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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

#391

Post by jamesrr39 »

gruez wrote: post #254
pchangr wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3% AFAIK all credit cards in the EU have similarly low interchange rates because of EU regulation.

0.2%

> Payment service providers shall not offer or request a per transaction interchange fee of more than 0,2 % of the value of the transaction for any debit card transaction.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2015/751/oj/eng

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#392

Post by ethersteeds »

guywithahat wrote: post #298
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.

I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct? This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax docu…

I was under the impression that government sites having "business hours" had as much or more to do with their backends dating from the mainframe era, with nightly batch jobs that take all cpu time or prohibit database writes.

Anyway, I agree that government provided services functioning as you described would be intolerable, but disagree that's somehow inevitable. Rather than expecting government services to be unaccountable monopolies of the "line at the DMV" archetype, what if we expected effective and valuable baseline services of the IRS FreeFile archetype? Or models like unemployment benefits and FDIC insurance, where the government quietly provides citizens an umbrella without limiting access to alternatives?

I strongly resonate with gp's sentiment that when services like email or payment processing become requirements for modern life, ensuring access to them becomes a government prerogative. We're in agreement that it must be a net improvement, not trading one monopoly for another.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#393

Post by [deleted] »

0983736882 wrote: post #336
stego-tech wrote: post #89

The payment processor censorship issue backs up a point I made elsewhere about companies being involved in politics: they shouldn’t be, and shareholders should be screaming with rage that these companies have inserted themselves into these discussions on purpose. They’re payment processors , for crying out loud. Their entire grift is taking a slice of every transaction processed, ergo, the only restriction they shoul…

> If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (including games) Pornography and adult content is fine—the real issue is that gaming storefronts refuse to moderate their platforms for child pornography and rape material and would rather kill their entire NSFW catalog, all while painting themselves as the victims. > If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (inc…

[deleted]

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#394

Post by alphager »

shagie wrote: post #379
efitz wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need Congress to make a law here in the US that businesses involved in facilitating financial transactions in the United States are considered “common carriers” and must not discriminate against, cancel or disadvantage any customer or legal transaction, without a court order. We can write language to allow booting people for fraud, hacking, etc if “legal” + “court order” are insufficient.

How would that work with international money laundering regulations? Would that apply to Australian courts?

If the regulation is legally binding by an act of Congress, it falls under the legal umbrella.

Same thing in AUS: If there's a AUS law, they have to follow it.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#395

Post by rtkwe »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #143
weberer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve. The whole system is set up so one transaction has to go through up to 6 different companies, and they all have to abide by each other's rules. The US Internet Preservation Society explained it recently: >Each of these companies maintains its own terms of service and each of them can block a transaction by…

> was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve Did Mastercard threaten Valve? Or did Valve precomply?

An intermediary between Valve and Mastercard likely was the one that brought it up because they have to comply with those rules, or the rules of someone upstream of them that has to and imports them into their own rules, so they have to interpret vague "brand damage" rules and they err to the conservative side because if they run afoul of the rules they could lose access to process Mastercard transactions ~20% of US transactions, which would really mean losing most of their customers not just the 20% of Mastercard flows.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#396

Post by kansface »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #241
cedws wrote: post #50

I'm glad the Mastercard-Visa duopoly is finally getting some attention, these companies shouldn't be allowed to exercise the financial control they do. Payment infrastructure is not a free market - you can't just choose to pay via some other processor if they turn you down, they ARE the processors. Therefore, they should be under intense scrutiny when they refuse.

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.

What would the post office do with spam? Their existing business model is chiefly predicated on delivering junk mail.

I’m not sure how the federal government would deal with fraud on the payment side, either. The US does not have a strong system of identity.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#397

Post by toast0 »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #318
egypturnash wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Every time we have this discussion someone brings up FedNow, and I will repeat the same question I always ask: when I visit the farmer's market this weekend, will anyone there be able to practically accept payment in FedNow? What would that even look like? (FYI the vendors take most cards, Apple/Google Pay, Venmo, paper cash, Square Cash, Apple Cash, etc.) If the answer is "no for these reasons", then this probably s…

Most likely, what it would look like is they would have a routing and account number posted. You'd go into your bank app and push a payment to those numbers, and they'd say yeah great; not confirm the transaction and everything would probably work out.

Is that satisfying? Not really. Is it possible? Yes.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#398

Post by tr_user »

guywithahat wrote: post #298
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.

I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct? This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax docu…

None of what you say is inherent in a public service.

The DMV often gets singled out as an inefficient system that is emblematic of the failure of public option, but I assure you as someone who's had to deal with a privatized version, you're not getting better service and in fact the fees are much more expensive without recourse or oversight.

The answer to a bad system is a good system. Adding a middleman who is only interested in extracting as much money as possible is rarely the improvement the consultants would have you believe.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#399

Post by scotty79 »

mpalmer wrote: post #295
scotty79 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know how it works because connecting your bank account to your phone can be crappy and fiddly as it goes through Visa/Mastercard. But it works that way just to ride on customers of legacy systems. It doesn't have to work that way if you bring your own customers. It would have to start online of course and eventually move through phones to the real world. I don't trust Paypal, at all, because its brand is damaged be…

It seems like you're treating your personal knowledge and preferences as the basis for Valve to take on an entirely new source of revenue and risk. It's a fantasy. Even if 100% of Valve's user base cared as much as you (they do not), why would Valve take on the massive risk of connecting to its users' bank accounts? Of having to collect on debts? etc.

> It's a fantasy.

Of course.

> Of having to collect on debts?

Why would they need to do that? "Credit" part of credit card is completely irrelevant when it comes to payment systems. It's a trick to milk the customers. Why would Valve lower themselves to that level?

My point is, with crystal clear, pro-consumer reputation Valve could be real alternative to gambling industry of Google Play store, payday loan business of VISA/MasterCard and gym membership style of extortion of other services. And betting on consumer was a recipe for success for Valve so far.

Why would they try? Because it's always good to 10x your revenue.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#400

Post by scotty79 »

numpad0 wrote: post #192
scotty79 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't cards last century technology? I'm paying with my phone anyways. Seller can use phone as well. Why does it need to involve incumbent banks and terminal providers at all? If Valve started something like that the banks would bang on its door relentlessly just to not be left out of the loop. Gaming is the business bigger than movies, music and books combined and Valve is Google of games.

The backend of electronic payment is a huge mess of microservices, and lots of those services has portions of infra shared with Visa/Mastercard. So whichever alternative service you use is likely vulnerable to the same pressure.

The point is to cut MasterCard and Visa out of the loop entirely. Payment systems in many countries don't have them as intermediary. Payments in China work perfectly well without them. Or in Germany. Even Poland has widely used alternative payment scheme. With future European digital currency a lot of commerce will be done completely without any involvement from Visa and MasterCard.
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