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Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

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Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#161

Post by stu2b50 »

fpgaminer wrote: post #143
disillusioned wrote: post #87

Cascading payments might be the real answer, and shuffling higher risk charges to non-Stripe providers, but in my experience, Stripe can get pretty moralizing pretty quickly. We built an adult ecommerce site (purely toys for purchase, no porn) and because other adult toy sites had been successful on Stripe, Stripe assured us this wouldn't be a problem. Six months and several million dollars processed later, Stripe in…

Thank you for sharing your experience. It absolutely disgusts me the power that payment processors have over businesses. The sooner that industry is dismantled and made agnostic the better. I remember watching some BDSM website's documentary where they talked about how their payment processor dictated the kind of content they were allowed to make. It boggles my mind that people are okay with that. I also find it surp…

What? The above anecdote is literally about how the payment processor's bank is twisting their arm to deplatform OP's site.

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#162

Post by rebelidealist »

mrdumas wrote: post #56

Since, I know a friend in this industry, let me explain what's going on here. Yes, OnlyFans uses Stripe, but that's not the entire story. In the adult/porn world, there's a high amount of chargebacks and fraud relative to low-risk industries like SaaS software. If you pass a certain chargeback threshold in the adult industry, your account is terminated, and no payment processor will do business with you. To reduce th…

"Last time I checked the network requests, I noticed it was storing the card on Stripe, CCBill, and Securion, but using CCBill or Securion to process the payment."

Im curious about how to use Stripe to only store cards and let other processors make the charge. Would anyone have more info on this? Greatly appreciate it.

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#163

Post by ocdtrekkie »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #157
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US, Netflix and Google/YouTube represent over 50% of web bandwidth use, I believe. Somewhat old statistics here: https://www.cnet.com/news/netflix-youtube-gobble-up-half-of-... and https://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/11/21/netflix-now-accounts-... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/05/28... (all from Sandvine, mind you) I would have to imagine that, also being a streaming video se…

> There's a reason ISPs want to charge extra/differently for high bandwidth streaming video: It's the vast majority of what's loading up their networks. Why not just charge by the byte and be done with it?

That's actually more or less my preference: Straight metering. People who use the network less pay less, people who use the network pay more. And ISPs could then deliver all users access at the highest speeds their network can handle, rather than artificially speed throttling traffic.

Internet billing should look more like your electric and natural gas bills.

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#165

Post by danudey »

toxik wrote: post #119
disillusioned wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inverse of this. Here's their exact, hilarious wording: >Our banking partners recently notified us that they are no longer willing to support the sales of realistic sex toys. I understand that your products were designed to depict the body parts of mythological and fantastical creatures, and we have indicated this to our banking partners in an effort to advocate for continuing to support your business here on Str…

Wow, this is hysterical! A bank saying no to honest money because it’s sex toys, not even that, because it’s sex toys looking like human genitalia, — no not even that, because the toys are skin colored! I wonder if this would ever happen in Europe. I somehow feel that we’re more... open to these things. Do you know about Klarna?

> because it’s sex toys looking like human genitalia

Well, I think it might be the opposite of that:

> I understand that your products were designed to depict the body parts of mythological and fantastical creatures

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#166

Post by fpgaminer »

sandworm101 wrote: post #159
fpgaminer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It absolutely disgusts me the power that payment processors have over businesses. The sooner that industry is dismantled and made agnostic the better. I remember watching some BDSM website's documentary where they talked about how their payment processor dictated the kind of content they were allowed to make. It boggles my mind that people are okay with that. I also find it surp…

>> _help_ the sex industry thrive There are dark sides. It is not the friendly industry oft portrayed. It is an industry that thrives on the young and naive. It is regulated because it needs to be. Most common complaint heard by lawyers in the field: "I did the shoot, the movie is on the website, but I haven't been paid." Followed worryingly by: "They said I had to because I had signed a contract." The advice I give…

I would contest that if the industry wasn't demonized it wouldn't have a dark side.

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#167

Post by dotBen »

zamfi wrote: post #150
disillusioned wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inverse of this. Here's their exact, hilarious wording: >Our banking partners recently notified us that they are no longer willing to support the sales of realistic sex toys. I understand that your products were designed to depict the body parts of mythological and fantastical creatures, and we have indicated this to our banking partners in an effort to advocate for continuing to support your business here on Str…

I have no skin in this game, but I have to wonder who is making these decisions and what their thought process is. What is the threat model, exactly? What eventuality is the bank seeking to avoid? Are there edge-case regulatory issues at play? Are there moral-consumer groups out there that run public pressure campaigns against banks that transact on adult toys that look too realistic? Is a corporate lawyer somewhere…

"I have no skin in this game"

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#168

Post by fpgaminer »

stu2b50 wrote: post #161
fpgaminer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It absolutely disgusts me the power that payment processors have over businesses. The sooner that industry is dismantled and made agnostic the better. I remember watching some BDSM website's documentary where they talked about how their payment processor dictated the kind of content they were allowed to make. It boggles my mind that people are okay with that. I also find it surp…

What? The above anecdote is literally about how the payment processor's bank is twisting their arm to deplatform OP's site.

I meant "payment processors" more generally, referring to the greater oligopoly of Visa, MasterCard, the major banks, etc.

It's little consolation for the vast sex industry that it isn't Stripe et al's fault that they are deplatformed.

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#169

Post by sandworm101 »

fpgaminer wrote: post #166
sandworm101 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> _help_ the sex industry thrive There are dark sides. It is not the friendly industry oft portrayed. It is an industry that thrives on the young and naive. It is regulated because it needs to be. Most common complaint heard by lawyers in the field: "I did the shoot, the movie is on the website, but I haven't been paid." Followed worryingly by: "They said I had to because I had signed a contract." The advice I give…

I would contest that if the industry wasn't demonized it wouldn't have a dark side.

Hollywood isn't daemonized, but I used to give basically the same advice. Industries that run on attractive young people, people looking at very short careers, tend towards evil. Ask any successful recording artist about their first record contracts. Taylor Swift is writing songs about that dark place.

Re: Ask HN: How does onlyfans.com work around the “no porn” Stripe rule?

#170

Post by stickfigure »

fooey wrote: post #144
stickfigure wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't tease us like that! Sounds like a fantastic blog story.

It's even better than you think. In the process two state AG's lost their careers, multiple US senators were implicated, a bank collapsed, there was kidnapping, human trafficking and drug running, and in the end created urban legends of gold bars being buried in the mountains to hide it from being seized by the feds. I don't know of anywhere that has it all written out, but here's a related NYT story with a fair bit…

OH NO WAY! That guy played a role in the documentary Sons of Perdition, rescuing "lost boys" from the fundamentalist mormons. Sort of. I'd read that sometime after the movie release he was exposed as some sort of fraudster but this story just gets crazier...
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