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Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

economist.com

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Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#181

Post by doublescoop »

some_random wrote: post #175
cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

>It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. There is not a single state where cannabis is legal, there are only states that have decided they won't enforce federal law.

No states enforce federal laws. The federal government does that. If there is no state law criminalizing cannabis use there it's legal in that state.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#182

Post by jonas21 »

cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

> Granted, the legality of cannabis is a grey area since states allow it but the Federal government still maintains it as illegal.

This isn't some incidental detail - it's the entire reason why the banking and credit card industry doesn't want to interact with cannabis right now.

Guess who regulates the banking industry and has authority over interstate commerce? The federal government. This particular example has nothing to do with credit card companies making a statement against cannabis, and everything to do with them not wanting to break the law.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#183

Post by micromacrofoot »

shartacct wrote: post #154
cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

> Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Every dispensary I've visited here in the northeast accepts cash and debit cards, I assume they don't accept credit due to higher processing fees and higher risk of chargebacks rather than processors being problematic (otherwise they would not accept debit since they get ran through the same system anyway).

That's not true at all. I live in the northeast and my dispensary simply can not take credit cards even if they wanted to; credit card companies are liable for the transaction and they don't want to run up against federal law.

Some dispensaries can take debit card transactions, and they have to do so through "high risk" processors... companies like Square will not work with them because of federal law.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#184

Post by vdqtp3 »

some_random wrote: post #175
cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

>It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. There is not a single state where cannabis is legal, there are only states that have decided they won't enforce federal law.

States don't enforce federal law.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#185

Post by danachow »

rawbot wrote: post #50
matheusmoreira wrote: post #19

What do you mean, "are becoming"? They have always been. If the payment processors don't want to be associated with a service, they'll refuse to handle payments and then there's simply no way for the service providers to get paid. See wikileaks and other "problematic" sites. Advertisers are also regulators. I've seen sites start heavily censoring themselves because someone complained to Google and they pulled the ads…

This is a recent situation. Back in the early 00's, paying for something online with a credit card, other than porn, was a novelty. I think things started to change in the late 00's. I remember a LOT of software being sold online (licenses and such) was sold via money orders or sometimes wire transfers.

In the US/Canada and Japan at least, it’s not that recent Perhaps a novelty in the early 90s - even then, the major online services all had online shopping options. Ebay, PayPal, and Amazon were all growing rapidly by 1999, and the dot-com boom was filled with retail shopping startups that were popular - just not profitable or well managed.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#186

Post by tmp_anon_22 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #183
shartacct wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Every dispensary I've visited here in the northeast accepts cash and debit cards, I assume they don't accept credit due to higher processing fees and higher risk of chargebacks rather than processors being problematic (otherwise they would not accept debit since they get ran through the same system anyway).

That's not true at all. I live in the northeast and my dispensary simply can not take credit cards even if they wanted to; credit card companies are liable for the transaction and they don't want to run up against federal law. Some dispensaries can take debit card transactions, and they have to do so through "high risk" processors... companies like Square will not work with them because of federal law.

Its hyper regional. And when processing solutions are found, they may be gone the next month. You see a similar situation with groups like Eaze in the SFBA. Some months they just don't have a debit option, some months they do.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#187

Post by wutbrodo »

cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

> Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK.

The dispensaries I've been to in LA will generally take credit cards now. They round it up to multiples of 5 and give you change in cash, and I think under-the-hood they're doing a cash advance or something?

This doesn't detract from your point; if anything, it reinforces it. Just an interesting factual point.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#188

Post by tantalor »

jonas21 wrote: post #182
cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

> Granted, the legality of cannabis is a grey area since states allow it but the Federal government still maintains it as illegal. This isn't some incidental detail - it's the entire reason why the banking and credit card industry doesn't want to interact with cannabis right now. Guess who regulates the banking industry and has authority over interstate commerce? The federal government. This particular example has no…

You don't give the banking industry enough credit here. They are involved in designing the legislation/regulations governing themselves.

The market for legal marijuana projected to be $100B by 2030. If the banks want a piece of that pie, then they will change the rules and "fix" the problem.

https://flowhub.com/cannabis-industry-statistics

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#189

Post by tantalor »

jnwatson wrote: post #159
cletus wrote: post #130

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to opera…

The clothing manufacturing industry is also deeply tied to human trafficking, but no one is talking about banning credit card transactions at the Nike store.

There is no US law against that.

Re: Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

#190

Post by mindslight »

franga2000 wrote: post #136
psychlops wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is the only competition that can force financial innovation in TBTF era.

Innovation isn't what's needed, it's regulation. Making an alternative that does a couple things better but a thousand things worse isn't going to turn a broken market into a free one. There are multiple types of decentralization and the one we need for finance isn't the "everyone is (theoretically) equal and there are no rules" of crypto but the "distributed network of trusted providers" that we use for things like…

I'm no apologist for corporate power, but most payment network censorship seems to be driven by government regulations - Wikileaks, sex work, weed, and gambling are all things the government has passed laws to explicitly harm. As such, additional regulation is more likely to cement the current restrictions rather than repudiate them.
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