jfyi

Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison.

Ironic considering it seems to be a change in law that spurred this action in the first place.

If it's worth saving from a societal standpoint, maybe a third option of funding and maintaining a public archive could be taken. Wild idea, we can tax the faceless corporation to pay for it.

Your takeaway presumes that all LLM interactions are monolithic, which is the opposite of what was being claimed if you take the other poster's comments about tool use into consideration. I have no real investment in this conversation though, so your proclamation of winning can stand as far as I'm concerned.

To be fair... you didn't make the statement that "enforcing law will lower crime". You made the statement that "Many states are completely able to stop shoplifters", which is hyperbole at best and a bad faith argument at worst.

I have no love for mastercard, I just have a distaste for misinformation. I want to see the blame go where it is deserved, the processors.

You are clearly the one emotional about this.

They are processors and yes some their own gateway.

Billing is broadly part of merchant services and is largely done by the sales organization that sold the processing.

Of course there are companies that encompass all these and more like the acquiring bank.

If you came to this by looking at epoch's website, click the tab from "Billing" to "Merchant Solutions". The rest very clearly state they are a processor.

I agree with you. I think you read that wrong.

The processor lied about Mastercard's involvement. It's par for the course in my experience that processors always try to offload blame on someone else. Then Mastercard saying explicitly that the decision wasn't made at their level.

I imagine you have had the same week of yelling at the wall on this issue I have.

"When the shit hits the fan it doesn't distribute equally".

The payment processing system is so complex and opaque even people in the industry rarely understand anything outside their little corner of it.

People are going to be angry at the most visible parts of the ecosystem.

Itch is clearly making the effort and I suspect they will come through with a new processor ultimately. They surely have enough business that processors that handle adult industry will most certainly negotiate beyond their typical rates. Especially considering the nature of the bulk of their business isn't directly adult oriented.

The issue isn't at Visa/MC, but the processor. That is why Itch is looking at other processors.

Also, that 3% doesn't go to just Visa/MC and the other card brands.

It goes to the payment gateway, the payment processor, at least one level of sales organization, the merchant bank, and the POS company in the case of in person business. There are several intermediaries that get a slice of the pie.

Or... the payment processor lied.

I guess we'll find out really quick if itch finds another processor.

Their processor, Chase Paymentech, doesn't accept businesses in adult industry. I doubt they will allow their infrastructure to handle crypto payments for it either.

It doesn't matter how decentralized it is when you have a centralized merchant account.

Epoch, CCBill, TickleCharge, many others... just search for "card processors that work with adult industry".

Because the issue isn't with Visa/MC but with the processors. They are looking at alternative processors that work with adult material.

I'm not usually one to go full market capitalist, but there is definitely a market solution to this one. I'm glad they are exploring the options.

Ok, I'll assume good faith and answer that. I didn't mention those because you weren't questioning them. I feel that is kind of obvious.

>(not PayPal or Paysafe)...

As to paypal's policy...

https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/what-is-paypal%E2%8...

>We don't permit PayPal account holders to buy or sell: Sexually oriented digital goods or content delivered through a digital medium. Examples of digital goods include downloadable pictures or videos and website subscriptions.

Yeah it's a good question, why would they cite mastercard instead of their own policy?

It's entirely anecdotal, but in my 10 years of experience dealing with a multitude of processors and payment gateways... that's what processors do. Their very first instinct is to make things someone else's problem. With maybe the exception of First Data, this has held up consistently for me. Of course a lot of our high dollar business was through First Data so who knows what other people's experience is.

You are still completely avoiding the fact that processors that can handle this stuff exist. Sure Mastercard should probably change their rule, but that isn't going to change the situation.

That is why Itch is looking at their options:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/itchio-are-seeking-out-new-...

Mastercard doesn't care.

Payment processors that handle adult material exist but they charge a premium rate. These companies could switch to CCBill as quick as they could code it up. Exactly the same as what OnlyFans did. They would have to explain to their entire customer base across the board why they have to charge more though.

Also, look at https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-proce...

They absolutely targeted paysafe and paypall. Paypall was the very first on their list, I wonder why that is. They knew the processor is the weak link.

After 10 years in the POS industry, I can assure you it came from their processor. The only card network I have ever seen take action like this is AMEX and they have have separate processing. Processors involve themselves in their customers' business constantly for risk assessment. Collective action like this is enough to make them ask, "Should we treat this as a video game vendor or as adult industry?" It's that simple to tip the scale.

Also, it doesn't make sense that Itch did it themselves. Why would they throw their vendors under the bus instead of just pulling the titles? Or are we supposed to believe they facilitated collective shout just to pull a couple of low value titles? I can't see any angle here that doesn't border on conspiracy.

Both Valve and Itch use Paysafe and Paypall for processing. I'm glad someone is paying attention.

I feel I've been screaming at a wall for a week now. All this rage and it's all directed at the wrong corporations.

What is more likely is the processors made the decision themselves and cited Mastercard's rule without interacting with Mastercard.

If Mastercard cared about this stuff then processors like CCBill wouldn't exist. The absurd amount of money that porn brings in on the internet would dry up over night.

This was a decision made by paysafe and paypall and so far they are the only ones not getting the blame pinned on them.

Itch: Our processors told us to do it.

Mastercard: That is correct, we weren't involved.

Half of Hacker News: MASTERCARD AND VISA!!!!!!

The other half: VALVE AND ITCH!!!!!!

Paysafe and Paypall: Lol

I think I would not like to perform the ättestupa.

It looks like they both use paysafe and paypal for processing.

It's a good indication that it came from their processors and not from Visa.

Same here, recursive descent is what I have run into in the real world.

I'm just happy when parsing isn't being done with some absurdly long regex with no documentation.

It was available with ctrl+shift+I for forever in their desktop client. It only changed in the last 2 years or so.

Pretty sure it's just a flag somewhere to re-enable.

You would need to change ownership of the file to root also.

Because authorize.net is a payment gateway, not a processor. You'd still need a processor and the one your bank works with will have similar requirements.

Honestly, those rates are better than I expected. I think OnlyFans has a 20% rate and the one real experience I have had with processors that handle adult industry was nearing 30%. They had legitimate fraud problems though.

They found another processor, CCBill. That's what they figured out.

OnlyFans did manage to figure it out though. Maybe this is an opportunity for them to start a gaming division.

What did the processing fees on CCBill look like, or did you get that far?

Their point is it isn't just a couple companies arbitrarily making these decisions. It is a vast network of banks and merchant services companies.

Ideally, you could take your business elsewhere. The problem is providers that handle these industries will expect a premium across all transactions and it would come off badly when customers see that large percentage added to each purchase.

So you have the decision of: your customers pay a premium or you don't carry adult material. If all your business is adult, it's an easy choice. You pay the premium.

This activist organization is pressing them until they are forced to make that decision based on a small amount of their hosted content. This is what I see as likely. Admittedly though, there are not enough details given to say for sure.

It's not clear to me from the post what level this is happening on.

I assume by "payment processor" that they are not talking about Visa et al themselves but their merchant services provider.

The alternative to this is to find a merchant services company that specializes in adult industry. Something like https://ccbill.com/ which is going to end up costing you (or your customers) somewhere around 30% on all payments on your entire platform.

It's likely easier to strong arm these providers as they are typically pretty risk averse.