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No it isn't. It's struggling on the front page because this is a very old story and it's the same conversation every time: payment processors hate this stuff be
by tptacek 6mo ago
No it isn't. It's struggling on the front page because this is a very old story and it's the same conversation every time: payment processors hate this stuff because digital goods are fraud and chargeback magnets, and that's doubly true of adult content.
- VerifiedReports 6mo agoIf U.S. credit-card issuers were worried about fraud, they would have implemented the other half of "chip-&-PIN," which the rest of the world has been using for decades. U.S. customers pretty much JUST got chips in our cards... but issuers "forgot" to implement the PIN part. Zero sympathy for this scumbag monopoly.
- codedokode 6mo agoIn my country you usually need to confirm payments with SMS OTP, except for trusted merchants (but they take the risk of fraud by opting out from confirmation). So simply stealing a bank card doesn't get you far. And pretending that you did not pay is also more difficult. Is US different? Do banks and clients trust each other in US and do not require OTP?
- BenjiWiebe 6mo agoYep. If I take someone's credit card, I can use it all I want, until either 1) they notice and cancel the card, or 2) I trip the fraud protection with unusual spending patterns.
- kasey_junk 6mo agoChip & pin doesn’t help with chargebacks or merchant fraud which is what costs credit card processors and issuers in adult content.
- VerifiedReports 6mo agoI'm talking about day-to-day transactions, not specifically adult content.
- mickyarun 5mo ago[flagged]
- altairprime 6mo agoThose are valid facts, but this is missing an underlying point: HN’s community is not concerned about this form of discrimination, so each time it crosses the front page, we see lots of threads about deregulation but few about the spectre of ethics raised by these acts. Ethics aren’t typically in-scope for HN unless the party harmed is either a for-profit corporation or a tech worker; since HN doesn’t as a community tend to openly self-identify with the fields of sex work, the ethical issues here are effectively out of scope here. One can imagine a different HN that gave the ethical threats to Others as much airtime as it gives to ethical threats to Self. I remain hopeful.
- tptacek 6mo agoLots of products have the same fraud/chargeback dynamics are are similar disfavored by payment processors.
- altairprime 6mo agoIf only all moral objections had such plausible-deniability ready to promote disregarding them, we’d never have to teach or debate morality and ethical practices in tech at all! Fortunately, the core debate — should payment processors be required to provide service so long as the operator is cooperative with escrow and other such ‘avoid money going out the door fraudulently’ restrictions on high-chargeback enterprises? — remains a ‘brass ring’ desirable outcome of techno-libertarians and so the issue continues be fought about. (Even if it’s only indirectly a morality debate over sex products.)
- tptacek 6mo agoThis isn't responsive to anything I've written. It's not in any sense a moral debate over sex products. It's a practical debate over how expensive it is to underwrite transactions in these markets. The people involved in making those payments work are extending credit.
- TimorousBestie 6mo ago
- rcxdude 6mo agoThis would be a reason for processing such transactions to be more expensive.