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Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

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Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#261

Post by belval »

throw10920 wrote: post #257
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.

Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence? For the sake of reducing complexity in an already very complex world, I'd rather that it be illegal to require an email address to sign up for an account (or, alternatively, make it illegal to require an account for things like making a reservation at a restaurant) then being provided with an email by the USPS. Doubly s…

> Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence?

No because these things are genuinely useful. As much as people lament that we are going cashless, it's very convenient to be able to just carry one card and it's genuinely useful to just give my email as an identifier when registering for stuff.

Regulating their necessity means forcing people to accept cash and then using this as a reason why MasterCard and Visa should be allowed exist. In practice if something is that ingrained into daily interaction, then it should have something like the common carrier rules, set the fee to a static percentage of the transaction and that's it. The current 50% profit margins rent-seeking approach is just inefficient.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#262

Post by KingOfCoders »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #83
KingOfCoders wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say fuck on TV.

In addition to the sibling comment about safe harbor hours, the FCC regulates not speech but the shared airwaves. Print is irrelevant, and that’s why you can do whatever you want on cable. Also, the FCC does not directly set standards and instead responds to complaints from the communities in which the broadcast is available. So it’s conceivable that in an environment where nobody cared, you could do this at any time…

Didn't know the FCC regulates Youtube. Nevertheless, in a country with no regulations about saying "fuck" on TV, I get beeps on Youtube.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#263

Post by root_axis »

Kinrany wrote: post #161
infecto wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am quite surprised how wrong opinions like yours are. There is no argument of free speech here, they are a private business and as such can decide what they allow and don’t allow on their network. It’s no different than if cloudflare had a click through that said no adult material. You can hand wave around well they are a monopoly or some related argument but the government does not see it that way. Visa and Master…

The argument from free speech is that government should not be allowed to censor, regardless of the mechanism. Payment processors currently offer that mechanism.

What is the government's role here? As far as I can tell the censorship was coordinated and facilitated by private parties.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#264

Post by TJTorola »

xbar wrote: post #248

MC/Visa wield a great deal of market power, which is bad because they become directly controllable entities. I can't believe I am about to say this: Bitcoin fixes this.

Some other cryptocurrency fixes this, maybe (big maybe). But as long as _Bitcoin_ is seen primarily as an investment opportunity it can't really function as a means of exchange. For the same reason that we expect and need USD to lose value over time, people need to be encouraged to exchange their currency, not sit on it forever.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#265

Post by hahn-kev »

tdb7893 wrote: post #252
EliasWatson wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of problem that Bitcoin was designed to solve.

Isn't Bitcoin impractical for these sorts of transactions (slow, high fees, no privacy, etc)? People always say Bitcoin was designed to solve this sort of thing but whenever I've looked into it it's been fairly impractical for use in most day-to-day transactions.

Honestly buying a digital game is perfect. Steam can just give it to you right away, and if the transaction doesn't clear they can just revoke the game later.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#266

Post by Maken »

egypturnash wrote: post #250
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.

Is a payment processor operated by the Federal Reserve good enough? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow Well, it probably would be, except guess who killed it in favor of a crypto scheme? https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-execut... I agree about the PO though. Social media shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise either.

This is amazing.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#267

Post by ethbr1 »

Spivak wrote: post #210
ethbr1 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like FedNow that was launched in 2023? https://www.frbservices.org/news/fed360/issues/071625/fednow... https://www.frbservices.org/resources/fees/fednow-2025

Not even close the service offered by, as an example, Pix in Brazil.

Granted, but Pix didn't have to compete against entrenched political interests.

I expect the meta-plot with FedNow is to commoditize the backend network, then allow private companies to compete on top of it (e.g. Zelle on FedNow), then after adoption as the backbone, finally roll out P2P and P2B type support that finally kills off Visa / Mastercard / Amex (as processing networks).

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#268

Post by k_g_b_ »

pchangr wrote: post #231
p_ing wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no meaningful attention, here. Until it is on the US Gov't radar, this 'attention' is just a collection of upset redditors furiously posting forum messages which will fissile out in a few months, at most. Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.

Germany actually uses their own card system .. or cash. They are very much against visa/mastercard due to their “high commission fees” and “privacy concerns” Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3% See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard

That's somewhat outdated and Wikipedia even slightly alludes to it with "Some banks are phasing out girocards". "some" in reality is "nearly all". Girocard is practically dead and I don't see it coming back without state intervention. There's a few holdouts in stores here and there that only accept Girocard and no other cards (my vet for example), but it's on the decline there, too.

"Privacy concerns" won't hold out long against relentless pushes for more deregulation of privacy laws for AI/other tech/"the economy"/etc and removal of data access hurdles for police/security services/etc coming from certain political spectrum - whose voters generally don't have high concern for such fundamental rights issues when at the ballot box.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#269

Post by jksflkjl3jk3 »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #98
rs186 wrote: post #64

Dumb question: what if Steam only takes cash or crypto payment for these games, and leave them on the market? Cash is loaded from debit card and can be used for buying any games, while crypto apparently always works for everything. Would they still be on the hook?

Yes, but also the crypto option has been tried and absolutely doesn’t work.

Why not? I regularly buy products and services online with crypto and it works quite well, usually a better experience than with a credit card.

There are plenty of chains that can confirm transactions in a couple seconds, and if you're concerned with volatility, just use USDC/USDT. There are crypto payment processors that handle all of this and allow payment across a range of chains and handle the volatility so that the merchant doesn't need to worry about anything crypto and just receives fiat.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#270

Post by easton »

egypturnash wrote: post #250
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.

Is a payment processor operated by the Federal Reserve good enough? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow Well, it probably would be, except guess who killed it in favor of a crypto scheme? https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-execut... I agree about the PO though. Social media shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise either.

Is there another source that says what exactly happened in that executive order? I can't find one signed on june 6th that had anything to do with payments.

[0] was from March, and demanded treasury modernization (like paperless and stuff), but didn't really say anything about crypto or FedNow. And FedNow's website mentions nothing about the program being slowed down (just announcements about new things happening in Q3 and a bunch of new signed on banks).

0: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/28/2025-05...

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