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If you really want to look at the source of truth of why these decisions are made, all you have to do is Follow The Money. Two key reasons I can posit: Adverti

If you really want to look at the source of truth of why these decisions are made, all you have to do is Follow The Money. Two key reasons I can posit: Advertisers do not want their products advertised next to adversarial content. The exodus of advertisers on Twitter/X is a great parallel - flood a user generated content platform with content that does not bode for positive brand associations, and brands stop paying. You can argue that it's "puritanical ethics" at play here if you'd like, but I see this more as wanting to associate their brands with mass market appeal. Secondly, the moment you cross into pornographic content, your payment processors start bailing. This, in my opinion, plays more into your perception that mass standards for acceptable content influence the decision. I can't think of a major payment processor that permits their service to be used to pay for pornographic content, and that is because it's high risk. It's high risk because it's rife with chargebacks. Things like claims "I didn't pay for this!" when a partner happens to see a charge for a pornographic product, buyer's remorse as the truth of a parasocial relationship plays out to an unsatisfying conclusion, whatever the reason, payment processors just don't want to be associated with it. You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, but in a sense, this is companies choosing what markets they want to serve.

MeImCounting 3y ago
This is a great and thoughtful comment. I think part of the sexual repression I was talking about is a big reason why porn is so popular and why: "Things like claims "I didn't pay for this!" when a partner happens to see a charge for a pornographic product, buyer's remorse as the truth of a parasocial relationship plays out to an unsatisfying conclusion, whatever the reason" are so prevalent. It is a sad thing and something that I really wish we could address as a society but corporate owned streaming sites/other social media are really not the place for this type of conversation because of the inherently ad revenue based structure of these sites.
- filoleg 3y ago
  I thought about it just now, and it made me think of a potential solution. Though it feels so simple and naive (I feel like it shouldn’t work), but I couldn’t find a reason for why it wouldn’t, so I am curious what people think about this. Imagine there was a special type of a payment card that would work with only adult-content provider websites (aka porn). It would function sort of like a debit card, you can load up money on it from other sources, you can withdraw money from it at any time, etc. However, no chargebacks allowed (which are already not really a thing with regular debit cards anyway, it is mostly a credit card feature). For bonus points, you can have some sort of a verification (maybe requiring 2FA, maybe something else) that would kick in every time you load money on that card, but NOT when you use that card to pay for anything. So adult content providers won’t need any verification to do on their part (aka you won’t need to give them any of your identifying info). I guess what I am describing is literally just a quirky kind of a debit card/account that attempts to resolve issues that stem from the whole “chargeback of shame” scenario, thus making the transactions less high-risk for payment processors/providers. Which would, conversely, make payment processing less of a problem for the adult-content providers and, therefore, customers. P.S. do adult-content providers currently have any issues with debit cards as the payment source? Asking because if chargebacks were the main concern for the payment processors (which would refuse to work with adult-content providers due to chargebacks making it high-risk), then by that logic they should have no problem with debit cards, since they feature no chargebacks. The only thing my proposal adds on top of that is the verification/dispute with the bank/card issuer would be done not on the level of each individual transaction for an adult service, but on the level of loading up that “adult-only” card (and what happens from that point on is not accessible to your bank). Which also makes the situation a bit less “embarrassing” for the customer too.

MeImCounting 3y ago

This is a great and thoughtful comment. I think part of the sexual repression I was talking about is a big reason why porn is so popular and why: "Things like claims "I didn't pay for this!" when a partner happens to see a charge for a pornographic product, buyer's remorse as the truth of a parasocial relationship plays out to an unsatisfying conclusion, whatever the reason" are so prevalent. It is a sad thing and something that I really wish we could address as a society but corporate owned streaming sites/other social media are really not the place for this type of conversation because of the inherently ad revenue based structure of these sites.

filoleg 3y ago
I thought about it just now, and it made me think of a potential solution. Though it feels so simple and naive (I feel like it shouldn’t work), but I couldn’t find a reason for why it wouldn’t, so I am curious what people think about this. Imagine there was a special type of a payment card that would work with only adult-content provider websites (aka porn). It would function sort of like a debit card, you can load up money on it from other sources, you can withdraw money from it at any time, etc. However, no chargebacks allowed (which are already not really a thing with regular debit cards anyway, it is mostly a credit card feature). For bonus points, you can have some sort of a verification (maybe requiring 2FA, maybe something else) that would kick in every time you load money on that card, but NOT when you use that card to pay for anything. So adult content providers won’t need any verification to do on their part (aka you won’t need to give them any of your identifying info). I guess what I am describing is literally just a quirky kind of a debit card/account that attempts to resolve issues that stem from the whole “chargeback of shame” scenario, thus making the transactions less high-risk for payment processors/providers. Which would, conversely, make payment processing less of a problem for the adult-content providers and, therefore, customers. P.S. do adult-content providers currently have any issues with debit cards as the payment source? Asking because if chargebacks were the main concern for the payment processors (which would refuse to work with adult-content providers due to chargebacks making it high-risk), then by that logic they should have no problem with debit cards, since they feature no chargebacks. The only thing my proposal adds on top of that is the verification/dispute with the bank/card issuer would be done not on the level of each individual transaction for an adult service, but on the level of loading up that “adult-only” card (and what happens from that point on is not accessible to your bank). Which also makes the situation a bit less “embarrassing” for the customer too.