121–130 of 272 posts
just use bitcoin. there is literally no downside. it is easier to implement than most payment providers that i know. moreover there are payment provider that work with bitcoin so you do not have to.
They start by defending their use of furry art and railing against potential backlash from HN. Then spend a lot of words talking about how Collective Shout isn't anti-LGBTQ, but could potentially become anti-LGBTQ, but even if it's not anti-LGBTQ it's bad because it's anti-abortion. None of this is actually pertinent to the argument.
Then they talk about alternatives to Visa /Mastercard, such as crypto, WERO, FedNOW, petitions, blah blah blah. Next we move on to some good-old-fashioned self promotion, talking about how they helped save some library from the evil right wing politicians.
And the article ends without even making one coherent argument, which should be this: two American companies should not be able to dictate the moral standards of censorship for the world. They have too much power and too little oversight. Let's start with that.
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It's an interesting one - I've always thought that businesses should have no right to refuse business, and it kind of already exists, for example you can't refuse to serve a customer purely on the basis of their skin color. Likewise, if a casino or betting company (ladbrokes, for example) have customers that win too often, I also think it should be illegal to stop them betting. Fundamentally if you're running a busin…
But say you're a concreter, you've worked with a client who's an absolute prick - doesn't do anything illegal exactly but he's a total stickler with your work, calls you all the time with stupid questions, tries to find problems everywhere to justify a discount (despite you having hypothetically done the job perfectly), pays as late as possible. Shouldn't you have the right to not take on another job for this guy?
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Companies are groups of people. Why should people have rights separately but not when they decide to work together in a group?
That makes sense only if they also have legal responsibilities to go along with their rights. Take for example PG&E, the large gas/electric utility for the northern 2/3rds of California. PG&E is a convicted felon and was sentenced to five years probation, but they remain un-rehabilitated.[0] Under your theory, the "group" with the rights should have been jailed. Instead, a new layer of rights is created out of thin a…
just use bitcoin. there is literally no downside. it is easier to implement than most payment providers that i know. moreover there are payment provider that work with bitcoin so you do not have to.
China just banned OnlyFans as degenerate, as did Sweden. We should probably be _increasing_ enforcement of public morality through private systems. “You can just start your own payment processor.”
Honestly, I think focusing on what is being censored is missing the point. Today it's adult content, which is an easy target. But what about tomorrow? What if they decide your political donation is 'problematic', or the indie news site you subscribe to is 'misinformation'? We're handing a kill switch for legal commerce to a handful of unelected execs.
Combine required/trendy KYC. With trendy reputation score and similar attributes for purchase/sale/trade. With machine agent automated decision flows. With pushing everything into digital. With near mono/duo/tri-opolization of goods/services.
Then, a near invisible control grid is almost complete.
But that's the goal on the face of it.
Let's use it for good, all.
Payments are pretty much 'public infrastructure' at this point and should be treated the same as utilities. ie they should be required to provide service for anything legal.
I mean this is just the ultimate form of price discrimination which happens to be legal. My question is why? This industry (payments) is completely driven by financials and occasionally regulations. They have no dog in a moral fight, so this must be about profits to them.
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> Visa/Mastercard should have the right to refuse service Really? If this was any other small to medium business where there were potentially tens, hundreds or even thousands of viable alternate businesses that provide what could be deemed as an equivalent service I might agree, but a global payments duopoly is essentially public infrastructure and should not be able to discriminate based on protected characteristics…
I agree with your assessment of the current situation. But I think the solution is to break up the duopoly, either by leveling the playing field or creating government-run alternatives, rather than force the duopoly to do certain things.
People have been trying and failing to create new payment processing companies since at least the 90s. The richest men in the world, even (Musk).
Governments prefer the current status quo.
China just banned OnlyFans as degenerate, as did Sweden. We should probably be _increasing_ enforcement of public morality through private systems. “You can just start your own payment processor.”
we have it is called bitcoin my dude.