Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 953 posts

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#91

Post by uncircle »

odo1242 wrote: post #88
uncircle wrote: post #78

I know people here love to hate it, and it's a very very controversial topic, but this here, is a good use case for Bitcoin [1] Now that we have Lightning and hyperfast micropayments, can we have a good plug-and-play payment processor that uses it? The few services that allow Bitcoin payments still require an on-chain transaction, which is very user-unfriendly. In any case, despite what the haters say, this is the va…

Don’t you have to create a distinct payment channel (on-chain transaction) for every person you pay over Lightning? Or am I misunderstanding things?

Third-parties take care of this bureaucracy for you. Check out the Phoenix wallet, for example.

(Unaffiliated, I hold some pocket money on there not to run a Lightning node myself)

The on-chain transaction is just to "fund" a channel between two parties. These two parties can then make unlimited trasnfers between each other instantaneously for free. These nodes are organised in a network and can relay payment from other nodes as well. It's a bit like the Internet. You don't need to peer with everybody, you just need a path from A to B.

If you and I have a channel funded with 100 sat, we can move these around as many times as we wish, even on behalf of others, but if you need to transfer more than you have on your side, you need to fund the channel with another on-chain transaction. That's where the Phoenix 1% fee comes from, as they deal with this exact problem for you, so you don't have to worry about it.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#92

Post by uncircle »

fmbb wrote: post #87
uncircle wrote: post #78

I know people here love to hate it, and it's a very very controversial topic, but this here, is a good use case for Bitcoin [1] Now that we have Lightning and hyperfast micropayments, can we have a good plug-and-play payment processor that uses it? The few services that allow Bitcoin payments still require an on-chain transaction, which is very user-unfriendly. In any case, despite what the haters say, this is the va…

Bitcoin existing is not going to make Itch.io not want to accept payments via Visa. Porn is a tiny market. It’s not worth it losing the payment processors everyone is on to serve porn game buyers.

> Porn is a tiny market.

I'm not sure I agree. In the context of gaming, perhaps, but most of the Internet traffic is basically pornography.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#93

Post by nonameiguess »

uncircle wrote: post #78

I know people here love to hate it, and it's a very very controversial topic, but this here, is a good use case for Bitcoin [1] Now that we have Lightning and hyperfast micropayments, can we have a good plug-and-play payment processor that uses it? The few services that allow Bitcoin payments still require an on-chain transaction, which is very user-unfriendly. In any case, despite what the haters say, this is the va…

It's not in this case. The payment processors were going to drop all support to these platforms if they didn't remove these games. Bitcoin could allow them to keep operating, but at the cost that now all users who want any games at all have to use Bitcoin. Mainstream platforms accepting Bitcoin as an option is fine and great, but few if any are going to want to only accept Bitcoin.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#94

Post by jandrese »

jacobsimon wrote: post #58
mwill wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

Maybe a silly idea, but here’s a solution to prevent financial censorship: make the game free. Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits. There’s actually a lot of options for Steam if they aren’t being pressured directly to remove the content.

> Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits

That don't use Visa/Mastercard? The bans aren't coming from the platforms but from the payment processors.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#95

Post by MBCook »

hungmung wrote: post #40
mwill wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

If we don't get a section 230 for payment processors we're looking at serious consequences for 1A because everything will be a civil suit away from getting blacklisted. Economist reported that adult performers are having trouble keeping bank accounts open -- as soon as a bank or payment processor finds out it's porn-related it gets nuked. Now that this is established practice, what's going to happen when Visa/MC gets…

This is not the administration to ask for that.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#96

Post by jandrese »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #44

What sort of leverage can a group like this realistically have on Visa and Mastercard? Can they really make a dent in their top line?

From what I understand it was more that they found a sympathetic ear in the management suite at Mastercard and Visa. They've been wanting to do this for some time but needed political cover.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#97

Post by egypturnash »

uncircle wrote: post #78

I know people here love to hate it, and it's a very very controversial topic, but this here, is a good use case for Bitcoin [1] Now that we have Lightning and hyperfast micropayments, can we have a good plug-and-play payment processor that uses it? The few services that allow Bitcoin payments still require an on-chain transaction, which is very user-unfriendly. In any case, despite what the haters say, this is the va…

Random thoughts:

* anything using proof-of-work is still gonna be a hard sell * good luck figuring out how to get the user experience on both ends appear to be in USD without ever having to give a shit about the constantly-fluctuating value of BTC * fun times ahead when you get big enough for the government to notice you and start requiring you to comply with all kinds of arcane regulations

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#98

Post by bluescrn »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #60

My free speech red line is criticism of govt and leaders. Ban all the porn games ya want, I don't think they're very valuable. When did pornography become protected speech?

Text is fairly comparable with speech, so it's be reasonable to argue that a pornographic novel is 'speech'.

Not so sure about 4K video footage, though. Or videogames. That's more a 'freedom of art' issue.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#99

Post by dv_dt »

Its too bad that the old school anti-trust provisions against restraint of trade are no longer of interest to enforcers. This isn't a case where visa/mc are against a specific game/publisher transactions is where they are saying we will stop processing payments for your entire platform because of a few games we object to. And its worse because the pmt processors aren't really specific about their objections in public at least.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#100

Post by xur17 »

odo1242 wrote: post #88
uncircle wrote: post #78

I know people here love to hate it, and it's a very very controversial topic, but this here, is a good use case for Bitcoin [1] Now that we have Lightning and hyperfast micropayments, can we have a good plug-and-play payment processor that uses it? The few services that allow Bitcoin payments still require an on-chain transaction, which is very user-unfriendly. In any case, despite what the haters say, this is the va…

Don’t you have to create a distinct payment channel (on-chain transaction) for every person you pay over Lightning? Or am I misunderstanding things?

No. You can route through other people on the network, so you just need a path to the person through others.
Post reply on HN