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The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

theguardian.com

331–340 of 372 posts

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#331
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not unique to banking in the least . It’s pretty typical for most industries to follow a company that does something the others want but don’t want to be the first one to do. Price increases are a great example. One company will take an increase and most follow. And how is this chilling of protected speech? The constitution guarantees free speech, not payment for speech. There is nothing stop these workers fr…

> There is nothing stop these workers from sharing their content/speech. So how do you share things legally on the internet without involving a private business who can stop you?

The banks don’t stop you.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes merchants will turn off 3d secure because of the approval drop with 3ds. This is one of the main reasons why 3dsv2 was introduced to elimate the friction. Even with 3dsv1 the liability doesn't always shift to the issuing bank. For example, I believe it is Mastercard NA(Might be Visa NA) that doesn't allow any 3ds liability shift for high risk merchants. Source: Worked at payment processor in high risk proce…

What’s the difference between the two systems?

The big deals are:

1. It tries to gather more data points about the customer environment (i. e. browser and screen details). I think the goal is to provide more signals that the bank can use to decide low/high risk transactions. This likely feeds into...

2. Some transactions can be passed through in a "frictionless" manner. Instead of getting the "please log into your bank this is not phishing trust us" interstitial, it requires no interaction.

If most of the time, customers are sitting int eh 'frictionless" universe, then they won't hit too many situations that encourage cart abandonment.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#333
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A payment processor is useless without the possibility to pay with a credit card. And that means you depend on Visa, Mastercard and Amex.

Bank transfers are still a thing, aren't they? And payment processors built around those? I can't recall when was the last time I paid on-line using my card . On that note, the whole reliance on cards for on-line feels like a stupid hack that got way out of control. A card is just a physical access token for the account - it shouldn't be reused on-line like this. You should be able to generate per-payment tokens on d…

I suspect the big limits on payments migration is that many people live on credit.

Someone else mentioned the future promise of FedNow. I'd expect that would be "any legal use is permissible" for legal reasons, but it can only replace debit payments at best. If you had a lender who worked atop FedNow, you'd reintroduce the problem of having a private party who is not legally obliged to serve all possible customers.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#334
post #47
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the article goes to the wrong place. The real cause is that most organizations (government, financial institutions, media conglomerates, etc.) are largely controlled by old rich white guys and they don't like people doing things. They are the ones pushing their "morality". We need more diverse and younger people in these positions to evolve our culture more quickly.

I mean, ‘the Patriarchy’ is the old chestnut explanation for most societal ills. Any evidence that it was corrupt old white men? The banks are bowing to external pressure and I am not convinced those voices are the ones necessarily representative of ‘the Patriarchy.’

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Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#335
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the wages increase with help wanted signs compare to the rent increase in the last decade or two in your annecdotes? Food? Health insurance? Student debt repayments? I don't know i just want to see real data before condemning anyone at all.

Here is some real data. Right now, the inflation adjusted median weekly earnings for people 16+ is essentially at it's highest point ever. Much higher than it was 30 or 40 years ago. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

So that excludes student debt levels (ie the inflation of the price of entry into the workforce) over that period. It includes people aged 40-100 who probably also outnumber and out earn the 16-40 demographic - who I assume dominate the only fans vendors being discussed.

The median as a measure will basically exclude the entire demographic. Eg Say for argument everyone in the workforce for 10 years or less had a 50% pay cut it won't show up in the median.

Real data is hard!

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#336
post #52
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, ‘the Patriarchy’ is the old chestnut explanation for most societal ills. Any evidence that it was corrupt old white men? The banks are bowing to external pressure and I am not convinced those voices are the ones necessarily representative of ‘the Patriarchy.’

The external pressure in the US is coming mostly from evangelical Christians, who literally worship the divine Father figure.

It doesn't stop with the fact they worship "God, the father", either. It's also evident in the fact that they (hard-line conservative christians of all stripes; evangelical, catholic and others) are working to take away women's autonomy -in the form of sex work, in the form of reproductive choice and I doubt very much if they view female education and employment very favorably as well.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#337

I was thinking of this just the other day. Just the past few weeks, Apple with CSAM, OnlyFans getting between people and their fans/clients. All of these big corporate moves are making me think more and more of decentralization of platforms. Is that coming?

>Is that coming?

I doubt it very much. To me it feels like the screws are being tightened and the oppression more blatant because they realize that for a variety of reasons (technical and legal) we're past the point where decentralization is a viable strategy.

Meaning they know we have no choice so they're dispensing with the velvet glove.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#338
post #76
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know exactly what lengths the bankers are willing to go to when securing a profit. The leadership environment literally selects for the sort of people who are willing to throw a family out of their home because the financial implications don't make sense. They aren't fuzzy, friendly "forgive the debt because of religious teachings" people. There is no way there is a moral stand here, the idea is absurd. They're lo…

Or, perhaps, fear of the political bloc that is Evangelical Protestantism in the US? I am not aware of any existing regulations that would make this particularly risky for the banks. I am aware of a very vocal minority that wants to limit sex to heterosexual and procreative (and ideally not fun at all), and then only when the man wants it.

>Or, perhaps, fear of the political bloc that is Evangelical Protestantism in the US?

Not just politics -but finances as well. The Evangelicals represent a huge amount of money -particularly when you're talking about the mega-churches.

Also, it's quite, quite possible that a large number of decision makers in the banking industry are themselves conservative hard-line Christians.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#339
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the dirty little secret that everyone clutching their pearls over the OnlyFans 'scandal' won't talk about. There are plenty of providers who will deal with porn, but porn customers are shit customers who no one wants -- the fraud and chargeback rate is incredibly high so the cost of processing payments is equally high. The advantage that crypto brings to porn payments is not the pretend anonymity, it is that…

This isn't the case across the entire industry. There is a large portion of customers who keep their CB ratios below the requirements of Visa & MCs. Hell, plenty of the customers in the industry could get it even lower but that runs the risk of leaving money on the table by turning away a potential customer that doesn't do a chargeback. There are some customers in the industry who run silly numbers like +10% and do "…

what is "mid burning" in this context? what do you expect % of charge backs to be for something like onlyfans? if you were to start a company in this field what would you use as a payment processor?

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#340
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the dirty little secret that everyone clutching their pearls over the OnlyFans 'scandal' won't talk about. There are plenty of providers who will deal with porn, but porn customers are shit customers who no one wants -- the fraud and chargeback rate is incredibly high so the cost of processing payments is equally high. The advantage that crypto brings to porn payments is not the pretend anonymity, it is that…

How is there any fraud these days with 3d secure, etc?

Even with 3DS challenges, people are persuaded out of their one-time passcodes by phishing, using an increasingly elaborate series of text-message and voice-call based deceptions. I hate the term, but search for “smishing” and there’s a bunch of material explaining the exploits.

Depending on the region, only a small fraction of payments are enrolled in the framework to do that validation / challenge anyway, it’s been expensive to adopt and a lot of card acceptors are still nervous about abandoned carts and lost revenue.

Aaaand that’s not to mention good old fashioned stolen cards, counterfeiting and at the other end, full-scale identity takeovers. Many security features are still bypassable by using the legacy system that should have been supplanted by now. It is a constantly-evolving (and frustrating) field.

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