Hacker News Reader

Comment by ijk | Hacker News Reader

One factor is the ongoing campaigns from number of moral crusading groups who lobby them to cut off payment processing for things they don't approve of. NCOSE has been working for decades on the project, and targeting credit card companies has been a successful tactic for them for a decade or so.

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/visa-and-mastercard-ar...

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/why-visa-mastercard-being-blamed-on...

[3] https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstreams/761eb6c3-9377-...

View on HN

Targeting them with what?

What could possibly hold enough leverage that Visa would jeopardize their sweet gig as an ideology-neutral, essential piece of American infrastructure siphoning 1-2% off of every dollar of consumer spending?

Threats of exposure and boycotting/blacklisting the card making room for competitors.

Plenty of religious groups have the money to be able to start the "holy card". And there's plenty of businesses that'd be giddy to accept Jesus card.

Consider, for example, companies like hobby lobby or Chick-fil-A banning visa and promoting Jesus card.

It also wouldn't take much for such a card to advertise itself as kid friendly.

Thinking about it, I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened already.

What competitors? You mean a "Jesus Card" issued by Visa or Mastercard? At this point, it's basically an oligopoly. The only other real player is Amex, and they're a very distant third.

Amex isn't really a competitor, since they're both card issuer and network in one. (I believe they have a few third party issued cards these days, but it's not a significant part of their business. The same goes for Discover.)

Let’s be real, Chick-fil-A banning Visa would likely result in its bankruptcy.

Starting a holy card that doesn’t work at gas stations etc is an extremely uphill battle.

Yeah, 30 years ago this might've been able to get off the ground. Today? Not a prayer.

> would likely result in its bankruptcy.

Maybe? Depends on how customers are sold on the mission. If it's sold as protecting children I could see a number of people ditching their cards.

> Starting a holy card that doesn’t work at gas stations etc is an extremely uphill battle.

True. It'd take a large amount of initial capital and would likely need a targeted and regional rollout with some nice incentives to the merchants.

Don't know about that. Costco banned Mastercard and they're doing fine.

They wouldn’t need to create a new payment processor if they could just swap to Mastercard. Thus it was also implicitly excluded by Chick-fil-A in their proposal.

I looked this up, they still accept visa. So not quite the same

I use my debit card at gas stations

Do you mean like Greenlight?

The leverage is that the activists will potentially be able to draw the ire of the government. Visa and MC get away with absolute murder in terms of the size of the fees that they charge in the US. Most developed countries don't allow that. The US government could easily regulate them (as they already do with debit card fees) or use anti-trust law against the obvious duopoly charging exorbitant prices. Because of this situation, Visa and MC have a very strong incentive to crack down on things the government doesn't like.

The unspoken arrangement is that the government allows them to keep charging a de facto sales tax on a massive portion of the economy as long as they cooperate and de facto ban things that the government wants banned but can't ban themselves due to that pesky constitution.

The Durbin amendment (regulating debit interchange in the US) and its EU equivalent aren't regulating Visa and Mastercard scheme fees, but rather interchange fees, which Visa and Mastercard set, but issuing banks earn.

Of course scheme fees are ultimately at least partially paid from interchange, but lower interchange is primarily a problem for issuing banks, not the networks.

The Durbin amendment in particular was also supposed to foster competition between networks (by mandating each debit issuer to support at least two unaffiliated networks per card), but given that only very few places accept only debit cards, that didn't work out quite as well as intended in terms of bringing down both interchange and scheme fees via market forces.

Tbh that's quite alarming what you've just said, and I'm not saying about government. I'm saying about an additional huge sales tax. I understand that wiring money or sending them in an envelope is the thing of past, but e.g. in my country and in whole EU the digital payment is promoted as the only righteous, because "cash is only used by gangsters and human traffickers" etc. And this is really playing against us and pushing us to the duopoly you've mentioned

Credit cards are much less heavily relied on in Europe than in the USA. Europe basically runs on debit cards that every kid can have and where the fees are minuscule. There are countless banks providing the service and everything is highly regulated. On top of that, Europe still curbed Visa and Mastercard several times for antitrust behaviour. And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities is pretty well established. They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions.

Where may I read about anything supporting your statement "cash is primarily used for illegal activities"? I highly doubt that this is the case, unless there are more illegal activities out there than legal ones.

Here for example: https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash...

I would assume the metric isn’t number of transactions, but total transaction value. It’s really uncommon to pay for really expensive things (e.g., houses, cars, boats) in cash, and doing so almost always means that the duffel bag of cash came from shady means.

OK, but look at the original statement, that cash is mainly used for illegal activities. I do not think that is true.

Now, check this out:

> Cash was the most frequently used payment method at the POS in the euro area and was used in 52% (59%) of transactions, but the share of cash payments has declined.

> Cash was the most frequently used payment method for small-value payments at the POS, in line with previous surveys. For payments over €50, cards were the most frequently used payment method.

> Cash was the dominant means of payment in P2P transactions, accounting for 41% of such payments. Cards and mobile apps were used for 33%, credit transfers for 9% and instant payments for 6% of P2P transactions.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/ecb_surveys/space/html/ecb.s...

This is to be expected though:

> The most frequently used instrument for online payments was cards, representing 48% (51%) of transactions. The share of e-payment solutions, i.e. payment wallets and mobile apps, was 29% (26%).

> The large majority of recurring payments were made using direct debit, with credit transfers ranking in second place.

Regarding privacy:

> A majority of euro area consumers (58%) said they were concerned about their privacy when performing digital payments or other banking activities.

I think they genuinely care about privacy and are not thugs.

Not sure if "mainly" means in terms of total value, number of transactions or people using it. If I would be to guess it would be total value.

Now, these guys might be biased, but to quote: "The EUR 500 note alone accounts for over 30% of the value of all banknotes in circulation (1)." (https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash...).

That would suggest to me that at least 30% of the value of cash is used for "shady" stuff (I mean I don't know anybody that would use 500 eur bills).

The fact that cash would be used mostly for illegal activities by value (I don't know if it is really the case), does not imply that "people that use cash use if for illegal activities".

I do not pretend that I know either, to be honest.

That said, there is "For payments over €50, cards were the most frequently used payment method.", which means they primarily use cash below 50 EUR, and you cannot do much illegal purchases with 50 EUR, it is such a small amount.

Technically they said,

> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities is pretty well established.

Another plausible reading could be that this is just a widely believed incorrect thing (or most exactly, they are just saying it is widely believed, and not anything about the underlying truthfulness of the belief). This seems easy for somebody to observe about the society around them (although I bet it is a regional thing, or something like that) and less likely for there to be hard data on. Perception is also more likely than actual facts to drive behavior, right?

> They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions.

This, on the other hand, seems like a specific action taken by the government to solve a specific problem, so I’d expect it to be well documented…

> the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established

I think that's very hyperbolic. In france most people I know carry cash and use it regularly (not as much as cards), the gen X and older tend to find it strange to pay for small sums (eg bread) with card. Germany is infamously almost cash-only. In many Central Europe countries, shops taking card is not a given (Bulgaria, Hungary).

> Germany is infamously almost cash-only.

Let's not exaggerate. While I am often enough exasperated at how often certain restaurants or bars will still only accept cash (or sometimes EC card), I'm still able to do about 90% of my transactions by card.

In the US, cash-only businesses usually attract auditors from the IRS (or did, until they gutted the agency).

Interesting! As a tourist, almost all my transactions had to be cash: but ofc a tourist and a resident don't have the same spending patterns (mostly bars and restaurant for me)

Supermarkets and most stores where you'd buy everyday stuff (clothes, electronics, books, ...), especially if they're chains, will take card. It's really mostly independently owned kiosks, bars and restaurants that are holdouts, and even there the card acceptance rate is increasing.

> Germany is infamously almost cash-only.

COVID caused a major boost in shops adding card payments. Most shops now accept them even for small payments.

There are places which don't take cards, many of them also don't print receipts without asking, which might indicate than an tax audit might give interesting results ...

Some shops try to go towards "card only"

In Hungary by law every seller that has a cash register also has to accept cards. So I guess you were here some years ago.

> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established. They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions.

At least in Germany in particular older people prefer to pay cash if possible - this gives the banks also less leverage with respect to abhorent fees. Since many people in Germany neither trust the banks nor the government anymore, acting this way is very rational.

Also the arguments concerning cash restrictions are seen very differently by the population: since there existed two oppressive regimes on German soil in the 20th century, a lot of people realize that the restrictions on cash are just another step towards restrictions of the citizen's freedoms (thus I am honestly surprised all the time that a lot of US-Americans who are so freedom-loving and distrust the government concerning the restrictions of civil rights are not in love of cash).

Thus, in Germany there exists the saying "Bargeld ist gelebte Freiheit" [cash is lived freedom].

> Since many people in Germany neither trust the banks nor the government anymore, acting this way is very rational.

Speak for yourself, this is either heavily overstated or a fringe opinion, luckily. Most people definitely do trust both government and banks to a sensible degree, even if they don’t like some decisions.

Some people like you apparently also don’t appreciate the immense freedom of SEPA transactions. Sure it’s good to have cash as an escape hatch for the occasional transaction off the record, but for almost everything else bank transfers are safe, inaccessible to third parties, free from fees, and easy to use. And above all else, we have a working democracy and not an oppressive regime? This whole debate often feels very disconnected and overblown in Germany.

Croatian banks didn't get the memo about SEPA; I get charged to receive a SEPA transfer!

I'm from Croatia but I don't send money abroad, I only use credit cards and banks locally. As far as I can see from our local banks' websites, they implement SEPA standards. There must be some sort of misunderstanding or error.

Perhaps is because it's a payment to an OBRT account?

Banking in Croatia is like UK banking 40 years ago, or at least it is with Erste. Charged even just to have the account.

They even charge me to send me an email to tell me I logged in to the online banking.

They charge for pretty much everything, even for running your bank account. But now they will not be allowed by law to charge you "bank account operating cost fees" for bank accounts that are used for receiving salary and/or pension.

> And above all else, we have a working democracy and not an oppressive regime? This whole debate often feels very disconnected and overblown in Germany.

Well as you can see from the US currently, a country that is now free and democratic, might not continue to do so in the future. But once you've given up the ability to use cash because you didn't need it then, how are you going to get it back when you do need it?

Not a single western democracy has really turned yet, so I’m not convinced this is imminent danger.

Besides, I’m not advocating for the abolishment of cash, but against dramatic claims of an evil scheme to control and spy on citizens. That’s a right-wing narrative in Germany, but nonsense nonetheless.

Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Argentina -- most within living memory.

Hell even France, everyone's just lucky that de Gaulle wasn't much into dictatorship.

Germany, Spain, and Italy were no western democracies in any sense of the word before the rise of fascism, Japan, Brazil, and Chile are no western democracies per definition.

I’m talking about the post-WW2 order, which has been remarkably solid. Until Trump showed up, that is. But even the USA are still a working democracy, despite all the fear of an authoritarian regime. So I would at least argue for a bit of calm and reason before proclaiming the end of freedom due to discontinued 500€ notes.

I would like to know where you draw the line for "working democracy".

The German Democratic Republic had elections, it even had political mechanisms that allowed other parties to participate (which the East CDU made plenty of use of btw). It even had a lower rate of incarceration than the US and a far more primitive surveillance system.

Pre-WW2 Germany was a working democracy for the most part despite its court system still having being extremely biased in favor of monarchists and anti-leftism. Most of the violence committed by the Nazis at the time resulted in prosecutions even if many were excused for "being motivated by patriotism". Hitler even went to prison for attempting a coup before being pardoned - and the punishment succeeded in changing the NSDAP's strategy to mostly remain within the limits of the law. Hitler's absolute power was even legally granted through the Enabling Act, passed with the help of the government coalition partners including the ideological precursor to the modern CDU/CSU, the Christian (Catholic) conservative "Center" party.

Post-WW2 West Germany under Adenauer (who btw was a massive antisemite to the point of explaining the necessity of zionism with the need to appease the "very powerful" international Jewish community) on the other hand had the government pressuring its constitutional court to ban political parties, reinstate the Nazi era crime of "high treason" to criminalize any political attempts at reunification other than outright annexation and cracked down on pacifists and opponents to the remilitarization as desired by the US to have a regional power base in the Cold War. It also ran a system of rubber stamp courts to rehabilitate former NSDAP members, even when it required a re-trial after the destruction of incriminating evidence from prior unfavorable rulings.

And of course even after Adenauer German policing only ever-so-incrementally moved away from the traditional authoritarian "peace through power" approach following the bloodshed in its handling of the student protests in the 1960s (which led to the formation of the RAF terrorist group) although German federal and state governments still oppose any outside investigations into police violence nowadays even when it's evident enough to make international news headlines like in Lüzerath. Meanwhile corruption in the federal government has become so rampant there are literally score lists available for each political party showing how many of their representatives are tied up in legal corruption scandals with Jens Spahn probably being the most widely talked about case for funnelling government funds into his pockets during the pandemic only followed by former chancellor Schroeder's close business relations to Gazprom and Olaf Scholz's deliberate intervention in investigations of never seen before amounts of massive tax fraud (i.e. the Cum Ex scandal).

And that's just Germany. So: if interwar Germany and pre-reunification East Germany were not "working democracies" but every "western" democracy (I presume this means anything this side of the Cold War iron curtain) post-WW2 is - what's your yardstick? Where do you draw the line?

> Most people [in Germany] definitely do trust both government and banks to a sensible degree, even if they don’t like some decisions.

The major far-right fundamentalist opposition party has built its unprecedented success on a narrative of low government trust, and has been gaining ground in both polls and elections for years and years now.

So perhaps we shouldn't dismiss the parents' perspective entirely.

> Some people like you apparently also don’t appreciate the immense freedom of SEPA transactions.

If you include the wrong words in the transaction description, your account will almost certainly be cancelled. In a truly free payment system that safeguards democratic freedoms, these descriptions would be encrypted from end to end. (Just in the same way all personal communication should be protected.) This will, of course, never happen.

> And above all else, we have a working democracy and not an oppressive regime? This whole debate often feels very disconnected and overblown in Germany.

Any data we collect will probably be misused at some point in the future. Why take a risk with German institutions if we don't have to?

Germany recently experimented with greater financial control over some parts of the population, and it wasn't a total disaster in terms of control. In terms of freedom, however, it is a disaster.

Unfortunately, the source is German-language: https://netzpolitik.org/2024/faq-was-bezahlkarten-fuer-geflu...

Despite cash being a pillar of freedom and democracy in an open society, there is still no good anonymous alternative to it that is usable by normal people on a daily basis.

> The major far-right fundamentalist opposition party has built its unprecedented success on a narrative of low government trust, and has been gaining ground in both polls and elections for years and years now.

And yet, that is very far from the majority.

> If you include the wrong words in the transaction description, your account will almost certainly be cancelled.

That isn’t true. If you put "murder contract + 2kg heroin" in the description, at most a bank clerk will call to ask you to avoid that. The description is reviewed to detect fraud, and protects a lot of people from illicit transactions. We have that for the same reason we have KYC regulations; you may disagree with it, but it protects a lot of people, right now. If you need to obfuscate the description, you’re free to use an encrypted string or a numeric reference without any trouble.

> Any data we collect will probably be misused at some point in the future. Why take a risk with German institutions if we don't have to?

There are valid arguments against widespread cash usage; money handling is one of the top expenses in retail, for example. There also is fraud potential actively being used for sure. Yet, I don’t hear anyone working on completely abolishing cash, which is just not going to happen. Still, even Germans could benefit from questioning our ways from time to time.

> And yet, that is very far from the majority.

Remember that our parent said, "Many people in Germany neither trust the banks nor the government." You denied that, and I suggested that the turnout for the AfD might be a useful proxy for institutional distrust. I don't know how the reference to majorities fits here or what argument it is intended to support. Presumably, there are also people in other parties who distrust public institutions, right? Why are we talking about majorities now?

I argued that the SEPA system has several flaws, one of which is the lack of privacy surrounding transaction descriptions. This can have consequences far more serious than receiving a call from a bank. While banks do check flagged transactions, if a certain number of criteria are met, they will definitely escalate your transaction to the authorities. This is a legal requirement, by the way — it's not specific to any particular bank. This can be mitigated almost entirely by using cash.

As you did not answer my question about why to gamble on institutional consistency, I wonder: Would you actively argue in favour of greater surveillance of the payment sector?

This would align with your seemingly tongue-in-cheek suggestion to manually encrypt transaction descriptions. Payment privacy can only foster democratic resilience if it is enabled by default. It's like saying an instant messaging app doesn't need end-to-end encryption for personal communication because users can encrypt the text by hand.

> There are valid arguments against widespread cash usage; money handling is one of the top expenses in retail, for example.

Liberty is not usually defined in monetary terms. For instance, regular elections are costly. We still do not eliminate them for economic benefit. Similarly, I think the idea of removing the option of payment privacy to reduce transaction costs is cynical, or very radical.

> Yet, I don’t hear anyone working on completely abolishing cash, which is just not going to happen.

I don't know why intention would be relevant here. The use of cash has been declining in Germany (and the EU) for quite some time now. This basic fact is not new or disputed by anyone in this field. To deny the decline of cash as a proportion of overall payments would be counterfactual.

Problems arising from reduced cash usage, such as the vulnerability of civil society and the reduced resilience of democratic institutions, occur regardless of whether someone is actively working to abolish cash payments.

> Speak for yourself, this is either heavily overstated or a fringe opinion, luckily.

I know quite a lot of people in Germany who think this way. In particular during the time when there was a risk of negative interest on savings (when this topic was brought up by politicians and banksters) these people were much more open in shouting out their political opinions.

Also the anti-corona measures separated the population into two groups:

1. Those who were in favour of the anti-corona measures also became more open with respect to paying with cards (well, to help avoiding the spread the virus)

2. Those who were against it became much more distrusting towards politicians (for obvious reasons) and banks afterwards. Why also banks? Because various groups at that time brought up idea that anti-vaxxers should be de-banked.

So, I am quite sure I'm not overstating. But if you only hang up with specific groups of people, it is in my opinion eather easy not to get in contact to those who think this way.

> At least in Germany in particular older people prefer to pay cash if possible

Sure, but that's for small, everyday amounts. For values upwards of 500€, I think the familiarity of paying cash would be swamped by the nervousness of carrying way too much money with you, what if it gets stolen?

> this gives the banks also less leverage with respect to abhorent fees

The only time my bank has ever charged me a per-transaction fee was, ironically, when I withdrew cash abroad using my credit card.

When I bought a piece of furniture in Germany, I had to pay 1/3 right there in the store. They accepted various cards. When it was delivered, I had to pay the remaining balance (four digits) in cash. No other option.

Also, I believe when buying used cars and such, most people still prefer cash transactions.

That's pretty common in the US too though the cash balance is usually in the form of a check. Historically you'd often get a cashier's check from your bank but I was surprised the dealership accepted a regular personal check a couple years ago. I guess there are control systems in place these days that provide assurances for places like dealerships.

For a dealership I feel like there's less risk; they can do a quick background/credit check on you before accepting the personal check, and it's probably easier for them to track down someone who gives them a bad check. They also have better ability to absorb the loss, in the worst case. I'm sure they've modeled everything and have decided that taking personal checks is worth it financially to them.

(I remember reading long ago that if if a potential customer has to leave the dealership to go secure the proper form of payment, a significant percent just don't come back at all. They want to keep you there until you buy something, fairly standard sales tactic.)

But for a regular person just trying to sell their own car directly to someone else, they're absolutely going to want a cashier's check or cash. (Even the cashier's check can be risky; I doubt your average person is an expert in detecting a fraudulent one.)

When I’m selling a car I insist that we finalize the transaction at a brick and mortar bank, where I can watch them either get a bank draft or withdraw cash.

(In Canada, I’ve never actually seen a certified/cashier’s cheque used for anything. My house downpayment and vehicle purchase were both done via bank draft.)

and even if you do want to carry that much cash, surely you'd want a fatter wad with smaller bills, right?

The Euro uses larger bills for larger amounts, so if showing off the cash is actually something you want, a single €500 note would have worked well.

there's a psychological bonus for heftier things

maybe if it was larger, thicker, and a more dense material. most of those matter more to the person holding it, rather than an observer, though

> I am honestly surprised all the time that a lot of US-Americans who are so freedom-loving and distrust the government concerning the restrictions of civil rights are not in love of cash

I suspect it's a combination of factors, one of them being that US cash has absolutely awful usability compared to the Euro.

> absolutely awful usability compared to the Euro

In what way? One unpleasant discovery I made in Portugal (and also saw to some extent in Spain) was that ATM’s - every one I could find, including those that were bank-owned at physical branches - had a limit of EUR200 per transaction regardless of my own bank limit (at USD1000/day, that should have been at least EUR800).

And while convenience stores, fast food, etc., won’t take a bill over $20 (which is understandable but really a trifling sum when you consider inflation - it’s a fast-food breakfast for three people), many other businesses are happy to do so. Nothing above $100 is in circulation anymore, and inflation means that $100 in 1980 is worth over $400 in today’s money even by government figures. A $20 bill 45 years ago was worth almost $100 in today’s money. And, of course, cash declaration rules have not updated the amounts to reflect this.

I went last year to Lisbon and Barcelona, from Brazil with 0 cash in any currency.

I had a debit card with some hundreds of EUR already charged, but I ended up using it with an NFC enabled smartphone.

No issues at all, even going in far places outside Barcelona. Everyone very receptive in BCN.

I looked at ATM terminals and they seemed full of rules and complications. I tried to get some cash just to collect the notes as a souvenir, but I gave up.

Again, everyone accepted my NFC enabled smartphone, I tested my debit NFC card and my local bank CC NFC card as well

So I think ATMs present a lot of friction for sure.

Same this year - I went through Spain, France, and Portugal last month and did not have to take money out of ATM for anything including eating, shopping for groceries, paying for gas or sightseeing.

ApplePay connected to my no forex transaction credit card earning 3% cashback covered 95% of these transactions and a few times I had to use that credit card directly.

How did you manage without cash in France? Many places here don’t accept anything but cash for amounts less than 5 or 10 Euros. If I just want to buy a coffee or a baguette, I often need cash.

I spent a few days in French Basque Country and restaurants and fresh markets all accepted credit cards and Apple Pay.

I was traveling with family so spending limits were higher than 5 euros

Okay, but OP specifically said that USD are inferior to EUR for cash. Never had issues spending with card in PT or ES.

> that US cash has absolutely awful usability compared to the Euro.

Euro bills differ clearly in color and size, which means they are quickly identified.

Also the Euro coins differ in shape and size quite a lot, which is easy to identify blind even when handled individually. More than U.S. coins which are more similar.

I don't know about an objective difference caused by the fact that 1€ and 2€ are coins and bills start only at 5€ whereas the one dollar coin isn't much used in favor of the one dollar bill.

A vocal minority are freedom loving. A significant number are hooked on consumer debt. I feel like any sweeping generalization is going to be wrong… especially when referencing the USA which is basically 50 countries and has a population exceeding all of Western Europe.

> especially when referencing the USA which is basically 50 countries and has a population exceeding all of Western Europe.

So, you compare the whole USA to only a part of Europe? Why is that?

And they counted an even lower percentage of Eurasia. It might matter for a given conversation. It might not. What's your point (i.e., what are you actually trying to ask)?

> especially when referencing the USA which is basically 50 countries and has a population exceeding all of Western Europe.

Germany is basically 16 countries (federal states [Bundesländer]). Europe is a whole countinent - here a suitable American analogue miht be USA+Canada+Middle America. Or if we talk about the EU, a suitable analogue would be NAFTA (the EU also started as a set of free trade agreements).

The Bafin (german banking regulator) seems to want to restrict that freedom. I have worked for a company where the business model is related to cash and the Bafin tries to find reasons to make it harder every couple of years, stating that the money could come from anywhere and because people are not fully KYCed (as it is only legally required for payments of 1000 EUR or more within 24h) there is no way to know. The business model is legal, but they can also make it harder to operate by putting more pressure and scrutiny to banks the company worked with.

It's not so much that only criminals use cash, it's more that crash makes it incredibly easy to evade taxes. The archetype is a cash-only restaurant: it's trivial to both launder money by claiming more sales than you actually made and to evade taxes by reporting fewer sales. This is why many countries have strict laws about paper trails for cash sales.

> thus I am honestly surprised all the time that a lot of US-Americans who are so freedom-loving and distrust the government concerning the restrictions of civil rights are not in love of cash

I think there are a lot of Americans who distrust government/banks and try to deal in cash as much as they can. And there are a lot of people here who have bad credit and can't get a credit card, and quite a few unbanked lower-income folks who don't have bank accounts or debit cards.

But I think maybe as someone from another country you're misinterpreting the whole "individual freedom" thing that a lot of Americans push. I don't think cash vs. credit cards is really a big part of that, for whatever reason. While it is more common in some places in the US these days for some businesses to not take cash at all, still the vast majority of businesses do take cash, and everyone has a choice in how they'll pay.

There's also a financial engineering component, as most credit cards in the US offer some kind of rewards program or cash back for purchases made. For example, a credit card I have, when used for Lyft rides, gives me the equivalent of 7.5% off (I have to use the savings for travel costs through the credit card's travel site, but that's fine and worth it for me). Some cards are simple and just offer 1% or 2% back and that's it, but some have categories (like "3% cash back for gasoline purchases"), and some people get into the "game" of trying to match a credit card with a purchase to get the most cash back.

And even for people who don't get into the "game", they certainly won't mind a "free" 1% or 2% discount on everything just for using a credit card. Some businesses offer a discount for paying cash, or a surcharge for using a credit card, but many do not, so if you pay with cash, you're essentially overpaying, since the cost of credit card fees is built into the prices. (This is of course another way that poor people who can't get credit cards get screwed.)

I guess often enough, convenience and saving money wins over the whole "freedom" thing for people here.

Finally, I think there's also a bit of separation. Many credit cards don't even feel like they're associated with a bank. Many larger retail stores offer a branded credit card that of course has a Visa or MasterCard logo on it, but you have to dig to find mention of an actual bank. So even Americans who might distrust government and banks just don't see a strong association there when it comes to credit cards.

I also just don't think there's that much bank distrust going on in the US. Sure, people are still sore about the financial crisis of 2008, but also consider that was 17 years ago. We haven't had big bank issues in the US where banks devalue currency, or follow government orders to across-the-board steal money from citizens, at least not in widespread ways. People generally love to rag on banks when it comes to fees and penalties and hidden costs and crap like that, but many of those things have been made illegal, and, again, even for a bank-issued credit card, I think many people just don't make that association. It's just an easier way to make payments, without the risk of carrying cash around (and with protection if the card gets stolen and used), and sometimes you get discounts and cash back... what's not to like?

> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities is pretty well established.

I'd rather have that than a complete loss of privacy.

The U.S. consumer economy functions primarily on debt from start to end these days, complete with debt collectors who buy it pennies on the dollar and then con grieving relatives into voluntarily accepting duty towards those debts that would otherwise have been discharged by death. So there are quite a lot of people these days who couldn’t use the European debit methods because they don’t have the cash and likely never will, what with one quarter of the country’s households unable to afford housing on effectively poverty wages. The federal government can’t crack down on this because they’d have to replace that consumer debt with public assistance. The puritanical / religious orgs control majority voting blocs that haven’t aged out as they used to and so are a continued threat to elected officials. So the threat those groups are holding over Visa/MC is triple-pronged: not only will they boycott (they can afford to), they can also leverage politicians (enforce our will or get ejected from office) and threaten capitalism (better economic armageddon than unpalatable sexual expressions). Valve can’t hold a candle to that kind of leverage, not without giving up the neutral-apolitical stance that most tech corporations prefer. They would essentially have to promote a counter-bloc of voters to counter-pressure the U.S. House and Senate into passing payment provider neutrality laws through elections. Valve is vanishingly unlikely to do this, and so their only choice is to prostrate to Visa/MC (or stop accepting USD) until the puritan bloc ages out in two or three decades. They can certainly afford to wait, especially given that these incremental religious bans advance slower than their revenues.

> because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions.

thats BS. most people have indeed had such, and while not frequent, it was fully legit.

The real reason they want to do away with cash is so they can monitor everything you buy, and in time, perhaps more

I'm not sure which European country you're talking about, but in France most transaction are now done by card. Yes it's mostly debit cards, but they're still handled almost exclusively by Visa and Mastercard.

Many banks have tried to start other electronic payments independent from those 2 (for example Wero) but it doesn't really get any traction.

So I don't see how the duopoly is any less powerful here.

I think France is a bit of an exception because there's the CB network[1]. Most cards here are either CB/Mastercard or CB/Visa and a lot of stuff uses CB by default if I understand it correctly. According to their website the network accounts for 65% percent of national transactions[2] but I'm not sure of how to interpret their wording.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CB_Bank_Card_Group

[2] https://www.cartes-bancaires.com/cb/chiffres/

Cards and transfers are different things though. What I have seen from Wero (released to the public) are Peer to Peer transfers, so if you don't need to transfer money to a person, Wero will not help you for now.

Some card fees are capped by the EU: https://www.visa.co.uk/about-visa/visa-in-europe/fees-and-in..., quoting "From 9 December 2015, European regulation on interchange fees (Regulation (EU) 2015/751 of the European Parliament and of the European Council of 29 April 2015 on interchange fees for card-based transactions, “the IFR”) imposes interchange fee caps on most product types within the European Economic Area (EEA).".

It is true though that French banks have huge fees even for debit (0.20%) compared to, for example The Netherlands (0.02 eur).

So the doupoly is not as powerful everywhere, but I have no clue why the difference.

Businesses can also accept Wero payment by QR code. Although I don't think many do.

In Poland there is Blik which got huge traction

...which is why saying "in Europe" makes no sense. There are so many differences between countries.

Debit cards are really common in the US as well. Pretty much every bank gives you one with a checking account and they’re accepted everywhere. You’ll have no problem never getting a credit card, aside from a couple of very specific cases such as renting a car where they’ll require a substantial deposit if you don’t use a credit card.

But it’s irrelevant to this issue, because the debit cards are still handled by Visa or Mastercard.

> They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions

I wonder what is the source for this information?

In my country it's perfectly legal to request your payment in cash. And it should be paid to you in cash if you request it. Therefore, 500 banknotes make perfect sense, making however any payment with it really stressful for you and the teller

sounds like the fix is counter activism to remove the leverage these interest groups have

The fix is legislation that ensures that payment processors aren't allowed to extra-legally moderate transactions based on "I don't like it". They need to be forced to process all legal transactions. Because these entities are nearly irreplaceable and are the cornerstone of many consumer industries, it seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

Just pushing back is neither guaranteed to succeed nor last for any serious amount of time. The ideological crazies can throw their entire existence at ensuring the fact that the "impure, corrupting filth" is squashed. People who oppose it might like the things that get censored, but none are religiously attached to the cause, not to an extent that would lead to a serious amount of organizing, anyway.

The problem comes from "legal transactions".

The Pornhub problem came from going after the payment processors for facilitating supposedly illegal transactions--namely, underage porn. The crusaders (in every direction) keep looking for ways to undermine the protections (Section 230 in this case) and all too often the government doesn't fight back.

As for keeping it in the family games--we still have "obscenity" on the books and such games fall afoul of it. I find the concept of "obscenity" bonkers amongst consenting adults.

Rather, we remove the leverage by doing what these activists threaten to do, without all the hysterics. If the exorbitant fees give so much leverage to activists, fix the fees. and you know, allow the market to be freer and all that.

Yes - and Japanese gay porn games are an easy soft target before they go on to ban things they really want to ban. We've been through this before in the 70s-90s.

> We've been through this before in the 70s-90s.

What do you mean?

The initial ban wave was against incest games.

Almost certainly won't end there without significant consumer pushback against the payment processor Valve uses as well as both VISA and Mastercard.

I always found this principle odd because it offends across the political spectrum.

Every hassle the porn industry gets, the gun industry gets too, and that obviously has a very different political footprint. I'd also expect some industries with politically powerful friends (supplements, MLMs in general) to be offended by policies that put some merchants into higher risk/higher cost/higher rejection categories.

I had hoped something like FedNow would take off-- a government-backed payment rail with a formal mandate to service any legal business, so neither side could complain about being deplatformed.

Because Visa's revenue is not dependent upon ideological neutrality.

They're half of a duopoly.

> Targeting them with what?

> What could possibly hold enough leverage that Visa would jeopardize their sweet gig as an ideology-neutral, essential piece of American infrastructure siphoning 1-2% off of every dollar of consumer spending?

The US courts.

Visa was specifically pulled into the lawsuit against PornHub; here's Visa's official statement on the matter: https://corporate.visa.com/en/sites/visa-perspectives/compan...

The lawsuit is still ongoing.

Pressure campaigns could lead to laws regulating the card industry, self regulation prevents some of that (see movies and games ratings agencies, which avoid government ratings coming in and potentially connecting an 18+ rating with outright bans like we’ve seen in the UK and Australia in the past)

You are not allowed to be ideologically neutral anywhere today.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.)

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

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.

Hosting is a very different landscape. Cloudflare and AWS and such are enormous and can exert a lot of control. But you can still ignore them and just do your own thing and it works fine. There are plenty of smaller cloud providers you can use instead. You can still colocate your own hardware in a data center. If nobody in your country wants your money, you can host your service in some other country that doesn't care so much about whatever morality is at issue.

This demonstrably works. There are plenty of porn sites out there, plenty of pirate sites, plenty of places selling illegal stuff, even Wikileaks is still up.

To your last paragraph, I think we can draw the line at "allow any transaction that you reasonably believe is actually authorized by the people who own the accounts." I don't care about being fair to payment networks. If we're going the regulatory route then we've decided that this stuff is critical infrastructure and the needs of the many etc. If individual people at the company don't like handling transaction for porn or whatever, they're free to find a new job. Different risks do make it trickier, but I think we can add some language to allow holding on to money for a certain period before paying it out, or requiring deposits, with some limits on what criteria they can use to make those determinations and how long/large the period/deposit can be.

Unfairness would be something to care about if it was a rich market with several small companies competing in it. It's not something to care about corporate monopolies.

No, they should not have the right to choose how they want to operate. All those risks you mention only exist because they choose to keep them around as an excuse to why they are necessary. They refuse to modernize their systems so it works, and they should not be allowed to keep that option.

(Honestly, IMO they should just be terminated and replaced by some public service. But if you want to keep them, they shouldn't have that kind of freedom.)

I don't quite care about if a payment network feels it's fair to them when they can dictate what speech entire nations are allowed to engage in.

When it's the speech of the many vs the speech of the few, I'm going to err towards the speech of the many.

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.

One thing to notice is the group that claims responsibility for this is some kind of funky radfem puritan mixture from Australia. They campaigned against titles like GTA V, Detroit Become Human AND abortion pills.

Since they ran a campaign to ban GTA V from stores I can say for sure they are not stopping on fringe content like eroge porn shovelware.

Another factor is the board members and other investors of the institutions themselves.

I have been privy to two specific instances where pressure to either ban or reject providing support for specific content was handed down from beyond the executive level at a major financial network player that my client was doing business with.

They tried to do the same to OnlyFans, but lost that battle

Onlyfans actually made financial sense, though, because chargeback rates are very high. This move makes no financial sense at all.

This is absolutely not true. OF's chargeback rates are incredibly low. Vastly lower than, say, Amazon. I have this directly from friends who work in this space. Do you have a citation that shows otherwise?

Didn't onlyfans severely limit the type of content creators could make and distribute through the platform, just like valve here?

> Didn't onlyfans severely limit the type of content creators could make and distribute through the platform, just like valve here?

Well, this coverage identifies two restrictions that Valve is enforcing:

(1) No video footage of humans. Animation only.

(2) No incest.

Onlyfans clearly hasn't implemented restriction (1).

If they've implemented (2), that seems like much less of a problem as applied to onlyfans than to animated content on Steam. But even in the case of Steam, there just isn't a constituency for being pro-incest. This is the last political fight you'd want to get into.

> But even in the case of Steam, there just isn't a constituency for being pro-incest. This is the last political fight you'd want to get into.

Of course the constituency that is openly pro-incest is small. On the other hand, I believe the constituency for a quite encompassing freedom of speech has to be taken seriously.

I think the matter here is the activists are being strategic now and chipping away by targeting very specific content to get delisted. As you rightly said, most people are not going to sign their name to defend a incest/non-con fringe game specifically, so the counter petition is necessarily going to be on a broad ideal and therefore diffuse

Yeah. I find sex games have basically zero appeal to me, period. But either show me the victim or leave them legal.

Claiming you need to be pro-incest to support the existance of incest themed video games is as absurd as claiming you need to be pro-murder to support much of the entire Action movie genre.

Yep. Even showing lactation gets you banned now.

Any animal or just human?

I would hope using animals in OF content is illegal and banned anyway

I was talking about human lactation. OF was forced to ban it because these same groups perceived it as "obscene" which is truly nonsensical

So as a farmer I wouldn’t be allowed to be on OF showing how to milk a cow?

Haha, dunno, someone will have to find out

That's a weird thing to ban.

Yes, recently they put in place a ban on fursuits and other animal-wear since the payment processors determined that it would promote bestiality. I am not joking.

For Steam, it looks like Collective Shout, NCOSE, and Exodus Cry are behind this particular push. [1]

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/group-behind-steam-censorshi...

https://web.archive.org/web/20250719204151/https://www.vice....

Interesting that it's 404? Fact check? Retract? Lawsuit?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/01/visa-mind...

Visa being responsible for CSAM isn't a theoretical lawsuit they're afraid about. (2022)

What relevance does that have to incest-themed video games?

To be clear, these campaigns seem to be grounded in fear, not any sense of morality.

As usual, the actual “cancel culture” comes from the conservatives.

Collective Shout (who pushed for this) is not a conservative group, but rather a feminist activist group based in Australia.

They're responsible for numerous other calls for bans against games like Detroit: Become Human, GTA, etc.

This ban has nothing to do with the call to ban incestual rape games (which is what you refer to), but comes from MasterCard, which has a long story of puritan censorship.

(It's clear in the article, btw).

Collective Shout is the activist group that put pressure on MasterCard to make this decision. They're claiming and celebrating the work they did to make this happen on their own X account.

The US obsession with sex (both positive and negative) is something else.

Here in Europe, sex is a normal part of human life. Not a center of everything, nor a sin to be avoided. Sex art is normal. Sex games are fine. There are no moral crusaders here, because sex is moral. We tell sex jokes at work and nobody faints. We are constantly perplexed why American culture is so different from other Western cultures in that regard.

People keep saying "Puritans" like it answers all questions, but Puritans were hundreds of years ago. We had our own share of people with peculiar attitudes back then. Today is 2025, not 1785.

>Here in Europe

No, Europe is not a monolithic bloc, stop treating it as such, stop saying here in Europe or European here. You'd get annoyed if a yank generalised all of europe with a not take so don't do it yourself. State what country/countries you're talking about because social attitudes and norms vary massively across this continent!

They sure do, just like there are different states in the US with vastly different attitudes to life and everything.

And yet, you can take an averaged vector of all US states and all European countries and meaningfully compare those. Or extract some things that are common through all Europe as compared through all US.

I had a privilege of living for some time in Italy, Denmark, Spain and Switzerland (I still live in Switzerland). They are all really different, and yet there is something common compared to the US.

Of course, it doesn't help anyone to generalise. Europe has a wide demographic. But, one thing that doesn't happen is its attitude to sex affecting worldwide commerce or other worldwide issues.

Here in the UK religion and sex are not part of the national conversation. A politician mentioning their love of god would seem weird to us. The only way it enters the national conversation are when right-wing religious zealots, from the US, try to affect our laws: I'm thinking of abortion laws and trans rights. These are entirely imported issues from US religious hangups. It's quite tedious, because mostly we were on a path of reasonable discourse with relation to sex, sexuality, relationships (marriage), etc. but with the advent of social media you see pockets of society being dragged into it.

I have friends in much of Europe (Sweden, Norway, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Greece) and have travelled to those destinations extensively. I still can't speak for all of Europe, but I think when it comes to sex and religion we're kinda similar. The only one that stands out to me was the Greek Orthodox church used to have an out-sized role, but even that doesn't seem to be the case any more (I just came back from visiting friends in Greece a few weeks back and we discussed this).

So whilst we can't say all of Europe is the same, we can say that it's not causing global problems due to its sexual and religious hangups.

Religion is a factor in Polish politics.

Absolutely. Italy too. I think a better way to phrase it: There are many countries in Europe where a right wing party uses the rise of Islam due to immigrants as a political issue.

Yeah when I went to the UK and tried to view adult content using a prepaid SIM, it was blocked and required verifying that I was an adult, and this was done at the ISP level. And I know for a fact that the UK has much stricter limits on kink and BDSM in adult content as well. What gives with people claiming it's just the US?

> required verifying that I was an adult

> And I know for a fact that the UK has much stricter limits on kink and BDSM in adult content as well.

I know what you’re referring to, but don’t know the full details. I believe it’s around violent porn (rape, etc). We certainly have a “think of the children” brigade. I still think the discourse is significantly more civilised than that of the US, which feels like it’s approaching virtual civil war levels. When these subjects are debated, it's usually in parliament and doesn't turn into some societal ideological divide.

I think some of the policies you mention are more artefacts of the politicians not understanding the technological future we’re in, rather than ideology. Many of them think they can make the internet a safe space for kids through policy. It’s naive, for sure, but usually not dogmatic.

> What gives with people claiming it's just the US?

It’s not just the US, but when the people standing outside of UK abortion clinics harassing women are funded by US ‘pro life’ religious groups then you know there’s a problem. Puritanism is a US export.

The vitriolic political divisions in the US, which leads to all sorts of fringe issues becoming mainstream (trans rights, for example), is leaking out into the rest of the western democracies, poisoning the debate everywhere.

The Visa issue is just one more of these puritanical US exports.

> It’s annoying, but not onerous.

So government regulating stuff like that does go against much of the thing you said in the comment above?

> doesn't turn into some societal ideological divide.

When governments try to introduce mass surveillance of personal communications to "protect the children" liek ChatControl maybe it should turn into one. Instead of everyone just handwaving and ignoring it...

>> It’s annoying, but not onerous.

> So government regulating stuff like that does go against much of the thing you said in the comment above?

It isn't law. But even if it was, that doesn't contradict what I am talking about. I'm talking about the export of puritanism. If you think having to turn the porn button from 'off' to 'on' in your phone contract's options is the same, then I don't know what to say.

> When governments try to introduce mass surveillance of personal communications to "protect the children" liek ChatControl maybe it should turn into one.

Yeah maybe, but that's not the topic of conversation here. The topic was about puritanical beliefs in the US and how its export affects the world (like the Visa issue).

> I'm talking about the export of puritanism

Sure, technically its government imposed domestic puritanism which isn't exported. I agree its a completely different thing.

> The topic was about puritanical beliefs in the US and how its export affects the world

Yes, US has its quirks but it's not that exceptional as you are implying. e.g. when it comes to banning/regulated video games Australia is inarguable much more restrictive.

Germany also has a history of banning violent video games and its again much worse than the US e.g. https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/ki12if/steam_now_reg...

Post "Online Safety Act" UK is not that much better either.

US is very tame and less "puritanical" by your definition than those countries. The core difference being that the government can't really regulate it directly so credit card companies might be acting as some sort of a proxy.

Or are you implying that US somehow turned Germany and Australia more "puritanical" than itself and there would be no domestic support for censorship there otherwise?

So how does the US deal with age restricted games? I find this much more related to actually willing to implement a rule, rather than having rules for the sake of it (like the US buying alcohol rule - it is forbidden for people under 21 to drink but 40% of the people between 18 and 21 drink ?! source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_by_youth_i...).

Not sure I get it. And it's different in Europe?

e.g. 20% of all 15 year old in the UK have at least one drink each week:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/sta...

Despite the legal age being 18.

Also what does this have to do with anything? e.g. adult-only games are simply unavailable on Steam in Germany. It doesn't matter at all how old you are.

It means there is a law, and Germany makes a reasonable effort to apply it. Germany asks for Steam to use a different system than "Asking the age to the user" (which in my opinion is hilarious and obviously a joke), Steam decides to not sell the games. (source: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Steam-Payment-providers-force-V...)

It's not like "Germany wants to ban sex games altogether", which seems to be what some other private groups would prefer.

> trans rights. These are entirely imported issues from US religious hangups.

No, in the UK it was left-wing feminists who led the opposition to gender identity policies long before any conservatives got involved, on the basis of this being harmful to women's rights.

Just look at the recent For Women Scotland win in the Supreme Court, it's nothing to do with US religious groups at all, and everything to do with protecting sex-based rights and sexual orientation in law.

That was waaaay after it had become an 'issue' in the US and exported. I also doubt they would describe themselves as "left-wing feminists". That language is incorrect at best and inflammatory at worst.

In 2014, Time magazine declared trans rights as "America's next civil rights frontier" [1]. For Women Scotland was formed in 2018 [2].

(Just looked at your comment history. Just, wow... is the trans issue the only one you care about?)

[1] https://time.com/135480/transgender-tipping-point/

[2] https://forwomen.scot/about/

For Women Scotland wasn't the start of the opposition to gender identity policy in the UK. It was founded, by four women who met on Mumsnet, specifically to address policy in Scotland.

Feminist women opposed to the Tory government's plans to introduce "gender self-id" law and similar policy had already started organising by this point. Groups like Woman's Place UK and Fair Play For Women. This had nothing whatsoever to do with religious arguments from the US.

There's also significant liberal opposition to all this in the US, again not linked to religion but, like the UK, on the basis of women's rights.

Keep moving those goalposts!

Look, you have the right to believe whatever you want, but making every single discussion you have on here about how much you hate trans people is not really something I want to get involved with. Good day.

Of course one can generalize using the colloquial "Here in Europe". And generalization is useful -- one cannot go into all the complexity and details all the time, at some point one has to summarize/generalize an argument.

Yes, Europe is not a monolithic bloc, but there is a large fraction that is less sex focused, it's a fair generalization and comment to express that.

Eh? Not really. There's a gradient between North and South and East and West, and then there's UK, but some things are more or less in-common. What GP is saying is one of those things.

It's due to the difference in Christian values, the US has a hard on for believing that ignorance is a virtue when it comes to sin or adult topics.

Like for instance the outrage if you have a sign on your lawn stating that x president is a rapist to the economy, people will say that children should not be "exposed" to such words.

> People keep saying "Puritans" like it answers all questions, but Puritans were hundreds of years ago. We had our own share of people with peculiar attitudes back then.

We literally had Puritans in Europe [1]

” The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant.[1] Puritanism played a significant role in English and early American history, especially in the Protectorate in Great Britain, and the earlier settlement of New England.”

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans

Yeah, and then most of them left and came here, which the article cites as having caused a "radical" divergence:

> Almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of England after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the Act of Uniformity 1662. Many continued to practise their faith in nonconformist denominations, especially in Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches.[2] The nature of the Puritan movement in England changed radically. In New England, it retained its character for a longer period.

It's not crazy to think that this could have had an outsized influence on the US given how influential New England was in the early days. Even 120-130 years after the point that the quoted section mentions, when the colonies were transitioning into what's now the United States, close to a third of them were part of New England.

> Church of England

Doesn't mean that continental Europe wasn't full of puritanical nutjobs.

Calvin himself ran a dystopian theocratic state\hellhole in Geneva yet hardly anyone references that when talking about conservativism in Switzerland.

> Even 120-130 years after the point

There was a significant generational backlash towards puritanism and a push towards pluralism/secularism by the late 1700s. IMHO Second/Third "Great Awakenings" had a much bigger impact than a handful of Puritans inhabiting New England in the 1600s.

> Doesn't mean that continental Europe wasn't full of puritanical nutjobs.

I believe English puritans were also in Holland and France for a while.

Yes the Pilgrims for instance emigrated from Holland and not England. Of course the Plymouth Colony was quite "progressive" compared to the oppressive theocracy in Massachusetts. At least they weren't hanging quakers, dissenters and didn't burn a single witch during the panic..

Anyway I don't think that the English Puritans/etc. were somehow particularly exceptional (besides the fact that they emigrated to North America) compared to other similar groups in Europe.

> Calvin himself ran a dystopian theocratic state\hellhole in Geneva yet hardly anyone references that when talking about conservativism in Switzerland.

I'm not familiar with Swiss politics, but if there's a significant Christian element to it, it seems like it would be pretty reasonable to wonder about whether the historical basis for this is related to Calvinism. If it's not significantly Christian, then it's not surprising it doesn't get mentioned.

> There was a significant generational backlash towards puritanism and a push towards pluralism/secularism by the late 1700s. IMHO Second/Third "Great Awakenings" had a much bigger impact than a handful of Puritans inhabiting New England in the 1600s.

Sure, but those those were backlashes themselves to the backlash to the secularism that you mentioned happened beforehand. I'm not saying that there weren't Puritan-like influences elsewhere, or that there were no other developments in between the Puritans and modern Christian conservatism in the US, but there's a clear historical tradition of Christian conservatism in US politics, so I don't know why you don't think it's unreasonable to recognize how that has influenced what we see today.

To explain at a higher level where I'm coming from: I don't see historical analysis as making claims about the state we're in today as being a deterministic outcome based on the events that happen in the past because that's not any more possible than predicting exactly what will happen in the future based on the knowledge we have today. The most we can do to explain why things are the way they are now is to look at what things in the past have influenced where we are today.

Not inherently disagreeing with you at all. I'm not just sure whether we should look as far back as the 1600s. Yes some American colonies were founded by religious extremists.

But the divergence between US and Europe didn't happen until the late 1800s if not the early 1900s.

e.g. according to the census of 1851 ~40% of people in Britain were regularly attending religious services. No hard figures for the US from the time but from what I can find the proportion in the US was comparable. Except while mid 1800s was pretty much the peak in Britain in US it kept rising and reached its highest point in the 1950s while in UK religious participation had almost reached current levels by then.

IMHO the rise of political secularism, socialiam and the near societal collapse across much of Europe during and after WW1 and WW2 had a much bigger impact than whatever happened 400 years ago.

If you’re looking at the geographical distribution of their influence, isn’t it weird that the place where the puritans settled (“New England”) is arguably the least puritanical region of the US?

Nowadays, sure, but keep in mind that the "US" didn't extend beyond the east coast when the Puritans first settled here. You might be able to make an argument that there's no cultural influence from the colonial days that lasted until today (although I'd disagree with that sentiment), but otherwise, where would you expect any cultural influence in the rest of the US to have come from?

(To be clear, I'm not saying that there weren't existing cultures there before the US expanded out further west, but I imagine most people would agree that the US today isn't culturally as influenced by them as much as from the the colonies and pre-expansion US.)

New England is perceived as less religious than the South, but one reason for that is that New England's moral perceptions had a strong influence on US political beliefs. In other words, the Puritans morphed into the Congregationalists who morphed into the Unitarians, who basically took over (in the 19th Century) US political thinking (or at least the Left side of it), giving the appearance that New England does not having any particular or special moral or religious beliefs (at least to those on the Left half of the US political divide).

I grew up in New England and have lived in the South and in California, and IMHO morality is a bigger determinant of the behavior of the average person in New England than it is in the other places I've lived (all in the US). The South and California are more pragmatic, less moralistic.

That's a good point. When something is within the usual for someone's experience, it's not going to be as obvious, so it becomes the baseline that's used to compare other things to. For stuff like religion, it's easy to assume that your amount is normal, and having more (if you don't feel like you have much) or less (if you do feel like you have a lot) is unusual.

I don't have any experience living outside of the northeast (although not New England specifically since high school), but I definitely agree that there's certainly more religion in New England than might be obvious from the outside (more Catholic than the rest of the country, which also might explain some of the differences).

This boycott was run by Collective Shout, an Australian non-profit.

They aren't targeting all sex games on Steam, they were targeting rape, incest, and child abuse.

Its ridiculous that your comment that has factual information is downvoted while on top of you there's a bunch of comments going on random tangents not based at all on reality.

One of the games they are also going after is Detroit: Become Human, and they have gone after things like GTA in the past. Just because they claim they are going after things for those reasons doesn't mean that's actually an accurate claim as to what they are trying to go after. Though it's good to point out who is actually (supposedly) responsible.

> They aren't targeting all sex games on Steam, they were targeting rape, incest, and child abuse.

https://www.collectiveshout.org/campaigns includes a number of campaigns against porn in general, so yes, they absolutely are targeting all sex games - simulated rape, incest, and child abuse are merely their first victory.

The US is largely theocratic and has in part because of this managed to resist socialism and other forms of scientific governance to a much larger degree.

Using religious leaders as power brokers is a clever strategy, they'll never budge due to the better argument or scientific reason, hence making it almost impossible for non-violent progressive movements to having an effect at the macro level.

Are you sure it’s a good thing to be so small minded that reason won’t reach you, just because you happened to avoid those big ideas that turned out to not work?

Lmao. Socialism is pseudo-scientific bollocks, like flat earth theory.

My healthcare, pension and workers protection proves you wrong.

Any not just pull off the bandaid and tell us you don't really understand what socialism is.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Steam-Payment-providers-force-V...

Please explain.

"In 2020, following a complaint from the Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein Media Authority, Valve blocked all titles that were labeled as “adult” and did not have an age rating. To be able to offer them, the US company would have to integrate a reliable age verification system into Steam in Germany. Because Valve has not yet implemented such a system, sex games remain blocked in Germany. "

Hm. Okay, you are right. Worse than I thought.

It's easy to dismiss all such campaigns as religious prudes and moral crusaders, especially on a site with the demographics and political leanings of YC News.

But often time such campaigns are waged by former victims of trafficking. It's well documented that trafficking, prostitution and pornography are closely interlinked - this modern notion of a fully liberated "sexual worker" controlling their careers, choices and finance is substantially a fiction of the pornographic industry. So there is real merit în the anti porn stance.

Of course, once the camping is set in motion, it takes a life of its own, that has nothing to do with the concerns of the victims and more with prudishness; the religious circus will join hands and demand the removal of synthetic pornography etc.

I’m willing to listen if you’re willing to provide sources.

Otherwise, your claims run counter to more credible sources I have read. (Which I am not willing to search up for this post.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com