Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Open Letter to Patreon

openlettertopatreon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 245 posts

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#21

Post by Certhas »

corobo wrote: post #10
netsharc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why is the payment processor doing that? Because they're afraid of the government. Why? Because the government doesn't like boobies. Why? Puritanism...

I said why in the sentence before the one you ran off with. Because they get higher than usual chargebacks. This is due to the "I shouldn't have spent money on that" feeling when the user is done with the service. You'll also have fraudulent cards because there's no physical location they need to order things to to test that the card works. Probably an aspect of underaged users using parents cards due to the nature o…

So charge them a slightly higher fee to account for that.

Your reasoning that that in itself would be sufficient to refuse service does not hold up.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#22

Post by dvhh »

randomname2 wrote: post #3
Melchizedek wrote: post #2

Hatreon is an alternative that has no speech policing.

Hatreon has also extended an open invite to these content creators: https://twitter.com/Radomysisky/status/922833371075620866

the stream provide interesting information for the context.

they use Stripe for payment and Stripe apparently does not allow "Adult content and services" ( https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses ) among other things.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#24

Post by corobo »

Certhas wrote: post #21
corobo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said why in the sentence before the one you ran off with. Because they get higher than usual chargebacks. This is due to the "I shouldn't have spent money on that" feeling when the user is done with the service. You'll also have fraudulent cards because there's no physical location they need to order things to to test that the card works. Probably an aspect of underaged users using parents cards due to the nature o…

So charge them a slightly higher fee to account for that. Your reasoning that that in itself would be sufficient to refuse service does not hold up.

The processors that allow "high risk" payments do charge a higher fee. I wouldn't call it "slightly higher" though, it was prohibitively expensive for the service I was trying to set up. In a sister thread on this subject on Reddit someone suggested using Bitcoin as an alternative, which I somewhat regret not considering at the time.

To clarify also it's not my reasoning. Adult content is referenced in the Terms of Service for all payment processors, whether they allow it or not. See Stripe for an example[1]

[1] https://stripe.com/gb/prohibited-businesses#ip-infringement-...

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#25

Post by sky_rw »

noobermin wrote: post #7

The answer is we need competition. These "curated, private commons" from amazon to twitter to youtube to facebook to ebay to all of the above cannot and should not replace the free market, which they are trying to do. What is happening here is exactly why we decided Trusts were a bad thing back in the day, although these are "smaller" companies, one point of failure can mean death for a host of consumers. That or reg…

The irony here being that to many content creators, Patreon WAS seen as the competition to reliance on Youtube ad revenue. Facing demonetization due to politically incorrect content they switched business models to rely on Patreon subscriptions. Now Patreon is levying the PC hammer on many of the same people.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#26

Post by freshhawk »

anc84 wrote: post #4
Melchizedek wrote: post #2

Hatreon is an alternative that has no speech policing.

That name can't be serious but a trolling attempt?

Go to the site and have a look at "Featured Creators": Stormfront, Daily Stormer and Richard Spencer will be recognizable to anyone these days. Most of the rest (like Andrew Auernheimer aka Weev) are recognizable to the more online of us. Should make the name and the trollish nature of the name make more sense to know that. It isn't not serious.

It was invite only at the beginning, marketed as the place for the alt-right when Patreon enforced their policies on some high profile people, and those invites went out to specific people so take their whole "open to anyone with no speech limits" with a mountain of salt.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#27

Post by bambax »

corobo wrote: post #6
kome wrote: post #5

American puritanism is the problem. I have enough of those American companies arbitrarily deciding that a nipple is an obscene thing. But how to fight back this form of cultural imperialism?

I doubt that. Chargebacks are the problem. As soon as you mention to a payment processor that you might be taking for adult content they drop you like a hot brick.

In this specific case, maybe chargebacks are the problem, but in general, American puritanism is insufferable (Facebook banning reproductions of 19th century paintings, etc.) Also, it's inexplicable. I would much rather have my kids exposed to a million boobs (that they can see anywhere on the beach anyway -- and why are boobs a problem in the first place is anyone's guess) than to the horrible and dehumanizing violence of war video games where it's apparently ok to shoot at anyone and have blood squirt all over.

But, in the case of chargebacks, could it not be solved by simply having patrons agree they will suffer the chargebacks directly? Chargebacks are only a problem if the platform can't make creators cover them, no?

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#29

Post by icebraining »

corobo wrote: post #18
badlucklottery wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My first flash thought was a place for funding hate. That's unfortunately not a bad guess. Go check out some of their "featured creators". It's pretty much the bottom of the hate speech barrel.

Ah so it suffers from (or targets) the reddit->voat problem where a userbase is comprised solely of those rejected from the normal site[]. [] Please forgive the use of the word normal, I couldn't think of a better word. "Default site" or maybe "usual site" might work better

Original site, maybe.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#30

Post by Xylakant »

Majestic121 wrote: post #20

I agree with the overall point of shady limitations between porn and adult content leading to discrimination, but this kind of self-victimization : > Not only that, the most vulnerable among us – disproportionately queer, trans, disabled, people of color and those whose first language is not English – are literally scared for our lives. Hurts the whole speech. Is it possible to have this (valid and important) debate…

I fail to understand what's your issue with this. Are you questioning that the queer, trans, disabled, PoC are in a weaker (and often precarious) position than the cis white (male)? Or is it emotional blackmail to point out that a change (once again) hits hardest for the people that are in a weak position? Isn't it considered common decency to keep in mind the needs of the people that are weaker than us? That might just barely make a living and that don't have the time and energy to make their voice heard?

I consider that debate important preciously because it hits the marginalized people worst. I can make my living where I choose (and buy my adult content where I wish to and as a male, I'm probable considered a "proper male" if I do). Those people can't as easily as I.

Post reply on HN