Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 1001 posts

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#361

Post by grishka »

dhosek wrote: post #315
jpeter wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should payment processors force them to. They will make less money

Some years ago I interviewed with a company that served as a payment risk processor for high-risk businesses (in short, porn). The chargeback rate on online porn is huge . As a result, where a traditional payment processor may be 1.3–3.5% depending on the business and the assessed risk, for a high-risk business, the rate can be much much higher. While Onlyfans keeps 20%, I'm guessing that they'd be badly hurt if they…

Another thing that feels uniquely-US to me is chargebacks. I don't even know what's the process for initiating one in Russia. I once wanted to do that (forgot to disable auto-payment for internet in the apartment I rented and since moved from), called my bank, they told me that there's nothing they could do and I have to talk to the merchant to get a refund.

But many comments here imply that chargeback is almost as easy as clicking a button or asking nicely. How's that?

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#362

Post by pvarangot »

ctoth wrote: post #105

> But sex work still has a stigma. And OnlyFans is trying to raise money from outside investors at a valuation of more than $1 billion. > The company handled more than $2 billion in sales last year, and is on pace to more than double that this year. It keeps 20% of that figure. So they're killing the golden goose to placate outside money when they already are making ~800M a year? Something here doesn't really add up…

Yeah, they are basically screwing up their investors. They pumped up the valuation being a porn site and now will get a bunch of money with low dilution for hiring more executives and stuff probably with a stupid plan like "we are going to be the next Twitter" that will fail in like three years.

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#363

Post by adamc »

tmp_anon_22 wrote: post #330
yholio wrote: post #279

I can understand the business reasons for cleaning up the OnlyFans brand. But I can't, for the life of me, understand why they are killing a cash cow instead of spining it off into a side business. Clone the full experience on a dedicated site, OnlyFantasy.com, duplicate the whole userbase, and give a simple warning that I can find my favorite stars on another site. In time, the user bases will diverge naturally depe…

> Yes, the payment processors will bark at the porn site. Move to a more expensive processor for that site only, pay 5%, 10% fee, it doesn't really matter, it's free money. If PH is having trouble processing any form of credit card, a smaller company will have no chance at all. We're seeing a sterilization of legitimate porn on the internet, done by legitimate tax paying western companies. It'll be left to whoever ca…

But also a business opportunity for someone, with high margins.

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#364

Post by dvdkon »

LegitShady wrote: post #205
gtirloni wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do sites like Pornhub get paid then? Why can't OnlyFans switch to whatever provider they use?

pornhub is having exactly this issue. https://bravenewcoin.com/insights/pornhub-crypto-news from february

> "This is good for adoption! Next up, Onlyfans."

Sadly it doesn't seem to be working out as the crypto-enthusiast author might have wanted.

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#365

Post by pandesmos »

admn2 wrote: post #305
gumby wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a friend who ran a “sexually explicit” site you’ve heard of. He was paying north of 25% to payment processors (compare to less than .2% restaurants pay…though his margins were much bigger). The payment processors take this attitude because that way they can tell congress they are “doing something about vice”, and in exchange not be subject to undesired regulations. I suspect this kind of soft pressure is being…

Seems like a business opportunity for someone to build a Stripe for vice businesses. Question I know nothing about is besides being stigmatized, do these industries have higher fraud rates? Pretty sure credit card companies won't let you "chargeback" stripe clubs as fraud even if it wasn't you.

Absolutely higher fraud and chargeback rates.

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#366

Post by miohtama »

admn2 wrote: post #305
gumby wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a friend who ran a “sexually explicit” site you’ve heard of. He was paying north of 25% to payment processors (compare to less than .2% restaurants pay…though his margins were much bigger). The payment processors take this attitude because that way they can tell congress they are “doing something about vice”, and in exchange not be subject to undesired regulations. I suspect this kind of soft pressure is being…

Seems like a business opportunity for someone to build a Stripe for vice businesses. Question I know nothing about is besides being stigmatized, do these industries have higher fraud rates? Pretty sure credit card companies won't let you "chargeback" stripe clubs as fraud even if it wasn't you.

Yes. High value virtual content is the best way to launder money, especially if it is private content like shows.

However unless there exist payment rails outside Mastercard or Visa, no one is going to build ”Stripe.” The only way would be Stripe running on crypto, but then how people get crypto in the first place if not by a card?

EDIT: Crypto also lacks chargebacks (so called hard money).

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#368

Post by jessaustin »

tmp_anon_22 wrote: post #330
yholio wrote: post #279

I can understand the business reasons for cleaning up the OnlyFans brand. But I can't, for the life of me, understand why they are killing a cash cow instead of spining it off into a side business. Clone the full experience on a dedicated site, OnlyFantasy.com, duplicate the whole userbase, and give a simple warning that I can find my favorite stars on another site. In time, the user bases will diverge naturally depe…

> Yes, the payment processors will bark at the porn site. Move to a more expensive processor for that site only, pay 5%, 10% fee, it doesn't really matter, it's free money. If PH is having trouble processing any form of credit card, a smaller company will have no chance at all. We're seeing a sterilization of legitimate porn on the internet, done by legitimate tax paying western companies. It'll be left to whoever ca…

Eventually this will just drive BTC adoption. Perhaps OF had a reason not to go with this option, but other parties will step up.

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#369

Post by TillE »

nonameiguess wrote: post #231
Mindwipe wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very likely the pressure is coming from Visa and MasterCard (especially MC) rather than at the level of CCbill.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Pick a subscription porn site right now, any one, and go try to sign up. You don't have to follow through, just get to the payment page and don't click submit. They all take Visa and MasterCard. CCbill itself couldn't exist if Visa and MasterCard didn't let it process payments for porn.

Yeah exactly. PornHub is the exception, not the rule - they were taking card payments right up until the recent news coverage about illegal content.

Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October

#370

Post by mopsi »

pvarangot wrote: post #314
guerrilla wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your bank can't block shit and has to process whatever transaction you want short of the terrorist watchlist. Is that true?

No. I'm in the US and my bank even blocked sign in bonuses "just to be sure everyone is ok with it because it's a lot of money". Using plain old inter banking transfers for something like OnlyFans subscriptions is suicide and the new APIs like Zelle or Venmo are subject to even more internal regulations than credit cards regarding percentage of fraud transactions/porn.

Seems like it's the cost of fraud protection then. The European SEPA has virtually no fraud protection, unless it was a technical error (duplicate payments etc). The upside is that no-one cares who you transact with. All payments are final.
Post reply on HN