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Sounds like MasterCard is in fact fine with merchants selling pornography, but the merchants aren't willing to do so on MasterCard's extremely reasonable terms.

Lol, such as the people involved can't be dressed as vampires.

"Extremely reasonable"

Have you got a reference to that? the terms that were quoted in the grandparent comment do seem extremely reasonable:

>The banks will now have to ensure that sellers require “clear, unambiguous and documented consent” in adult content, the payments network said in a blog post Wednesday. The firms will also be required to ensure websites document the age and verify the identity of anyone depicted in pictures and videos as well as those uploading the content.

>“The banks that connect merchants to our network will need to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content,” John Verdeschi, Mastercard’s senior vice president of customer engagement and performance, said in the post.

The thing I don't understand is if those quoted terms above are the rules that onlyfans is falling foul of, then wouldn't it be easier to build a tracked system for documenting consent e.t.c. rather than banning things.

That would seem like a better strategy for OnlyFans since it seems like their entire business model will be in jeopardy without this.

I wonder if they want to do this, and then turn around and say "we've listened to the community and we're gonna integrate this consent system instead" so it won't be treated so negatively or something?

The grandparent comment is a tiny fragment of the actual rules. Mastercard's BRAM document is not publicly available I believe.

I'm bothered that more people aren't upset about 2 payment providers effectively controlling all non-cash commerce.

I assume we'll wake up a few years from now and say "oh, yeah, probably wasn't a good idea to let private companies get this powerful". Or maybe not.

I am upset, but not at the private companies. I am upset at politicians for not getting the ball rolling on an electronic payment method that works like cash in the interest of its citizens.

They did the opposite: they regulated into oblivion a new, non-state technology that could obsolete the current backwards system.

Actually it was the historical excuse. But today with 3DS2, etc. the fraud/complains rates are very very small. (I have had zero in years.)