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Comment by polytely | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if Valve could (threaten to) become their own payment processor if this becomes too big of a threat. They are one of the few companies on earth with enough money to attempt it.

If I remember correctly a big part of Valves heavy investment into linux was Microsoft wanting to lock windows down more, and now in 2025 gaming on linux is a viable alternative to windows.

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I don't know how that helps. PayPal and stripe are the payment processors, no? Visa and MasterCard are the payment network. Steam can build their own Stripe probably, but are they going to make their own credit card network too? Probably not. They can maybe try taking money directly from your bank though, like Wise. But if you've ever tried it, that looks like such a shit show. Every bank and every country does it a little differently, has its own limits and fees, and the authentication is really ghetto.

What would that change? The assumption here is that payment processors need to comply with MasterCards rules. So would Valve if they would become a payment processor, no?

It would allow them to negotiate directly with Mastercard, making the deflection in TFA impossible.

Well, you can buy Steam gift cards for cash in underdeveloped markets like Germany. Can’t imagine how else would it work.

You can't buy gift cards in other underdeveloped markets like Japan, Camboja, the US, Mexico, etc?

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