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Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

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Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#21

Post by krapp »

uRreading2slow wrote: post #18
robinduckett wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't need to be ashamed of working for kink.com, or any adult site in that matter, especially in this day and age. My fiance was upset at this news, to this day she is sad about it: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jan/25/porn-bdsm-ki... (I'm not really into it, but I fully believe in to each their own!)

I generally agree, but in this day and age, there is also real horrid, vile stuff... just follow banner ads on random free porn sites and you'll find a lot that is more an excessive dehumanization arms race than anything to do with sex. People don't have to be ashamed of it in the sense that they didn't choose to get so damaged to be attracted by it, but abuse and it's consequences is a major elephant on the couch of…

There is plenty of exploitation and abuse (including sexual abuse) in mainstream media as well... but because there isn't a public stigma attached to that, it's possible for public and political pressures to be arrayed against it. But since we're all supposed to be ashamed of porn and sex outside of marriage in the west, the worst of those industries are just considered par for the course and left to fester.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#22

Post by PunchTornado »

I don't understand why these companies don't have normal names and then nobody will suspect anything.

Like the video chat company that I worked for was called Telecom. Their website said nothing about this, all general words about what a good company they are with happy employees and nothing specific. Put it on my CV with no issues.

Then they have an affiliate website where everything was happening. All charges were direct through this Telecom company. If someone asked about the billing they probably answered something about a phone, extra charges etc.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#24

Post by maxerickson »

krapp wrote: post #5
gonzo41 wrote: post #3

Two thoughts about all this pop up. You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names? And I'm surprised Stripe wouldn't build an off brand company to handle this part of the market. Seems like it's just giving up on a lot of money for 'reasons' Though similar problems exist in business for things like weed companies. Banks don't want to touch em.

>You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names? If they're doing legal business, why should they?

Uh, for business reasons?

That is, to simplify the process of doing business.

(I don't understand what other meaning you'd get from the other post)

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#25

Post by philip1209 »

Some questions:

- Would ACH solve an issue like this? There are some clean interfaces (e.g. Plaid), and chargebacks are not trivial.

- Would 3-D secure solve the chargeback problem? As I understand it, it shifts liability to the consumer, not the business.

- Is blockchain being adopted anywhere for micropayments like this?

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#26

Post by wodenokoto »

krapp wrote: post #5
gonzo41 wrote: post #3

Two thoughts about all this pop up. You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names? And I'm surprised Stripe wouldn't build an off brand company to handle this part of the market. Seems like it's just giving up on a lot of money for 'reasons' Though similar problems exist in business for things like weed companies. Banks don't want to touch em.

>You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names? If they're doing legal business, why should they?

For the same reason porn magazine aren't delivered in see-through plastic like other magazines and instead are delivered in white envelopes.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#27

Post by lawn »

Rjevski wrote: post #23

Seems like cryptocurrencies would be the way to go for this.

It's a perfect fit for a peer-to-peer electronic cash system (title of Bitcoin's whitepaper) yes.

This is the problem with permissioned transactions which cryptocurrencies remove. The only thing missing is adoption.

With the fees and issues I don't understand why the porn business isn't pushing harder for cryptocurrency use on their sites. There's huge amount of money to be saved here.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#28

Post by greyman »

LarryL wrote: post #17

The title of the article is misleading, it's not programming that is the real issue, it's billing (the progamming issues are just a part in the article). Since the Credit Card companies & banks create lots of problems as soon as sex is involved (see FetLife's misadventures in HN previous articles for instance) in addition to the big chargebacks issue, and given that customers lie a lot (because they can), I think tha…

> Of course, to REALLY solve the problem you'd "only" need people to stop seeing sex (and porn) as bad, dirty, taboo, etc. But this won't happen anytime soon :-(((

It won't, since it is not universally true, that seeing porn is not bad. There are thousands of personal accounts, or even a whole communities of people, who are trying to get rid of porn watching due to damage it brought to their lives.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#29

Post by lawn »

philip1209 wrote: post #25

Some questions: - Would ACH solve an issue like this? There are some clean interfaces (e.g. Plaid), and chargebacks are not trivial. - Would 3-D secure solve the chargeback problem? As I understand it, it shifts liability to the consumer, not the business. - Is blockchain being adopted anywhere for micropayments like this?

> Is blockchain being adopted anywhere for micropayments like this?

These aren't really micropayments, just regular small payments. Cheap cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Cash work well for these amounts.

As a bonus you can stay private enough from your spouse and the chargeback issue basically goes away from the business side.

Re: Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken

#30

Post by caruana »

akanet wrote: post #14

This article is extremely alarming. The process the author is calling "cascade billing" is money laundering. This exact process of disguising the nature of transactions to get banking institutions to transfer funds is literally what the feds took down Backpage for recently. I am very familiar with the details of that case and am surprised to see someone be so cavalier with the details publicly. Many adult services pr…

They are selling content through different payment services, this is not money laundering, stop being an alarmist.

"the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money, typically by means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses"

Illegally obtained money being they key term!

> literally what the feds took down Backpage for recently.

Also, incorrect. Backpage was taken down because they facilitated human trafficking https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/501214002

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