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Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

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Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#41

Post by joegibbs »

bfg_9k wrote: post #28
willprice89 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm the sole owner and only employee of a small business, should I have the right to choose my clients? If so, at what size/scale/level of market capture should I lose my rights?

It's an interesting one - I've always thought that businesses should have no right to refuse business, and it kind of already exists, for example you can't refuse to serve a customer purely on the basis of their skin color. Likewise, if a casino or betting company (ladbrokes, for example) have customers that win too often, I also think it should be illegal to stop them betting. Fundamentally if you're running a busin…

But say you're a concreter, you've worked with a client who's an absolute prick - doesn't do anything illegal exactly but he's a total stickler with your work, calls you all the time with stupid questions, tries to find problems everywhere to justify a discount (despite you having hypothetically done the job perfectly), pays as late as possible. Shouldn't you have the right to not take on another job for this guy?

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#42

Post by phyzix5761 »

bfg_9k wrote: post #39
phyzix5761 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that governments shouldn't provide bailouts without receiving equity for that compensation. The idea that any company is too big to fail undermines the smaller competitors who are making better decisions and have a strategic advantage in surviving economic challenges.

Absolutely. But on the flip side I can also recognise that frankly, governments are terrible at running things. I think a Singapore style model is best - a giant holding company like Temasek that is wholly government funded and owned, but companies owned by the holding company are still beholden to the free market forces, are the best way to go for things like payment processors, airlines, utilities, etc.

As long as the public gets to benefit from the profits these companies make just like any other shareholder. It could be a nice solution to the deficit problem.

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#43

Post by endominus »

bfg_9k wrote: post #28
willprice89 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm the sole owner and only employee of a small business, should I have the right to choose my clients? If so, at what size/scale/level of market capture should I lose my rights?

It's an interesting one - I've always thought that businesses should have no right to refuse business, and it kind of already exists, for example you can't refuse to serve a customer purely on the basis of their skin color. Likewise, if a casino or betting company (ladbrokes, for example) have customers that win too often, I also think it should be illegal to stop them betting. Fundamentally if you're running a busin…

If you run a restaurant and a known dine-and-dasher walks in, can you not refuse to serve them?

If you're a consultant do you have no right to refuse a client? Even if you have other clients you'd rather work for, or that particular client is a bad fit for you, or any other reason?

If you run a transport company, and you think someone is trying to get you to move illegal goods, or goods that you have moral qualms about transporting (such as a vegan being asked to transport livestock for slaughter) do you have no right to refuse?

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#44

Post by sunrunner »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #29
sunrunner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I was using the phrase to broadly mean a service that's intended to be available for use by the general public and with the service itself providing a means to an end without 'public ownership' being part of that (in the same vein as 'public' transport). Not sure if there's a more appropriate term here.

But, effectively, you want to tell other people what to do with their money without taking on any financial risk for those policies. The majority shareholders for Visa are retirement accounts and retail investors. Why does one segment of the public get to tell another segment of the public what to do with their money without putting any skin in the game?

> But, effectively, you want to tell other people what to do with their money without taking on any financial risk for those policies.

For this kind of service (again leaning on a classification as 'public infrastructure') I suppose my answer is yes.

> Why does one segment of the public get to tell another segment of the public what to do with their money without putting any skin in the game?

I'm suggesting that regulation prevents them from _disallowing_ access to payments services for things that are not explicitly illegal. In this case I don't see 'Telling X what to do' and 'Telling X that they're NOT allowed to refuse to provide service in these cases' as the same thing, even though they're both essentially 'Mandating that X operate in a certain way'. The difference here being that refusal of service, while still being a choice about how to run, is explicitly a blocking choice for others in certain situations, and not just a choice to, for example, create a new credit product for the market.

> Why does one segment of the public get to tell another segment of the public what to do with their money without putting any skin in the game?

Is this not also just Collective Shout themselves pressuring the payment processors into refusing transactions from a third party for content that they themselves deem inappropriate?

> The majority shareholders for Visa are retirement accounts and retail investors

Is Visa not refusing a legitimate transaction (non-fraudulent, no rollback or refund) going to hurt these investors when part of their investment income comes from usage fees? And if an investor that has concerns about _how_ their investment makes money is that not now a different issue?

Edit: Added last point about shareholders.

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#45

Post by rachofsunshine »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #29
sunrunner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I was using the phrase to broadly mean a service that's intended to be available for use by the general public and with the service itself providing a means to an end without 'public ownership' being part of that (in the same vein as 'public' transport). Not sure if there's a more appropriate term here.

But, effectively, you want to tell other people what to do with their money without taking on any financial risk for those policies. The majority shareholders for Visa are retirement accounts and retail investors. Why does one segment of the public get to tell another segment of the public what to do with their money without putting any skin in the game?

Because we know that not doing so leads to bad outcomes, and in some cases, to outright catastrophe.

A person who was not invested in subprime mortgages in 2006 had no skin in the game - yet the fact that others did invest in subprime mortgages created instabilities that threatened them. Virtually everyone agrees, in retrospect, that something should have been done then. But it wasn't, with precisely the justification you're articulating here. The problem is that that person did in fact have skin in the game, because the outcome had important ramifications for their life even if those ramifications were not in the form of direct financial losses.

Now, sure, your ability to buy furry porn is very different from sparking a global recession. But you're implicitly articulating a very strong claim here, that you cannot regulate economic activity to which you are not a party. That has a clear counterexample well within the memories of most people reading this thread.

------

I think we agree that private individuals should be able to purchase legal content from the people who produce it. Without action here, that will become either impossible or very difficult, to the point of having a major chilling effect. I think we also agree that businesses should generally have the right to conduct business as they see fit, both because it allows the exploration of new ideas and because market economics is a powerful force for increasing productivity.

To me, that says that there is a tension between two irreconcilable rights. On one side, we have the rights of businesses to act in their economic best interest (which is important!). On the other side, we have the rights of individuals to (actually and with reasonable effort) engage in lawful private microeconomic activity. And when you encounter such a tension, you need to consider:

- How important the rights are

- How much of one you get by sacrificing some of the other

In this case, I would consider the ability of individuals to conduct microeconomic activity more important than the ability of corporations to conduct what is effectively a PR campaign (since no one seems to be of the opinion that payment processors are actually taking a loss on people buying porn, they're just caving to political pressure). And I think the restriction of payment processors here is small compared to the potential restriction on private individuals. So to me, the trade-off has a clear winner.

If you disagree with this chain of reasoning, can you explain where?

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#46

Post by JoshTriplett »

TZubiri wrote: post #33
JoshTriplett wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadly speaking I'd usually agree, except that Visa/Mastercard are a two-company oligopoly at this point, with effectively no meaningful competition. Yes, other payment mechanisms exist, but consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards.

There's a gajillion currencies, banking systems, wallets, crypto, amex. Widen your category definition and you'll see it.

I say again:

> consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards

For the vast majority of online businesses, accepting exclusively crypto, or exclusively bank payments, would result in much less business. Orders of magnitude less business. They are not viable alternatives for the vast majority of purposes.

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#47

Post by [deleted] »

endominus wrote: post #43
bfg_9k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting one - I've always thought that businesses should have no right to refuse business, and it kind of already exists, for example you can't refuse to serve a customer purely on the basis of their skin color. Likewise, if a casino or betting company (ladbrokes, for example) have customers that win too often, I also think it should be illegal to stop them betting. Fundamentally if you're running a busin…

If you run a restaurant and a known dine-and-dasher walks in, can you not refuse to serve them? If you're a consultant do you have no right to refuse a client? Even if you have other clients you'd rather work for, or that particular client is a bad fit for you, or any other reason? If you run a transport company, and you think someone is trying to get you to move illegal goods, or goods that you have moral qualms abo…

[deleted]

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#48

Post by phyzix5761 »

rachofsunshine wrote: post #45
phyzix5761 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, effectively, you want to tell other people what to do with their money without taking on any financial risk for those policies. The majority shareholders for Visa are retirement accounts and retail investors. Why does one segment of the public get to tell another segment of the public what to do with their money without putting any skin in the game?

Because we know that not doing so leads to bad outcomes, and in some cases, to outright catastrophe. A person who was not invested in subprime mortgages in 2006 had no skin in the game - yet the fact that others did invest in subprime mortgages created instabilities that threatened them. Virtually everyone agrees, in retrospect, that something should have been done then. But it wasn't, with precisely the justificatio…

I'm not seeing where private citizens are prevented from engaging in lawful private microeconomic activity when a privately owned payment processor doesn't want to engage in certain transactions. The private citizen has the option to pay cash, bitcoin, trade goods or services, etc. Are these options as convenient in this day and age as tapping a credit card? No, but that doesn't mean everyone is entitled to convenience in every situation.

Also, how do you reconcile the fact that many US citizens, for religious or other reasons, can't in good conscience endorse certain economic exchanges? A government that is supposed to represent the needs of all citizens would fail if it engaged in facilitating transactions that some portion of its population found immoral or inappropriate. The public has no say in private, legal, transactions but public enforcement on private entities is a different story; akin to endorsement.

The best we can do is ensure that private citizens have the freedom to engage in legal transactions. But if we start forcing private entities to participate in every legal transaction, we risk setting a precedent that could backfire. Especially when a future administration decides to enforce or block transactions based on political or ideological grounds that conflict with our own values.

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#49

Post by bfg_9k »

joegibbs wrote: post #41
bfg_9k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting one - I've always thought that businesses should have no right to refuse business, and it kind of already exists, for example you can't refuse to serve a customer purely on the basis of their skin color. Likewise, if a casino or betting company (ladbrokes, for example) have customers that win too often, I also think it should be illegal to stop them betting. Fundamentally if you're running a busin…

But say you're a concreter, you've worked with a client who's an absolute prick - doesn't do anything illegal exactly but he's a total stickler with your work, calls you all the time with stupid questions, tries to find problems everywhere to justify a discount (despite you having hypothetically done the job perfectly), pays as late as possible. Shouldn't you have the right to not take on another job for this guy?

You're right - but in that instance the justification in my mind (and what you'd presumably argue if challenged legally) is that they're difficult to work with - which I'm okay with.

But not wanting to concrete that person's driveway because they're in the army, or because they're a politician or whatever else along those lines I think shouldn't be allowed.

Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors

#50

Post by bfg_9k »

endominus wrote: post #43
bfg_9k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting one - I've always thought that businesses should have no right to refuse business, and it kind of already exists, for example you can't refuse to serve a customer purely on the basis of their skin color. Likewise, if a casino or betting company (ladbrokes, for example) have customers that win too often, I also think it should be illegal to stop them betting. Fundamentally if you're running a busin…

If you run a restaurant and a known dine-and-dasher walks in, can you not refuse to serve them? If you're a consultant do you have no right to refuse a client? Even if you have other clients you'd rather work for, or that particular client is a bad fit for you, or any other reason? If you run a transport company, and you think someone is trying to get you to move illegal goods, or goods that you have moral qualms abo…

Known dine-and-dasher - no, I think you should be forced to serve them. You don't know if they're going to dine and dash you, you're not the police or the courts, punishing a dine and dasher. Your job is to serve food to those who pay you. If you've got a problem, make them pay for food first?

Consultant - unless you've got a legitimate need to reject providing services to them, I tend to think the same, you should have to serve them if they're trying to pay you, or there's a legitimate business need to avoid that client.

Transport company - it's not your job to judge what's being moved. It's your job to move something from A to B. If you want to avoid moving livestock, don't go into the transport business. Should that same vegan be allowed to not teach kids in school because the kids they teach eat ham sandwiches? Should they be allowed to reject someone from banking services just because they own a fur coat?

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