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An Open Letter to Patreon

openlettertopatreon.com

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131–140 of 245 posts

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#131

Post by tobylane »

falcolas wrote: post #130
arkades wrote: post #109

Does anyone else recollect the expression “no one owes you a business model”? There’s many reasons Patreon should want to avoid being a porn payments processor. Blame American Puritanism or whatever, but that’s the milieu in which they operate. They don’t owe it to anyone to bear excess risk just so that someone else can have a profitable hustle at their expense. If this is such a big issue for the LGBT community Fun…

If you explicitly court particular industry (amateur/niche porn) to build out your own business model, yeah, I think you do owe those businesses a business model. Perhaps not legally, but morally. > Fund a goddamn KS to make a porn-friendly Patreon clone Pretty sure you can't KS an adult business (which such a clone would be considered). That's part of the problem. Nobody wants to touch that industry once they become…

Patreon courts amateur and niche. But I haven't seen any sign they invite porn on their platform, just that marking as adult content is an option. Same can be said for Youtube and DeviantArt.

Patreon's homepage says they protect from chargebacks. I can see why that appeals to content creators but this feels inevitable.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#132

Post by kuschku »

arkades wrote: post #124
kuschku wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without payment processors. The argument was whether VISA, MasterCard, etc, which wield a massive influence, and have quite restrictive rules, are anticompetitive and monopolistic.

Porn-specific payments processors include eMerchant Pay, SMA, Alternative Merchant Processing, EZ Payment Solutions, ccNetPay, and Creative Merchant Options. If you have a dozen processors to choose from, including a half dozen dedicated to your specific niche, you are not being boxed out by a monopoly. You’re, at that point, just claiming that you are owed a profitable business model. That is not a valid complaint.

I’m not specifically talking about porn.

I’m talking about the issue that major processors such as VISA and MasterCard hold too much power in general, and either should be broken up, or shouldn’t have the power to choose their customers.

For example, a few years back a major German retailer sold cuban cigars — and MasterCard, VISA and PayPal closed their accounts over it. Luckily in Germany wire transfers, direct debit and Europay cards are common enough that they had an alternative, but it still became a major issue, and the Rossmann chain refused to do what the processors wanted, because they argued that these companies had no right to enforce US laws in Germany (and Rossmann prevailed, in the end PayPal and co had to allow Rossmann to sell such products via their payment systems).

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#133

Post by kharms »

Certhas wrote: post #53
netsharc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing against erotica/porn and nothing against LBGT , but yeah, the open letter writer seems to be using "Why won't you think of the LBGT community?" line as a talking point, probably because accusing a company of being anti-gay is an effective weapon nowadays... somehow, saying more of this community uses their sexuality to make money (through Patreon) makes me feel "I'm sure the LGBT* accountants and bus d…

Hey, most porn out there is straight. In fact it's a multi-billion dollar industry. Really shows how the straight community uses their sexuality to make money, doesn't it? If you don't fit the target audience of the porn industry, you have to look elsewhere, like Patreon. The mainstream porn business does not cater to everyone. That's fine. The queer market is much smaller. But it also means its over-represented on p…

I'm skeptical of this idea that the porn industry is discriminatory. Do you have any stats to back that up?

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#134

Post by davemp »

madshiva wrote: post #108
imustbeevil wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Porn is legal. While GP might be semantically incorrect, the point is that porn has been a legal part of American culture for at least 100 years. It makes absolutely no sense to discriminate against processing payments for one of America's largest entertainment industries.

American culture, you mean a mix between African, Native American, Asian, Polynesian, and Latin American cultures? especially Latin American? You can't grow a culture with 100 years.

? American culture was mostly imported from Europe during its infancy. Latin America was barely even a thing then.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#135

Post by ineednoprocrast »

I heard a story a while ago about how marajuana-related companies in colorado formed some financial institution in order to deal with being blocked out of the wider financial ecosystem.

The piece of the puzzle I don't understand yet is why credit card processors appear to have taken it upon themselves to be the moral police. They could very easily make the argument that the use of money transferred isn't their problem. That seems to have worked for the NRA. Why did they get into the business of kinda-sorta-but-not-really representing the police?

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#136

Post by thescribe »

pjc50 wrote: post #96

It's interesting that there are two basic HN responses to content restrictions: - "companies have a right to control their platform" - demands for freedom of all speech everywhere .. but this time those are both very far down the thread and instead we're having a "I don't like your tone" discussion.

To be fair the poor tone is the most notable part of the article, the rest is just a short "We don't like what a private company is doing"

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#138

Post by arkades »

falcolas wrote: post #130
arkades wrote: post #109

Does anyone else recollect the expression “no one owes you a business model”? There’s many reasons Patreon should want to avoid being a porn payments processor. Blame American Puritanism or whatever, but that’s the milieu in which they operate. They don’t owe it to anyone to bear excess risk just so that someone else can have a profitable hustle at their expense. If this is such a big issue for the LGBT community Fun…

If you explicitly court particular industry (amateur/niche porn) to build out your own business model, yeah, I think you do owe those businesses a business model. Perhaps not legally, but morally. > Fund a goddamn KS to make a porn-friendly Patreon clone Pretty sure you can't KS an adult business (which such a clone would be considered). That's part of the problem. Nobody wants to touch that industry once they become…

I’ve seen no evidence that they have actively courted that niche, though. As far as I can see, they’ve had a policy of benign neglect - which is far from the same thing.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#139

Post by whamlastxmas »

ineednoprocrast wrote: post #135

I heard a story a while ago about how marajuana-related companies in colorado formed some financial institution in order to deal with being blocked out of the wider financial ecosystem. The piece of the puzzle I don't understand yet is why credit card processors appear to have taken it upon themselves to be the moral police. They could very easily make the argument that the use of money transferred isn't their proble…

I don't think card companies and banks are trying to be moral police, they just don't want to be in the business of holding drug money that the feds can then seize.

Re: An Open Letter to Patreon

#140

Post by whamlastxmas »

timthelion wrote: post #116

As a white hetro male who consumes porn, as do %90 of us white hetro males do. I do not understand how it can be "fine" and "modern" for us to watch porn. But not "fine" and "modern" for the women who produce it to be paid for it. Porn is one of the few products out there that provides real value, real stress relief, and has no environmental or moral downsides. Porn is better for the environment, animals rights, and,…

There is a moral downside to porn. There's plenty that is uploaded without the person's consent (sometimes by a bitter ex). There's also a lot of stories out there of people being coerced and made uncomfortable to continue filming when they didn't want to. I imagine this is the minority, but there's definitely issues within the porn industry.
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