American puritanism is the problem. I have enough of those American companies arbitrarily deciding that a nipple is an obscene thing. But how to fight back this form of cultural imperialism?
This is due to the "I shouldn't have spent money on that" feeling when the user is done with the service. You'll also have fraudulent cards because there's no physical location they need to order things to to test that the card works. Probably an aspect of underaged users using parents cards due to the nature of the content and a cherry on top in the form of money laundering as the services allows the user to receive money.
As it's a service not goods it's much more easy to chargeback. I'd imagine places that sell adult products have less of an issue, because they have proof of goods.
Your reasoning that that in itself would be sufficient to refuse service does not hold up.
To clarify also it's not my reasoning. Adult content is referenced in the Terms of Service for all payment processors, whether they allow it or not. See Stripe for an example[1]
[1] https://stripe.com/gb/prohibited-businesses#ip-infringement-...
http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Disp...
Here is the engadget article:
https://www.engadget.com/2015/12/02/paypal-square-and-big-ba...
I think strong regulations, something like: Visa/Stripe/PayPal/Amazon have to service every business that is not illegal, would also help these companies against such "moral guardianship". They don't have to look like they are defending the rights of perverts to their other customers.
I heard porn sites have a CC processing fees of 20+%.
Setting up a CCBill account for adult content doesn’t seem like it’d be that big an ask, for an organisation so outwardly committed to supporting their customers.
Nah, due to the nature of the purchase, it's almost entirely about what happens when the monthly statement arrives and the wife gets a hold of it before you do.
"No, honey, I don't know anything about those charges on the credit card statement. Someone must have stolen our card information."
It also doesn't help that historically all those "age verification via credit card" routines inevitably enroll users in opt-out autobilling for services they legitimately don't want and end up disputing. The industry brought this on themselves.
AFAIK, the only place government wrings the hand of payment providers is for terrorism or they want to specifically choke a political actor.
In Patreon's case, I'd imagine it has to do more with fraud, or more specifically how the "big" payment providers won't touch porn. (After all, the big porn sites have been processing credit cards since the dawn of the internet, just not through the same avenues as a eCommerce store would go through, if the government really cared, those sites wouldn't be able to process credit cards either).
I see Patreon uses both PayPal and Stripe as their payments processor - Stripe has pornography spelled out in its term of service as prohibited, and PayPal is far less lenient when it comes to breaking their ToS. I can imagine as Patreon grows, Stripe and PayPal (who in turn might be getting their screws turned by Visa and Mastercard), might start forcing Patreon to deal with these creators.
It's a very unfortunate spot Patreon is in, and I hope they aren't forced to cleanse their platform.
IIRC in 2011 this was due to the terms of their contract with their banking partner, Wells Fargo. I suspect this is still the case.
But, in the case of chargebacks, could it not be solved by simply having patrons agree they will suffer the chargebacks directly? Chargebacks are only a problem if the platform can't make creators cover them, no?
I suppose they could bifurcate the two and offer low- and high-risk plans? Not sure what it would take to implement that, though.
On the other hand war, violence and gore are really a far away concept that does not resonate with a lot of people. Its also an established ok-thing so it being all around us in the form of entertainment makes people even more numb to the subject.
My favorite example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Book_Call...
MasterCard, VISA and PayPal all will refuse to do business with you, or pressure you into changing your business, if you're found to be in the pornography or prostitution business. Even if that's legal in your country.
And in Sweden, banks are now collecting fees for getting cash, or paying in cash, of about 10$ each. So you can't really do anything as customer or company without MasterCard or VISA anymore.
At this point, these systems should be split up, or replaced by an international payment standard with nationalised implementors.
Obviously, that is a significant hurdle that isn't required for other businesses.
A similar issue existed a few years back with a major German retailer, which sold cuban cigars — and MasterCard, VISA and PayPal closed their accounts over it, but luckily in Germany wire transfers, direct debit and Europay cards are common enough that they had an alternative.
For example, Ersties.com, a site made by a German woman and owned by a Swiss company, accepts Paypal and Credit Cards.
Abbywinters, which I believe is currently Dutch, also accepts credit cards, as does GirlsOutWest.
Granted, this is not a big sample, just three whose content I happen to like, but it shows that it's hardly an impossibility.
And yet, one payment processor (Europay) was simply bought by MasterCard, and the other (Girocard) can't compete anymore, because they can't influence what standards are used by Android Pay, Apple Pay, and NFC terminals (Hint: it's not the EMV standards themselves, but only specifically the large credit card networks)
Also, I don't see what that has to do with Patreon.
Someone should inform ... the vast majority of porn businesses. The rest of them don’t use Patreon for payment processing.
The argument was whether VISA, MasterCard, etc, which wield a massive influence, and have quite restrictive rules, are anticompetitive and monopolistic.
If you have a dozen processors to choose from, including a half dozen dedicated to your specific niche, you are not being boxed out by a monopoly.
You’re, at that point, just claiming that you are owed a profitable business model. That is not a valid complaint.
I’m talking about the issue that major processors such as VISA and MasterCard hold too much power in general, and either should be broken up, or shouldn’t have the power to choose their customers.
For example, a few years back a major German retailer sold cuban cigars — and MasterCard, VISA and PayPal closed their accounts over it. Luckily in Germany wire transfers, direct debit and Europay cards are common enough that they had an alternative, but it still became a major issue, and the Rossmann chain refused to do what the processors wanted, because they argued that these companies had no right to enforce US laws in Germany (and Rossmann prevailed, in the end PayPal and co had to allow Rossmann to sell such products via their payment systems).
"[...] we also must listen to and represent those who simply make porn. Who want to be creative with their porn [...]"
Most Americans live similarly to their neighbors, and have for hundreds of years.