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I wonder how this type of pressuring can be made illegal. To be clear: I certainly think this has to be made illegal, and even attempt to coerce a payment netwo

by krick 1y ago

I wonder how this type of pressuring can be made illegal. To be clear: I certainly think this has to be made illegal, and even attempt to coerce a payment network to force a business to do something should be a serious crime. If the product is not illegal, you can sell it, either on your platform, or on a third party platform (Steam), if the platfrom is ok with selling your product. It's arguable, but perfectly reasonable to say that Steam can also choose to not sell it if it doesn't want to. But then, of course, it doesn't seem like a huge leap to say that a payment network can choose to not handle transactions for some type of business if it doesn't want to. Sure, you can appeal to it being a de-facto monopoly, but isn't Steam a de-facto monopoly as well? I mean, I have some trouble formally drawing a line here, yet it clearly seems not right to me, that a payment network can choose at all if they want to handle this or not. And, as I said, attempt to apply pressure on a payment network, in order to apply pressure on its customer, in order to apply pressure on their customers... well, I think it's pretty obvious why this is a problem, and that things are not supposed to work this way.

wat10000 1y ago
I don’t think it should be made illegal, it should be made impractical. One way would be to ensure proper competition in the payments space. If there were dozens of options then some of them would decide that it’s a competitive advantage to ignore the busybodies and cater to people who want to buy this stuff. We see this at work with hosting. There’s a multitude of options and it doesn’t seem like adult sites have much trouble finding a host that will allow them, even if others might reject them. Another would be to regulate payment processors like common carriers and require them to serve everyone equally regardless. We see this model with the Post Office. As long as you’re not sending something that will compromise the safety of the workers, they’ll ship it.
- slt2021 1y ago
  VISA/MC duopoly have like 60% margins, they are essentially a rent seeking feudal lord on the entirety global commerce. Pure leeches, that are now engaged in censorship
  - bgnn 1y ago
    It shouldn't ve hard to replace them but any other new service (like Wise) end up issuing a Visa/MC card. Why can't we have an open protocol which works between any machine with NFC?
    - wat10000 1y ago
      The trouble is that you either need cryptocurrency or you need some prearranged entity that both parties trust. With current credit cards, that prearranged entity is Visa/MC/Amex/Discover. I don't see cryptocurrency being practical for this use, or ever widely accepted even if somehow practical. Maybe the new FedNow could serve as that foundation with card processing built on top. But then you have issues like, what about disputes and fraud? With existing credit cards, buyer and seller have both agreed in advance to abide by certain rules. With an open standard, I as a buyer could stand up my own service that makes the payment and then retracts it, or if FedNow doesn't allow retracting payments then I as a seller could make one that refuses to refund the money and I can just not give the buyer their item. (And yeah, this is already illegal, but we see plenty of nefarious activity like this online anyway.)
    - slt2021 1y ago
      the problem is over time they erected a giant moat that is regulation and captive customer base. I dont understand how anti-trust regulation lets Visa/MC duopoly exist (at least with current rates), they must be heaviest donors to politicians. and once you understand how 2-3 big corporations establish oligopoly and engage in rent seeking, protected by mountains of regulations, and share some of their wealth with politicians - you understand how American extractive institutions work. The only hope is some giant like Apple/Google completely unseat visa with their own secure payment solutions that gets around VISA/MC card system
- krick 1y ago
  It would be great if it was impractical, but I still think it has to be made illegal. I think it is not only "bad" because it's bad for Valve of whoever wants to sell or buy these games, this is "bad" on its own, because it is simply another elaborate form of blackmail. It is as close as it gets to violence without actually beating one up: you are forced to do something not because you are required by law or by nature, but because I want you do that, and I have power over you. This isn't a unique situation in that sense, of course, this pattern appears a lot in life. This one is unique only in that sense that it targets a very narrow bottleneck. If you have power to influence a payment system, and it has legal right to choose to write regulations like that, then you have power over virtually anyone and everyone. Lobbying a policy clause for Mastercard is basically as good (or maybe even better) than lobbying a law. Which, yes, is a problem on its own, but this problem is rather "an unfortunate situation" than a malicious act. Also, on the matter of the latter problem — fixing that is much easier said than done. Cryptocurrencies in a way were an attempt to fix that, but governments around the world do not want this problem to be fixed. And of course they don't. The field is highly regulated, because, as I've said, having control over the payment network is not that very much different from having a physical army to physically beat you up. As an aside, I was especially surprised by: > We see this at work with hosting. Do we, though? It's another topic of course, but I actually share the sentiment that the current trend is the opposite one: good old days of the Free Web are gone, and the reality is that in the days of Gmail (and other major mail providers), Cloudflare (and other major CDNs) the Internet is inherently not a decentralized structure anymore. It takes a few powerful friends to reach an agreement with each other, and everyone else has to follow. So, anyway, what I had in mind was exactly that: > to regulate payment processors like common carriers and require them to serve everyone equally regardless But, as I've said, I don't quite see how to draw the line here. After all, it would be somewhat unfair to payment networks to trip them from making any choices. Both because formally they are just a business, not a commodity (which may actually be the root of the problem, I think), and they should have some right to choose how they want to operate; and also because different customers and products objectively carry different risks. So they have to be able to produce some policies, these policies just have to… to be restricted to what's necessary somehow.
  - wat10000 1y ago
pjc50 1y ago
The pressure all counts under free speech. I don't think making it illegal to criticize a company for its customers is a good idea.

by krick 1y ago

wat10000 1y ago

I don’t think it should be made illegal, it should be made impractical. One way would be to ensure proper competition in the payments space. If there were dozens of options then some of them would decide that it’s a competitive advantage to ignore the busybodies and cater to people who want to buy this stuff. We see this at work with hosting. There’s a multitude of options and it doesn’t seem like adult sites have much trouble finding a host that will allow them, even if others might reject them. Another would be to regulate payment processors like common carriers and require them to serve everyone equally regardless. We see this model with the Post Office. As long as you’re not sending something that will compromise the safety of the workers, they’ll ship it.

slt2021 1y ago
VISA/MC duopoly have like 60% margins, they are essentially a rent seeking feudal lord on the entirety global commerce. Pure leeches, that are now engaged in censorship
- bgnn 1y ago
  It shouldn't ve hard to replace them but any other new service (like Wise) end up issuing a Visa/MC card. Why can't we have an open protocol which works between any machine with NFC?
  - wat10000 1y ago
    The trouble is that you either need cryptocurrency or you need some prearranged entity that both parties trust. With current credit cards, that prearranged entity is Visa/MC/Amex/Discover. I don't see cryptocurrency being practical for this use, or ever widely accepted even if somehow practical. Maybe the new FedNow could serve as that foundation with card processing built on top. But then you have issues like, what about disputes and fraud? With existing credit cards, buyer and seller have both agreed in advance to abide by certain rules. With an open standard, I as a buyer could stand up my own service that makes the payment and then retracts it, or if FedNow doesn't allow retracting payments then I as a seller could make one that refuses to refund the money and I can just not give the buyer their item. (And yeah, this is already illegal, but we see plenty of nefarious activity like this online anyway.)
  - slt2021 1y ago
    the problem is over time they erected a giant moat that is regulation and captive customer base. I dont understand how anti-trust regulation lets Visa/MC duopoly exist (at least with current rates), they must be heaviest donors to politicians. and once you understand how 2-3 big corporations establish oligopoly and engage in rent seeking, protected by mountains of regulations, and share some of their wealth with politicians - you understand how American extractive institutions work. The only hope is some giant like Apple/Google completely unseat visa with their own secure payment solutions that gets around VISA/MC card system
krick 1y ago
It would be great if it was impractical, but I still think it has to be made illegal. I think it is not only "bad" because it's bad for Valve of whoever wants to sell or buy these games, this is "bad" on its own, because it is simply another elaborate form of blackmail. It is as close as it gets to violence without actually beating one up: you are forced to do something not because you are required by law or by nature, but because I want you do that, and I have power over you. This isn't a unique situation in that sense, of course, this pattern appears a lot in life. This one is unique only in that sense that it targets a very narrow bottleneck. If you have power to influence a payment system, and it has legal right to choose to write regulations like that, then you have power over virtually anyone and everyone. Lobbying a policy clause for Mastercard is basically as good (or maybe even better) than lobbying a law. Which, yes, is a problem on its own, but this problem is rather "an unfortunate situation" than a malicious act. Also, on the matter of the latter problem — fixing that is much easier said than done. Cryptocurrencies in a way were an attempt to fix that, but governments around the world do not want this problem to be fixed. And of course they don't. The field is highly regulated, because, as I've said, having control over the payment network is not that very much different from having a physical army to physically beat you up. As an aside, I was especially surprised by: > We see this at work with hosting. Do we, though? It's another topic of course, but I actually share the sentiment that the current trend is the opposite one: good old days of the Free Web are gone, and the reality is that in the days of Gmail (and other major mail providers), Cloudflare (and other major CDNs) the Internet is inherently not a decentralized structure anymore. It takes a few powerful friends to reach an agreement with each other, and everyone else has to follow. So, anyway, what I had in mind was exactly that: > to regulate payment processors like common carriers and require them to serve everyone equally regardless But, as I've said, I don't quite see how to draw the line here. After all, it would be somewhat unfair to payment networks to trip them from making any choices. Both because formally they are just a business, not a commodity (which may actually be the root of the problem, I think), and they should have some right to choose how they want to operate; and also because different customers and products objectively carry different risks. So they have to be able to produce some policies, these policies just have to… to be restricted to what's necessary somehow.
- wat10000 1y ago

pjc50 1y ago

The pressure all counts under free speech. I don't think making it illegal to criticize a company for its customers is a good idea.