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I have a slightly different opinion. Businesses can decide who they want to do business with unless it’s a protected class. I don’t think Visa is doing anything

I have a slightly different opinion. Businesses can decide who they want to do business with unless it’s a protected class. I don’t think Visa is doing anything wrong here. They are in a difficult position as they need to be mindful of the government coming at them as well as chargebacks. Ideally there would be a new entrant here to fill the need.

blackoil 1y ago
Works if Businesses don't have monopoly/duopoly. Also, some sectors are utilities, they should have stronger regulations.
commandlinefan 1y ago
That's the best-case scenario here - Visa and Mastercard take on a much smaller percentage of the world's commerce and some actual competition comes in and picks up the pieces.
sdrinf 1y ago
This absolutely works... until, and when network effects kick in. Payment processors have major network effects in that infra setup is expensive, banks need to be onboarded one-by-one, and whichever network has the most consumers, businesses will gravitate towards it. Iterate this over 20 years, and this always results in natural monopolies / duopolies. This creates a natural chokepoint/linchpin over which millions of people's mutually exclusive needs are getting banged at; including consumers at large, govs at large, and special-interest groups at large. Absent crystal clear legislation -and porn is anything, but- this will always be arbitrary, and leave one side in the dust.
- infecto 1y ago
  I suspect if there was clear rules for the government this would be cut and dry. The fact of the matter is it’s not and that’s why companies like Visa may restrict certain things. There is chargeback risk, risk from the underwriting bank, risk from a state government and risk from the federal government. This is not some free speech problem but rather an issue where a company is having to balance issues from many different parties and weigh the risk.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    Great, then what we should do is just nationalize these companies like we should've done 30 years ago. Now it is a free speech problem, and we can solve it. We'll all probably save a little bit of money too when we don't have to forfeit a portion of every transaction ever to someone's profit margins.
    - infecto 1y ago
      Thanks for invalidating any point you may have had that was valid. Why do conversations degrade into such rubbish so quickly?
      - const_cast 1y ago
        It's not rubbish, it's a real solution. The only reason this isn't a free speech problem is because it's monopolized in the private sector. Well, if it's already centrally planned and controlled, then we can just put it in the public sector. Now, we have some guarantee of rights. We can even use our voting powers to influence the payment processor. Because, right now, we essentially have this same exact scenario - except, it's opaque, we can't vote, and they're allowed to completely trample over the US constitution, because it doesn't apply to them. What's the actual drawback here? I mean, it's not like things can get more consolidated. I understand not wanting to disturb a market, but there's no market to disturb. We can also go the other direction and split Visa up. But that's bad in different ways. I don't want 50 payment processors, you don't want that, and certainly Visa doesn't want that. So who wins? Nobody, it's all losers. If you think it's expensive now, just wait until you're paying for the integration and complexity costs of all those payment processors. IMO, payment processors are public infrastructure. That's an opinion of course, but it's really hard to argue otherwise. It is to the benefit of everyone that we have good payment processors. We already pay for Visa via taxes - that's what that 2% charge on all transactions is. Given that, we should treat it like a public asset.
        infecto 1y ago
        It’s not. It’s a fairy tale solution that sounds good to you but has no shot in the real world. I like discussing real solutions even if I don’t agree with them. This is simply an underwriting risk problem. Get the government to draw boundaries of what’s ok or not and it’s less of a problem.
AdmiralAsshat 1y ago
One might argue, however, that a payment processor should be treated more like a medical or utilities company, rather than a private business. It's one thing for a coffee shop to tell people "We don't want to serve you."--it's quite a different thing for a hospital to tell someone, "We don't want to serve you." Being able to take credit cards is not exactly life-and-death, but it certainly can be for a business. Especially since the average Joe can't exactly go start their own Credit Card company to make a pornography-friendly payment processor. The CC oligarchy is firmly entrenched.
- infecto 1y ago
  I don’t agree. They are underwriting risk and unfortunately adult is one of the hardest categories.
gameman144 1y ago
I think this is one of those "works, but not at scale" situations. The law around protected classes is proof of this: if there's a racist business that won't serve you, startups could gain an advantage by serving you. But if every business around you is racist such that a startup couldn't gain a foothold, there's a market failure that regulation was added to address. If you don't like what telephone companies do, making your own phone company that doesn't inter-operate with the current ones would clearly not go very well. Likewise, if you don't like the current banks or payment processors, you have a steep hill to climb in that all the operative tissue is built around the current model.
- infecto 1y ago
  I don’t know why everyone brings up telephones or electric grids. Your ability to purchase porn with credit card is not a right. It’s hilarious to even think about. Also given the stance in some countries like the US or parts of Australia it’s a hard argument to make. It’s far easier for these companies to self regulate for matters where there are constantly changing social and government norms. Nothing is stopping you from buying porn but it’s quite possible Visa does not want their brand tied with more niche content.
  - gameman144 1y ago
    As an analogy: Your ability to make calls on a cell phone is not a right. Nothing is stopping you from setting up a cell tower, but it's quite possible AT&T does not want their brand tied with your calls.
Finnucane 1y ago
Except that government is not coming at them for this. The government places very little constraint on their business unless it's for demonstrably illegal purposes: CSAM, money laundering, etc.
- infecto 1y ago
  It’s a fine line with more extreme forms of content if you go and lookup past issues.
_Algernon_ 1y ago
Someone owns the electricity wire going to your house. Would you feel the same if they cut it because you watched porn? It's not a problem when there is true and healthy competition. It is a problem when there is not and what they provide is critical infrastructure. Either antitrust the shit out of them so there is healthy competition or regulate them so they have to allow payment for legal goods and services.
- infecto 1y ago
  This has been an issue since the birth of porn online. This is nothing new and there have never been clear lines drawn. The regulation shape shifts over the years of what is acceptable and unfortunately the visas of the world have to underwrite that risk. It’s simple as that, nothing to do with electric grid analogies.
zzo38computer 1y ago
I think this is valid, but the wrong part is preventing the use of doing business in another way. In this case it is not necessarily the issue of the credit card company (it is a different issue, although the credit card company does affect it because they are currently how the payment is handled), although sometimes credit card companies do such things too, such as requiring the price that the customer pays to be the same if you pay by cash or by credit cards, which they also should not do since it can interfere with other ways of accepting payment.
nurumaik 1y ago
>They are in a difficult position as they need to be mindful of the government coming at them as well as chargebacks Poor visa, I feel so bad about them :'( Maybe pressure from the another side will give them motivation to push back against government lobbying
- infecto 1y ago
  Why do you feel so sorry for Visa? They are in a very lucrative position. That said I think there is a risk assessment on what types of content they are allowing and the possibility of government oversight and chargebacks.
zahlman 1y ago
Think about why protected classes need to exist in the first place, given free market reasoning about how discrimination logically ought to affect the bottom line. Then consider how that applies to the current situation.
- infecto 1y ago
  Yeah nothing alike. This is an underwriting problem. The risk to underwrite these businesses are too great sometimes.

blackoil 1y ago

Works if Businesses don't have monopoly/duopoly. Also, some sectors are utilities, they should have stronger regulations.

commandlinefan 1y ago

That's the best-case scenario here - Visa and Mastercard take on a much smaller percentage of the world's commerce and some actual competition comes in and picks up the pieces.

sdrinf 1y ago

This absolutely works... until, and when network effects kick in. Payment processors have major network effects in that infra setup is expensive, banks need to be onboarded one-by-one, and whichever network has the most consumers, businesses will gravitate towards it. Iterate this over 20 years, and this always results in natural monopolies / duopolies. This creates a natural chokepoint/linchpin over which millions of people's mutually exclusive needs are getting banged at; including consumers at large, govs at large, and special-interest groups at large. Absent crystal clear legislation -and porn is anything, but- this will always be arbitrary, and leave one side in the dust.

infecto 1y ago
I suspect if there was clear rules for the government this would be cut and dry. The fact of the matter is it’s not and that’s why companies like Visa may restrict certain things. There is chargeback risk, risk from the underwriting bank, risk from a state government and risk from the federal government. This is not some free speech problem but rather an issue where a company is having to balance issues from many different parties and weigh the risk.
- const_cast 1y ago
  Great, then what we should do is just nationalize these companies like we should've done 30 years ago. Now it is a free speech problem, and we can solve it. We'll all probably save a little bit of money too when we don't have to forfeit a portion of every transaction ever to someone's profit margins.
  - infecto 1y ago
    Thanks for invalidating any point you may have had that was valid. Why do conversations degrade into such rubbish so quickly?
    - const_cast 1y ago
      It's not rubbish, it's a real solution. The only reason this isn't a free speech problem is because it's monopolized in the private sector. Well, if it's already centrally planned and controlled, then we can just put it in the public sector. Now, we have some guarantee of rights. We can even use our voting powers to influence the payment processor. Because, right now, we essentially have this same exact scenario - except, it's opaque, we can't vote, and they're allowed to completely trample over the US constitution, because it doesn't apply to them. What's the actual drawback here? I mean, it's not like things can get more consolidated. I understand not wanting to disturb a market, but there's no market to disturb. We can also go the other direction and split Visa up. But that's bad in different ways. I don't want 50 payment processors, you don't want that, and certainly Visa doesn't want that. So who wins? Nobody, it's all losers. If you think it's expensive now, just wait until you're paying for the integration and complexity costs of all those payment processors. IMO, payment processors are public infrastructure. That's an opinion of course, but it's really hard to argue otherwise. It is to the benefit of everyone that we have good payment processors. We already pay for Visa via taxes - that's what that 2% charge on all transactions is. Given that, we should treat it like a public asset.
      - infecto 1y ago
        It’s not. It’s a fairy tale solution that sounds good to you but has no shot in the real world. I like discussing real solutions even if I don’t agree with them. This is simply an underwriting risk problem. Get the government to draw boundaries of what’s ok or not and it’s less of a problem.

AdmiralAsshat 1y ago

One might argue, however, that a payment processor should be treated more like a medical or utilities company, rather than a private business. It's one thing for a coffee shop to tell people "We don't want to serve you."--it's quite a different thing for a hospital to tell someone, "We don't want to serve you." Being able to take credit cards is not exactly life-and-death, but it certainly can be for a business. Especially since the average Joe can't exactly go start their own Credit Card company to make a pornography-friendly payment processor. The CC oligarchy is firmly entrenched.

infecto 1y ago
I don’t agree. They are underwriting risk and unfortunately adult is one of the hardest categories.

gameman144 1y ago

I think this is one of those "works, but not at scale" situations. The law around protected classes is proof of this: if there's a racist business that won't serve you, startups could gain an advantage by serving you. But if every business around you is racist such that a startup couldn't gain a foothold, there's a market failure that regulation was added to address. If you don't like what telephone companies do, making your own phone company that doesn't inter-operate with the current ones would clearly not go very well. Likewise, if you don't like the current banks or payment processors, you have a steep hill to climb in that all the operative tissue is built around the current model.

infecto 1y ago
I don’t know why everyone brings up telephones or electric grids. Your ability to purchase porn with credit card is not a right. It’s hilarious to even think about. Also given the stance in some countries like the US or parts of Australia it’s a hard argument to make. It’s far easier for these companies to self regulate for matters where there are constantly changing social and government norms. Nothing is stopping you from buying porn but it’s quite possible Visa does not want their brand tied with more niche content.
- gameman144 1y ago
  As an analogy: Your ability to make calls on a cell phone is not a right. Nothing is stopping you from setting up a cell tower, but it's quite possible AT&T does not want their brand tied with your calls.

Finnucane 1y ago

Except that government is not coming at them for this. The government places very little constraint on their business unless it's for demonstrably illegal purposes: CSAM, money laundering, etc.

infecto 1y ago
It’s a fine line with more extreme forms of content if you go and lookup past issues.

_Algernon_ 1y ago

Someone owns the electricity wire going to your house. Would you feel the same if they cut it because you watched porn? It's not a problem when there is true and healthy competition. It is a problem when there is not and what they provide is critical infrastructure. Either antitrust the shit out of them so there is healthy competition or regulate them so they have to allow payment for legal goods and services.

infecto 1y ago
This has been an issue since the birth of porn online. This is nothing new and there have never been clear lines drawn. The regulation shape shifts over the years of what is acceptable and unfortunately the visas of the world have to underwrite that risk. It’s simple as that, nothing to do with electric grid analogies.

zzo38computer 1y ago

I think this is valid, but the wrong part is preventing the use of doing business in another way. In this case it is not necessarily the issue of the credit card company (it is a different issue, although the credit card company does affect it because they are currently how the payment is handled), although sometimes credit card companies do such things too, such as requiring the price that the customer pays to be the same if you pay by cash or by credit cards, which they also should not do since it can interfere with other ways of accepting payment.

nurumaik 1y ago

>They are in a difficult position as they need to be mindful of the government coming at them as well as chargebacks Poor visa, I feel so bad about them :'( Maybe pressure from the another side will give them motivation to push back against government lobbying

infecto 1y ago
Why do you feel so sorry for Visa? They are in a very lucrative position. That said I think there is a risk assessment on what types of content they are allowing and the possibility of government oversight and chargebacks.

zahlman 1y ago

Think about why protected classes need to exist in the first place, given free market reasoning about how discrimination logically ought to affect the bottom line. Then consider how that applies to the current situation.

infecto 1y ago
Yeah nothing alike. This is an underwriting problem. The risk to underwrite these businesses are too great sometimes.