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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?

#201

Post by OJFord »

simias wrote: post #180
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…

I don't really understand the motivation behind this puritanism. I get why respectable institutions don't want to touch things like selling weed or prostitution since that's not legal everywhere and they could get in trouble. But sex toys? Who cares? Like, that's not a rhetorical question, literally "who cares?" Are people going to stop using Wells Fargo because they very indirectly help in the commerce of sex toys?

> I get why respectable institutions don't want to touch things like selling weed or prostitution since that's not legal everywhere and they could get in trouble. But sex toys?

If that is the reason for the former, it's probably the reason for the latter too.

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

#202

Post by xxpor »

haltingproblem wrote: post #145
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…

This is an incredibly frustrating read. I know, I know there are far worse things in the world but fucking Wells Fargo dictating to people when they evict homeowners who have no relationship with Wells Fargo, commit wholesale wire fraud, destroy people's credit and then turn around and lecture a honest business. This is why banking is a rent-seeking and though we need the financial industry they are ghoulish vampires…

Now this is actual cancel culture.

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

#203

Post by unnouinceput »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #103
preinheimer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and as with all things, interpretation is key.

As pointed out, the banks also have a say. And banks are notoriously risk-averse and prudish. It's much easier for them to say "no" than "yes".

+1. For anyone, watch the movie "Yes man", with Jim Carrey. It's a run of the mile chick flick, but the bit about banks, which is fairly at beginning, it portraits the "we prefer to say NO" policy of banks very accurate.

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

#204

Post by chrisco255 »

lukifer wrote: post #200
haltingproblem wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly frustrating read. I know, I know there are far worse things in the world but fucking Wells Fargo dictating to people when they evict homeowners who have no relationship with Wells Fargo, commit wholesale wire fraud, destroy people's credit and then turn around and lecture a honest business. This is why banking is a rent-seeking and though we need the financial industry they are ghoulish vampires…

> we need the financial industry Do we, though? I don't know whether the answer is distributed blockchains, or the Department of the Treasury creating an API for USD, or both; but the current banking system seems to me like the legacy code of feudal landed aristocrats. (I will never stop being disappointed that we didn't let the financial system crash in 2009.)

An API for USD centrally controlled by the Treasury? Kiss your financial freedom goodbye. You gotta demand it be distributed blockchains or you'll be living in chains.

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

#205

Post by bokohut »

As a payment processing fintech builder for several decades the many comments about diversifying across processors is correct. The misunderstanding here for many may be that knowledgeable business owners (merchants) always have more than one processing account each with a different entity holding the risk, think multiple banks. Having multiple processors, aside from the point of this question, directly relates to up time and availability of which nearly all rely on the "middleman" - Have a backup! However problem businesses and their business owners that get caught being nefarious earn a permanent place on the card brands "list" that forbids them from taking card payments in the future. An individual business can have multiple merchant accounts and as with anything else once one understands how a system works it can then be manipulated to fit ones need.

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

#206

Post by 7952 »

tehbeard wrote: post #190
capableweb wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting question. I checked out Klarna and Adyen which seems to be the most popular in Europe right now. Adyen lists "Adult entertainment, websites & content (such as)" as not allowed. https://www.adyen.com/dam/jcr:47f292a9-c9e2-4a69-8592-2e15ff... Klarna lists "Adult, sexual or pornographic products and services, including live web cam" as not allowed. https://cdn.klarna.com/1.0/shared/content/policy/ethic/en_gb…

... And yet ... https://www.lovehoney.co.uk/help/about-klarna/ ... Whether they fly under "novelty items" or not, idk.

My guess is that the list of restricted things just means that you should talk to them first.

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

#207

Post by andoriyu »

lovegoblin wrote: post #97
__ryan__ wrote: post #9

Onlyfans is a platform for content subscriptions. It just happens to be a popular platform for adult content. Also, it surely makes them a ton of money.

You can say this about literally anything: Pornhub is just a platform for VOD. It just happens to be a popular platform for adult content.

It would be hard to pretend that resources named "pornhub" is not porn and just happened to host a lot of porn...

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

#208

Post by throwaways885 »

jefftk wrote: post #41
throwaways885 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Looking for more context I found https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/owen-benjamins-rhetoric-... > Benjamin has told his audience on YouTube that it is “infinitely more probable” that the Nazis over-worked Jews to death during the Holocaust than it was that they subjected them to execution in gas chambers. He went on to say that he was “a big fan” of Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler’s art. >“Really what he was trying t…

Sorry guys, I made a serious mistake and linked the wrong Benjamin (I was wanting to link to Sargon's lawsuits that threatened to sink the company). Even so, I'm a free speech absolutist and even though people say terrible things I disagree with, I would defend that right unironically.

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

#209

Post by ballenf »

chrisco255 wrote: post #204
lukifer wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we need the financial industry Do we, though? I don't know whether the answer is distributed blockchains, or the Department of the Treasury creating an API for USD, or both; but the current banking system seems to me like the legacy code of feudal landed aristocrats. (I will never stop being disappointed that we didn't let the financial system crash in 2009.)

An API for USD centrally controlled by the Treasury? Kiss your financial freedom goodbye. You gotta demand it be distributed blockchains or you'll be living in chains.

At least you'd have due process and couldn't be deplatformed for legal activity. Now you have neither.

The current system has zero privacy, so no change there.

Not seeing the downside.

Federally illegal activity like marijuana wouldn't benefit, but most things would.

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

#210

Post by rglullis »

Would it be possible to sidestep the issue completely?

Is your industry one that you could start pushing for cryptocurrency for payments? You'd be basically reducing your risk to zero and by using a stable token you would also have no volatility.

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