a go-to for leveraging stolen debit/credit cards. You don't see the industry forcing regulations here, or forcing these industries to go through specific payment processors. It also doesn't explain why porn actors routinely find their checking accounts closed out on them, or they get blacklisted entirely. It has nothing to do with risk, and everything to do with Christian fundamentalists in the banking industry exploiting their positions in industries we need, to force their morals on others.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      the problem with free market fundementalists is they deny that stereotypes, emotion and plain stupid decision making are often having greater effect than the hand and foot of the market
      - hellojesus 4y ago
        This just means the door is opened for a competitor that can provide the same or superior service at a lower cost. Free markets can have efficiencies, but they should be arbitraged away in the long run.
chevill 4y ago
They stopped being able to process credit cards because Mastercard and VISA cut them off when there was a public outcry about PH doing such a shitty job of moderating illegal content that everyone got the impression they were supporting it. PH didn't decide "we are only gonna accept crypto so we can circumvent the system" it was a position forced upon them as a punishment for their shitty behavior. Now they are trying very hard to moderate effectively in order to win back the good graces of the payment processors because they are probably going to eventually go bankrupt if they don't.
- zakki 4y ago
  Why do you think it is a forced position? If they are shitty they’ve got the consequences.
  - chevill 4y ago
    I might not understand your question. I'm not saying the payment processors were wrong to blacklist them. PH was being genuinely scummy. Its a forced position because PH very much wanted to continue to accept credit cards, which I suspect was where 99% of their income was from. However, the payment processors blacklisted them so they can't.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Pornhub had a large blogpost claiming that thye are better at filtering illegal content than facebook, and that the latter has many times greater problems with illegal content. the post claimed that Pornhub has been targeted because of their industry. i have never verified the veracity of these claims, but they seem plausible
    - threeseed 4y ago
      > Pornhub had a large blogpost claiming that thye are better at filtering illegal content than facebook, and that the latter has many times greater problems with illegal content Facebook is also orders of magnitude larger and has to deal with content that blurs the line between legal and illegal. It's a significantly more difficult task.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

That seems pretty sketchy if the main thing Mastercard and VISA are doing is ensuring age verification is being done.

by TimPC 4y ago

That seems pretty sketchy if the main thing Mastercard and VISA are doing is ensuring age verification is being done.

Mastercard and Visa won't do business with adult content providers directly. They force them into very high cost low quality payment intermediaries.

hellojesus 4y ago
These are known as high risk payment processors. They do this because of the outsized risk of chargebacks that occur against payments for porn. Wife catches a weird pornhub charge on your monthly statement? Whoops! Those hackers are at it again. Call it fraud and charge it off. The high cc processing rate accommodates the increased risk. Btc solves this as no chargeback is possible.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  There are plenty of other industries which are just as high or higher chargeback risks and aren't forced through hoops. Gyms are a prime example. Food delivery has a high chargeback risk. Gift cards are a go-to for leveraging stolen debit/credit cards. You don't see the industry forcing regulations here, or forcing these industries to go through specific payment processors. It also doesn't explain why porn actors routinely find their checking accounts closed out on them, or they get blacklisted entirely. It has nothing to do with risk, and everything to do with Christian fundamentalists in the banking industry exploiting their positions in industries we need, to force their morals on others.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    the problem with free market fundementalists is they deny that stereotypes, emotion and plain stupid decision making are often having greater effect than the hand and foot of the market
    - hellojesus 4y ago
      This just means the door is opened for a competitor that can provide the same or superior service at a lower cost. Free markets can have efficiencies, but they should be arbitraged away in the long run.

chevill 4y ago

They stopped being able to process credit cards because Mastercard and VISA cut them off when there was a public outcry about PH doing such a shitty job of moderating illegal content that everyone got the impression they were supporting it. PH didn't decide "we are only gonna accept crypto so we can circumvent the system" it was a position forced upon them as a punishment for their shitty behavior. Now they are trying very hard to moderate effectively in order to win back the good graces of the payment processors because they are probably going to eventually go bankrupt if they don't.

zakki 4y ago
Why do you think it is a forced position? If they are shitty they’ve got the consequences.
- chevill 4y ago
  I might not understand your question. I'm not saying the payment processors were wrong to blacklist them. PH was being genuinely scummy. Its a forced position because PH very much wanted to continue to accept credit cards, which I suspect was where 99% of their income was from. However, the payment processors blacklisted them so they can't.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Pornhub had a large blogpost claiming that thye are better at filtering illegal content than facebook, and that the latter has many times greater problems with illegal content. the post claimed that Pornhub has been targeted because of their industry. i have never verified the veracity of these claims, but they seem plausible
  - threeseed 4y ago
    > Pornhub had a large blogpost claiming that thye are better at filtering illegal content than facebook, and that the latter has many times greater problems with illegal content Facebook is also orders of magnitude larger and has to deal with content that blurs the line between legal and illegal. It's a significantly more difficult task.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]