PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub • Hacker News Board

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#141

Post by mirimir » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #51

scarface74 wrote: post #14

I’m the last person to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon, but this is one case where I think it’s warranted.

Bitcoin isn't good for transactions. It's too slow, too cumbersome for he average consumer and its value fluctuates so much that you'd have to have dynamic pricing. I love the idea of crypto currency and I really do think, one day, some form of it will be out future. But Bitcoin today just doesn't fit that bill at all.

> It's too slow

In my recent experience, payments confirm ~5 times within an hour or so.

> too cumbersome for he average consumer

The BitPay wallet is very easy to use. And many sites now use payment URLs, so it's basically just click the link, and hit OK.

> and its value fluctuates so much that you'd have to have dynamic pricing.

I haven't seen anything in recent memory that doesn't use dynamic pricing. Many sellers say something like "this Bitcoin quote is good for X minutes". And the payment URL doesn't work if it's expired.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#142

Post by hrktb » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #56

mastazi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Pornhub is Canadian. However your objection still stands; I would imagine that there are similar laws in Canada against sex trafficking.

They operate in the US, so are beholden to US law as well.

Arguably they could open the marketplace and the produced content only to non US residents.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#143

Post by kilo_bravo_3 » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

devy wrote: post #33

toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hunch is that would incur unwanted liability from FOSTA-SESTA [1]. Producing content and paying talent out directly is fairly straightforward for adult entertainment. There be dragons if you're attempting to build a marketplace to do something similar. "The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) are the U.S. Senate and House bills that as…

Genuine question, MindGeek[1] is a private Canadian company, why are they subject to U.S. law if they build payment network outside of US? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek

Doing business with US customers in US dollars and interacting with US banks automatically places you under the jurisdiction of US laws.

Investigators in EU countries often work with US agencies because our laws are so much stricter, and often urge people under investigation to cooperate otherwise they'll turn over the case to the Feds.

Tom Hayes, of LIBOR scandal fame, spilled his guts and signed a confession after being told he might be handed over to the Americans. Then he tried the aspergers defense, followed by the "I only confessed because they threatened me" defense, but neither swayed the jurors and he got 14 (reduced to 11) years in a UK prison.

That's not unique to the US. Countries own their currency and regulate their banks therefore using them gives a country the right to control what you do.

This is grossly oversimplified but generally speaking, if I lived in France and started a payment service that accessed the Japanese banking system and performed transactions in Yen, I would be subject to Japanese banking laws as well as French laws.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#144

Post by viraptor » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

1000units wrote: post #121

otterley wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Also, do you have any credentials to back up your expertise in the field of psychology?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 One learns by theory and experiment. Also, I don't flash my credentials to win arguments online. Think of me as an intellectual sparring partner rather than an authority feeding you what to believe and shape the dialectic accordingly.

There's enough nuance in "mentally stable" that having some actual credentials, training, or at least pointing out relevant studies would be useful. Otherwise it does look like you're equate your moral stance with mental health diagnosis.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#145

Post by solarkraft » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

There are so many stories of small time vendors just thousands of $ of funds frozen out of nowhere, with no way of contacting PayPal about it.

What is their incentive to do this? Is PayPal in the business of randomly hassling people? Is it for the entertainment of some executive?

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#146

Post by httpsterio » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

linuxhansl wrote: post #123

Whatever you might think of the various professions... As long as it is legal, it seems the major payment service providers should not pass on their moral code onto everybody else. What's next? You get no water/power/whatever if you run a business that the service providers simply do not agree with?

I think PayPal might've publicly said that this is solely because porn poses a greater risks and SFW businesses just due to the amount of actually fraudulent payments and account hacking performed to pay for porn. Also, there's the less obvious issue with charge backs and people lying about getting hacked and having to deal with all that.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#147

Post by basch » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

aazaa wrote: post #135

Financial deplatforming is a monster, long-term trend to watch over the next decades. Deplatforming happens with sex workers. It also happens in the US marijuana industry. It happens with perfectly legal political content. The number of ways in which someone, somewhere will be offended by products or services for sale is growing, driven by a rapidly improving worldwide communication network and delivery system, and b…

wheres the disruptive fintech for these underbanked? Sounds like a gold mine for the right marketing team.

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#148

Post by dragonsngoblins » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #30

mjevans wrote: post #7

A chilling effect on free speech. Real alternatives to paypal and credit cards need to enter the market. It sadly looks like my favorite hope is still not ready, but I am hopeful that this is due to slow and careful development that will lead to a stable long term outcome. https://taler.net/en/faq.html

> A chilling effect on free speech. Real alternatives to paypal and credit cards need to enter the market. This would have been a huge problem in 2012, Now there are realistic solutions to avoid this. Just pay by cryptocurrencies on to a Coinbase Card and you can withdraw the cash and pay anonymously. Job done.

That is an extra step which will make people spend less money.

Imagine if every time you wanted to buy a cup of coffee or a video game you had to buy a special currency to do it? I bet less of both would be sold

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#149

Post by Daishiman » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

aazaa wrote: post #135

Financial deplatforming is a monster, long-term trend to watch over the next decades. Deplatforming happens with sex workers. It also happens in the US marijuana industry. It happens with perfectly legal political content. The number of ways in which someone, somewhere will be offended by products or services for sale is growing, driven by a rapidly improving worldwide communication network and delivery system, and b…

Bitcoin isn't criticized for this being an invalid use case, because it's totally valid.

It's criticized because it's useless for this use case, people involved in this scene in practice don't care about it to any serious degree beyond it being a talking point, and because anything for legally working around financial deplatforming still needs strong interfacing with the rest of the system as well as compliance with legal regimes, which BTC has nothing to say on that.

In fact, you can make your own payments platform denominated in USD and that's as useful as BTC for legal activities. So why go through the extra steps?

Re: PayPal stops payouts to models on Pornhub

#150

Post by zajio1am » Thu, Nov 14, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #60

jimnotgym wrote: post #10

A contributor once wrote on hn about the huge market for a porn friendly payment system. Key feature, must not look suspicious on credit card bill...

There are plenty of porn friendly payment providers. They just cost a lot of money relative to "normal" merchants because of a few simple reasons: 1) Chargebacks -- people chargeback the shit out of these kinds of transactions. Significant other sees the bill, gets pissed / confused about the charge / whatever and gets it charged back. 2) Fraud -- people use stolen CC's to pay for this kind of thing. 3) Porn operator…

> 1) Chargebacks -- people chargeback the shit out of these kinds of transactions.

So perhaps offer a payment system without chargebacks? Direct bank transfers also do not offer chargebacks and people use them for payment for goods and services.