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Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

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Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#611

Post by jimjimwii »

herbst wrote: post #463
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #363

Payment processors(Visa, Master) , payment gateways(Stripe, Paypal...) and payment hosts (Patreon, Gumroad...) are a huge pain to deal with even when you're selling something which is legal and risk free just because their algorithm or employees are often overcautious, anything out of mundane they'll ban first and then ask questions(if you're lucky). I have a FOSS project called Open Payment Host[1] which removes the…

I built a cool tool the last week's. I spent more time on evaluating payment processor than the code itself. I have ~5 projects in my shelf I did never launch because I didn't find a payment solution. Got instantly banned with all of them, had to write them an email wait for days to get some response. I usually just use crypto whenever it makes sense. And still have a hard time to believe that I can move as much as c…

This is what i settled on as well. I maintain a side project that is completely legal and above board but i refuse to go through the nonsense i was forced to go through the last time i had to integrate with a credit card payment gateway (another side project that went belly up).

If someone wants to buy something from me badly enough, they'll figure out how to get some bitcoin.

I don't have the time and energy to deal with their arbitrary bullshit anymore.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#612

Post by bornfreddy »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #609
maxbond wrote: post #161

Why do payment processors do stuff like this? Is there some regulation that requires them to? I get that they don't want to process fraudulent transactions, but I'd think the response to a higher percentage of fraud from some industry would be to charge them more. It doesn't make sense to me why they would be concerned about the content of games, as long as everything is legal and the parties concerned aren't subject…

> Some of these games seem completely abhorrent Why would you consider those abhorrent while games where you can slaughter people, or commit all kinds of crimes like any random GTA, are widely considered normal? I'll never understand American morals. What's clear is that we need non-US payment processors so that the values of a given culture aren't imposed worldwide.

Say what you want about crypto, but it does solve this problem at least.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#613

Post by 93po »

9dev wrote: post #541
amelius wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the fuck do we allow credit card companies have a say in how we spend our money? Because sadly 80% of people are sheep. Same reason we allow a company to decide what we can and cannot install on our smartphones.

No, don’t follow the underdog fallacy. What are you doing against it? How are you different from the other sheep? Merely complaining doesn’t make you any better.

youre allowed to be critical of things while still using said things. i have 8 million things going on in my life and the hill i die on isnt going to be the working conditions of humans that make iphones

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#614

Post by natbobc »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #518
sigmoid10 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit cards are much less heavily relied on in Europe than in the USA. Europe basically runs on debit cards that every kid can have and where the fees are minuscule. There are countless banks providing the service and everything is highly regulated. On top of that, Europe still curbed Visa and Mastercard several times for antitrust behaviour. And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money launde…

> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established. They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions. At least in Germany in particular older people prefer to pay cash if possible - this gives the banks also…

A vocal minority are freedom loving. A significant number are hooked on consumer debt. I feel like any sweeping generalization is going to be wrong… especially when referencing the USA which is basically 50 countries and has a population exceeding all of Western Europe.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#615

Post by benjiro »

moralestapia wrote: post #109
benjiro wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, cash is slowly getting phased out. Try buying a second hand car and you want cash from the bank. Used to be very easy, but now you need to declare what your spending your money on. You sold your car. O, its over 7 or 10k, well, this is getting reported to the local IRS. Where is that cash coming from, questions, questions? Over here they are even cracking down on stuff like ebay, amazon because some pe…

>You sold your car. O, its over 7 or 10k, well, this is getting reported to the local IRS. Where is that cash coming from, questions, questions? (I'm not in the US) I'm curious about how does that happen. Do they reach out to you? Your bank?

Also not in the US, i am using the term IRS because people are very used to it on the internet.

Banks in the US and EU are legally required to report large transactions. I know for a fact that in Europe, that cash handeling over 10.000 euro gets reported.

That includes withdrawals and deposits. The later gets even more questions asked regarding the "origins" of the money.

There are other fun events that we have seen, like transferring 15.000 euro from my wife to her brother (between countries), that had the money blocked as the bank needed to investigate the origin of the money. So the bank starts calling you to figure out what the money is, what is it used for, where does it come from, bla bla bla...

Why are you giving 15.000 to your brother. Is it a GIFT!!! Translation: Can we TAX it! I suspect that banks in some EU countries get a cut from reported money that can be taxed by the tax office (that is just my speculation).

No, it was his money that he loaned to us for a house buying, and that we returned, but they really tried to push the "gift" narrative. Large money transfers (above 10k), triggers investigations.

And as you can guess, large cash deposits or withdraws get even more questions.

Here is a fun tip: Just transfer or deposited money in small amounts, whenever you feel like it. Avoids the questioning like your some kind of criminal.

So ironically, you perform actions like a criminal (will do to avoid detection), just to avoid getting questioned like your a criminal. Hahahaha...

I feel like we have no more privacy in our lives with everything being monitored and checked. Your browser spies on you, your OS spies on you (W11 Recall even worse), your smartphone, you get tracked by Wifi signal in the streets, your customer store card (that they push and push) is to track your buying habits, the banks track your every movement for the tax office, you can not even freaking sell stuff on ebay and get reported.

Like 3000 Euro is nothing. You sell a few piece of PC hardware and you hit that limit. And Amazon/Ebay/... report your behind. And now its about backdoors in encryption because you may be hiding something. What, you do not want to share your talks on XYZ platform to your wife, family. What are you saying, illegal stuff????

We are really moving to a dystopian world and have been for a long time.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#616

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #609
maxbond wrote: post #161

Why do payment processors do stuff like this? Is there some regulation that requires them to? I get that they don't want to process fraudulent transactions, but I'd think the response to a higher percentage of fraud from some industry would be to charge them more. It doesn't make sense to me why they would be concerned about the content of games, as long as everything is legal and the parties concerned aren't subject…

> Some of these games seem completely abhorrent Why would you consider those abhorrent while games where you can slaughter people, or commit all kinds of crimes like any random GTA, are widely considered normal? I'll never understand American morals. What's clear is that we need non-US payment processors so that the values of a given culture aren't imposed worldwide.

Europeans thought they had finally gotten rid of the Puritans when the Mayflower set sail. But four centuries later their overzealous character still haunts them.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#617

Post by 93po »

junon wrote: post #497
0dayz wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the founder of the "feminist" group she thinks that 50 shades is the equivalent of the book of Satan but about raping women.

There's a book of Satan?

if there is, im buying it

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#618

Post by pqtyw »

louthy wrote: post #591
ChickeNES wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah when I went to the UK and tried to view adult content using a prepaid SIM, it was blocked and required verifying that I was an adult, and this was done at the ISP level. And I know for a fact that the UK has much stricter limits on kink and BDSM in adult content as well. What gives with people claiming it's just the US?

> required verifying that I was an adult Log in to your account and toggle the “I want porn” option? It’s annoying, but not onerous. > And I know for a fact that the UK has much stricter limits on kink and BDSM in adult content as well. I know what you’re referring to, but don’t know the full details. I believe it’s around violent porn (rape, etc). We certainly have a “think of the children” brigade. I still think th…

> It’s annoying, but not onerous.

So government regulating stuff like that does go against much of the thing you said in the comment above?

> doesn't turn into some societal ideological divide.

When governments try to introduce mass surveillance of personal communications to "protect the children" liek ChatControl maybe it should turn into one. Instead of everyone just handwaving and ignoring it...

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#619

Post by alphager »

Geee wrote: post #602
cess11 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is largely theocratic and has in part because of this managed to resist socialism and other forms of scientific governance to a much larger degree. Using religious leaders as power brokers is a clever strategy, they'll never budge due to the better argument or scientific reason, hence making it almost impossible for non-violent progressive movements to having an effect at the macro level.

Lmao. Socialism is pseudo-scientific bollocks, like flat earth theory.

My healthcare, pension and workers protection proves you wrong.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#620

Post by gverrilla »

Sorry but ancaps are not allowed to complain - it's a 'free market' and the credit card companies are bigger than gabe newell - end of story, cry is free.

In ancap logic I think the fault here is all on gabe for not lobbying the government enough and/or for not having been able to gather enough force to fight against those companies somehow.

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