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

41–50 of 245 posts

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#41

Post by astura »

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.

Patreon has to follow the terms of their payment processors. If they want to be involved in porn they'd have to add a separate high risk payment processor for those content creators.

I heard porn sites have a CC processing fees of 20+%.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#42

Post by Certhas »

corobo wrote: post #24
Certhas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 S…

I understand, I simply don't believe that this is a rational decision due to risk assessment. I believe that that is just an excuse. Or rather, that a high amount of the risk involved is not due to customer behaviour, but due to potential pressure from self appointed guardians of morality. As part of this discussion elsewhere people were linking again to an old engadget article about these practices, which in turn linked to this court opinion, which is well worth reading:

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Disp...

Here is the engadget article:

https://www.engadget.com/2015/12/02/paypal-square-and-big-ba...

I think strong regulations, something like: Visa/Stripe/PayPal/Amazon have to service every business that is not illegal, would also help these companies against such "moral guardianship". They don't have to look like they are defending the rights of perverts to their other customers.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#43

Post by kuschku »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #33
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?

This has nothing to do with showing a nipple. This was more about the porn and private sex shows. There are all kinds of legitimate reasons why one might not want to enter that business. That's their right as a business owner.

Not when it becomes impossible to exist as a business without relying on such intermediaries, e.g. VISA or MasterCard. Then they are a monopoly, and can't choose their customers anymore.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#44

Post by smnscu »

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…

.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#45

Post by Hurricanecane »

bambax wrote: post #27
corobo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 viole…

As to why violence and war is more acceptable I believe the answer lies in that intimacy and explicit content is much closer to home, its relatable, it attracts feelings and is also easily accessible.

On the other hand war, violence and gore are really a far away concept that does not resonate with a lot of people. Its also an established ok-thing so it being all around us in the form of entertainment makes people even more numb to the subject.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#46

Post by Certhas »

Freak_NL wrote: post #38
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…

Demographically it is a rather odd group too. It basically includes most of the humans on Earth (i.e., first language is not English ) and excludes what comes down to heterosexual cisgender able-bodied white Americans/Australians/British/Canadians/Kiwis. That kind of exclusive categorization of people is harmful to the debate, and comes across as trollish.

I don't think that is how it's intended. I took it to be the typical US centric view, in which case "not speaking English" translates to "not speaking the locally dominant language".

Also note that the language in the article is not exclusionary. They explicitly say: This is hurting the vulnerable among us, who are disproportionately XYZ. They don't say it only hurts XYZ, they don't say it hurts all XYZ, they say it hurts vulnerable people.

Do you think this isn't a relevant point to make? I think it is. It shows that even if the practice isn't prima facie discriminatory (and isn't intended as such), its effects are.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#48

Post by Hurricanecane »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #37

Doesn't make a lot of sense 1. "Your fuzzy position on “adult content” vs. “porn” gives you the freedom to discriminate at will. And it makes content creators live in fear of that discrimination, itself leading to self censorship of important viewpoints." 2. "[...] we also must listen to and represent those who simply make porn. Who want to be creative with their porn, yes, but most importantly want to be self direct…

Those two things seem to be separate enough. Not only is there a very blurry line in between the two, but also creation of the disallowed content is much safer to do there than to apply to a shady studio to get yourself out there.

So the second question would propably be why is porn disallowed in the first place? Is it the payment processors who don't want to deal with chargebacks? Something to do with investors, perhaps their own "morals"?

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#49

Post by aaomidi »

smnscu wrote: post #44
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 don't see how is this even related? The video is the typical misinformed bashing of feminism, etc.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#50

Post by drjackyll »

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…

Agree. As a white straight guy (although English is not my first language), who actually lived through a war in my country, I find this “_literally_ scared for our lives”, disgusting self victimization.
Post reply on HN