The problem with pro-censorship activism is that pro-censorship activists will find out where something they want to censor is now hosted and then go after that with the same methods they used for the place it was previously hosted on.
This wasn’t about gaming, but explains the methods: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/
Personally, I think these sites should do a thing with cryptocurrency so that you buy crypto with your card and then use that to buy the games. So that way the payment processor can’t get mad at you.
What’s stoping a group like Collective Shout from then forcing the payment processors to go after whatever web domain registrar they get their name from? Or, assuming they don’t use their own hardware, which is extremely likely, that they go after whoever they go through for hosting their website?
As great of an idea as just switching payment processors is, that won’t stop those puritanical pricks because they’ll just switch targets and get the whole website/service taken down if it means fulfilling their Satan guided goals being done in the name of Jesus.
Yeah but those services tend to care a lot less then the payment processors but the I do see your point.
For instance, it’s not as easy as you think to get a website pulled down, or to get a domain name restricted, mostly because they’re not paid for on a monthly basis, they’re paid for on a yearly basis, and sometimes they even have contracts for multi years.
Different clouds support different things, that’s why sites like Parlour still exist despite the massive amount of animosity the administrators of that site face.
Getting a hold of a global register to get them to do something about a domain name on their register, while possible, is not nearly as easy as getting hold of the payment processor.
It seems to me that if payment processing was made to be less effective by this tactic, they would have to choose less effective tactics that sites could choose to ignore. You’re right that they don’t own the hardware, but for big companies like Valve, it would be a pretty trivial setup for them especially with companies out there like open cloud.
I would argue that the next most vulnerable part of the chain after payment processors is not the domain registrar, but the actual web host because that’s where the “offensive” content is actually possessed and stored. At least that’s been my anecdotal observation of the last few decades of internet crusades.
Yeah someone will host that for the right price
Fair enough.
This is the way.
It’s great if you can convince all of your customers to use a new payment service. Most businesses are not gonna go anywhere near that. They don’t care.
Yeah, but having a Visa/Mastercard duopoly is already a precarious position before they even decide what to censor. This is just the canary in the coalmine, need to diversify, in different countries if possible.
Amex and Discover: “We exist, too!”
The canary was when the exact same thing happened (with much greater impact) to pornhub.
Nobody cared. and Pornhub Corp STILL can’t use credit cards and are dependent on bank orders and cryptocurrency.
And I can’t see a lot of developers going out of their way to prioritize this. Because it is easy to say you are sex positive. It is another thing to actually stand with smut and risk getting attacked by all the same groups.
Also, you know what else is a de facto monopoly? Steam! (cue all the usual suspects). You know what people will never stop whining about? Games not having Steam versions.
So yeah. Gamers Rise Up?
Pornhub had a shitload of other issues that weren’t payment processor related.
Curious what you are referring to.
Because I am referring to when this exact same thing happened to them. Christofacists went after the payment processors who cut off business with Pornhub over claims of CSAM and revenge porn with lots of fabricated victim stories to get the public on their side. Most studies showed that Pornhub had considerably less of both than facebook or twitter (and this was like early 2020s so not even the current hellscape of musknet). But Pornhub did comply and actually instituted REALLY good checks and rules regarding uploads (basically consent forms for ALL participants in a video) and… still can’t accept credit cards.
Did I miss something else regarding why they now only accept bank orders and cryptocurrency?
It’s important to know that it may not be visa and MasterCard directly, but rather Stripe, a popular middleware that provides an easy API for developers to access the card networks. To a user it’d be more or less transparent if they’re just swapping them out
I hate to say it, but this would be one use case where crypto currencies would be ideal. Or any other decentralized solution.
Taler Wallet
First I’m hearing of this. I don’t really understand how it works? From what I’ve read it says it’ll take your money to some exchange and then give you an anonymous digital version in the app/account. I’m assuming it’s not as simple as putting a card in and being able to buy something like on Amazon or something. Both the seller and buyer need to use it right?
There’s no exchange. It’s just USD. It’s just payment processing platform.
Oh right. I keep on forgetting about this awesome project. Now I wonder why it is not successful and I fear the lobbyism of banking and payment providers is just too good.
Are there any which interface with different national banking systems and allow payment from those without going through the credit card payment infrastructure, which has become a universal choke point? Or are they talking about accepting Monero or something?
There are several companies that provide access to bank payments, but they all tend to have substantial limits, especially for US banking.
