The operating cost of adult and gambling startups • Hacker News Board

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#221

Post by gzread » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 12:49 PM UTC

subscribed wrote: post #218

malfist wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My neighbor got robbed the other day walking home from work. That means it's okay for me to rob them too, right?

You're trying to make ad absurdum but this been in effect decriminalised in many countries. In the UK for example the police got so defunded, damaged and wrecked, that they will straight out do their best to refuse investigating most crimes, eg robbery, burglary, assault, theft, even if you literally hand them evidence ("I saw my neighbour Tim doing that and I have CCTV", "my stolen bike is literally in that garage,…

I think it's like this in most countries - the police will only care about protecting the elite class. Sometimes the elite class feel threatened by high crime levels so the police will crack down on petty crime, but it's always in a way that makes the numbers look good, not a way that keeps people safe. They'll investigate the crimes that are easiest to prosecute.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#222

Post by subscribed » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 12:52 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #77

embedding-shape wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, literally all those things are decreasing in quality because the companies producing and selling these want higher margins. Have you not noticed the sharp drop in quality and durability in made stuff compared to 20-30 years ago? Almost all those things are worse and lasts less today than they used to.

There's some cases where that may be true, but they listed a few: * fruit - I can get any fruit anytime in the year, and it seems fine * vacuum cleaner - my Miele is still running ten years later and still available new * The lawn mower - the M18 mower cuts great and uses no gas and just works - much better than the previous PoS * workout equipment - I don't have much here, but my rowing machine is still going strong…

If you claim you can get "any fruit anytime in the year and it seems fine", it's probably because you'd inky ever had supermarket fruit-like products which are about as similar to the proper ones as McDonald's Big Mac is similar to the proper burger.

Go to the actual farm in strawberries season next time, get yourself some, and you'll get that. And it's like this with almost every single fruit.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#223

Post by sigmoid10 » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 12:57 PM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #151

sigmoid10 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what do you think it is? I don't see anything it could be besides what was written. You could call it endocrine imbalance or disrupted hormone household if you wanted to be less precise and skirt around the actual biological problem, but it still doesn't change anything.

>Again, what do you think it is? I don't know what it is, thats why I asked. Is the assertion that you're trying to make that drugs and gambling being addictive is a result of hormone imbalance in the addicts, rather than the addictive nature of those things?

[dead]

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#224

Post by subscribed » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 12:59 PM UTC

mcmcmc wrote: post #121

malfist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement is not grounded in the truth. Remnington did not shut down because of government interference. They employed a grand total of 100 people in NY. Hardly the "economic engine of its community" They shutdown because they sold 7.5 million guns that could fire without someone pulling the trigger and 60 minutes exposed it. And you should know that their building is being converted into a 250,000 sqft AI data…

Sorry do you think data centers actually provide meaningful jobs? Oh boy, 10 whole openings for security guards

And couple hundred for the specialists.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#225

Post by subscribed » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 1:41 PM UTC

casey2 wrote: post #196

gwbas1c wrote: post #117

Wow, I'm shocked at the negative attitudes in this thread. Porn and gambling are legit businesses, even if you don't like it. (And some people used to argue that part of the rise of the PC was because some people bought it as a "porn machine.") It's important to keep these things (almost) in the open, because when they become illegal, criminals move in and people get hurt. When I was an intern at a big-name, conserva…

Actually when they become illegal less people do them. The problem is that you view men (criminials) killing each other as a bigger loss than women being raped, killed and objectified. There is an optimal ballance, but you are unable to see it because of your bias towards dehumanizing women, caused by porn addiction.

Are you arguing that it's better that the sex or porn work is done illegally, without the ability to pay taxes, follow the law, forced into rh underworld and into the cartels and gangs?

Wow. That will certainly do better for sex trafficking and illegal porn. Criminalising all of it.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#226

Post by subscribed » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #20

A_Duck wrote: post #3

What's the author trying to say here? It's good that the law isn't the only line between good and evil. A bit of stigma is a bottom-up way for people to shape society. If nobody invites you to dinner parties because you run a startup that combines payday-lending and day-trading, that's a good thing. It's free alpha for companies doing more worthwhile things.

The article is about payment providers. Do you think payment providers should act like moral police that decide how the customers can spend their money? If so, do you think Google/Apple/Microsoft should have a say in which apps the users can install? Should ISPs decide which sites the users can access?

Remember that payment providers are happy with X openly selling access to the CSAM generator (Grok).

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#227

Post by 8-prime » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #146

embedding-shape wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While the porn industry has issue, at its core it isn't constructed to extract money from you. For what purpose do you think that industry was indirectly created for, if not to make money from people? Even if it might not have been created with that intent (although I'd still argue it was), today it surely is mainly driven and maintain with the (at least) implicit purpose of extracting money from people, that's lit…

Like others have said, any industry has the purpose of extracting money from the customers. The original poster has not expressed this correctly, but I assume that the intention was to say that the gambling industry is different from all other industries, not because it extracts money like any other industry, but because it does not return a product or service for that money. The porn industry is no different from an…

Thank you. That is want I attempted to say.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#228

Post by subscribed » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #104

post-it wrote: post #15

> When posting job openings, you will always have to beat around the bush, without using direct language. And only then, when the candidate has already agreed to an interview or even after it, do you tell them what kind of content they will be working with every day. > Employees join such projects for various reasons. Some realize that the pay is better than in legitimate projects. Others come because they couldn’t f…

This, Had a recruiter reach out to me the other day from a sports gambling website (one of the major ones, as reputable as you can get in this industry). I heard them out, thinking they would offer above market rate but in actuality, they offered significantly below market rate.

Here where I live gambling ("betting") companies offer salaries above market average, but it's been always a hard pass for me.

I wouldn't care if my company was working in adult industry - I was working in a condom factory for a short while and the employees were some of the funniest, chillest people I worked with, with sex-related themes always somewhere in the context, but that was making everyone relaxed and genuinely nice. I'd expect porn tech company to be similar.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#229

Post by harvey9 » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #5

You may have a cool product in the field of sports betting, casinos, or lotteries. But almost all social networks and search engines won’t let you advertise without a license from the required jurisdiction. Good . You should face social stigma for creating products that literally ruin people's lives.

That's not social stigma it's just risk management. Once you have your license then you can advertise.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#230

Post by subscribed » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC

littlecranky67 wrote: post #4

> A regular provider charges a regular commission but will not work with you, while another will want a commission 10 times higher and will agree, but may stop working with you at any time. I know I will get downvoted for this because it is an unpopular opinion, but this exactly the reason why we need bitcoin as a means of payments without any middlemen involved.

Bitcoin is probably the worst choice you could make.

Public to the point of the transaction getting linked to your identity at some point, crazy inefficient in terms of energy use, very very slow and crazy expensive.

There are so many better ways to use crypto to pay for things and you decided to suggest bitcoin?