Why not use something like plaid and then do direct bank transfers rather than use credit cards. You could also accept cryptocurrencies. This decision will kill their business
OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
821–830 of 1001 posts
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#822The sub-headline is more interesting: "The company will prohibit users from posting any sexually explicit conduct, starting in October. Creators will still be allowed to post nude photos and videos, provided they’re consistent with OnlyFans’ policy"
It sounds like they're trying to thread the needle and be Instagram with titties, or take up the tasteful softcore torch that Playboy used to carry.
Tasteful softcore like the programmer's test image? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#823Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that OF is not all in on crypto payments is a massive indictment of crypto as a payment mechanism.
Even if OF could accept crypto, they'd still need an off-ramp back into fiat. They can't operate only on crypto, even just stablecoins, which is itself the indictment of crypto.
Ah.. DeFi only exists because of CeFi.
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#824Wow, you spend years thinking crypto is convoluted nonsense…and then something comes along that impacts a lot of your friends, and you start to change your mind. I have a fair number† of friends and acquaintances who have OnlyFans. Some for side income, some for a substantial portion of their livelihood. And to see that get taken away because the payment processors want them to fall in line…I guess I’m on the crypto…
I worked at a webcam pornography company (as a software engineer) a few years ago and honestly, I get it from the processors perspective. I wasn't privy to all the conversations, but I know at the time, some higher ups were toying around with the idea of basically building an entire in house payment processor to handle transactions. I think a lot of people think the processors are doing this out of some moral high gr…
The dispute rate is certainly true for companies under the general umbrella of “subscription services”, usually meaning porn / webcam sites, and there are trigger points where the payment processor will switch off a facility that exceeds a certain dispute volume.
OF has been increasingly making use of step-up authentication to avoid disputes, which is the way the non-US payments industry is heading. My guess would be that if disputes are in fact the reason, it’ll be because the step-up authentication isn’t available or working for some significant slice of the market.
That said, I don’t think that’s the reason. Switching off porn altogether means the vast majority(citation needed) of OF’s content will be gone, which means this has to be a life-or-death move. MC has been placing legality/consent/age restrictions on adult content, including real-time monitoring of content / chat [0]. My guess is that this is onerous enough that it breaks OF’s business model.
[0] https://www.webshield.com/post/mastercard-introduces-revised...
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#825Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> 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 can operate beyond those constraints, which is kind of a sad state of affairs for free speech, separation of church and state, and policing in general. Welcome to the "free(…
I refuse to believe this is some free market issue of payment processors wanting the right to not interact with businesses they find morally objectionable.
This is about liability and regulation. The processors are scared to process these transactions. It's not that they don't want to.
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#826Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked at a webcam pornography company (as a software engineer) a few years ago and honestly, I get it from the processors perspective. I wasn't privy to all the conversations, but I know at the time, some higher ups were toying around with the idea of basically building an entire in house payment processor to handle transactions. I think a lot of people think the processors are doing this out of some moral high gr…
I have seen several times stories on HN about the problems porn sites has with processors, but I never heard that gambling sites had the same issues. It would be interesting to hear more about that.
It's probably as simple as:
1. Addict puts $1000 into gambling site via their credit card
2. Addict loses $1000 in the next few minutes at gambling site
3. Addict realizing they can't afford it files a charge-back
4. Addict repeats cycle anyway
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#827Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 e…
Yeah I kept reading about chargebacks in USA so I tried to initiate one on a Visa card in New Zealand and it was a 6-week arduous process requiring a shitload of documentation. It didn't seem worth it for my purposes.
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#828Earlier quoted context omitted.
TFA: > OnlyFans is getting out of the pornography business. HN: s/of the pornography //
>TFA: >> OnlyFans is getting out of the pornography business. >HN: > s/of the pornography //. …is getting out business?
Ay, yes, I was, you know, just making an off-hand comment.
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#829Earlier quoted context omitted.
If crypto was actually a viable alternative they wouldn't be doing this. I'm not against the promises of crypto - but the tech so far has failed to deliver anything but a platform to streamline illegal activity, asset speculation bubbles and a whole bunch of wasted energy/hardware along with reliving the problems people had historically with bank fraud in free banking and the likes (banks printing their own notes wit…
The tech is there but mainstream adoption and understanding is still coming along. It's incredibly easy and cheap to send USDC or DAI to OnlyFans if they accept tokens on a sidechain (like Polygon or Fantom). You don't have to sign up for an account or provide any personal info, just use your wallet to send certain tokens to an address, then you can use that wallet as a sign-in. OnlyFans can then use Coinbase or an o…
> It's incredibly easy and cheap to send USDC or DAI to OnlyFans if they accept tokens on a sidechain (like Polygon or Fantom).
I'm a pretty techy guy but in this one sentence alone you said 5 things that I have no idea about nor even heard of ("USDC", "DAI", "sidechain", "Polygon", "Fantom").
The chance of the general population catching onto this stuff anytime soon is slim.
Re: OnlyFans to block sexually explicit videos starting in October
#830Earlier quoted context omitted.
OF is a creator platform at heart and not necessarily tied to sexually explicit content except by reputation. There is a likely a huge non-porn market for helping creators of all types monetize their content. The question will be if they can actually get people to completely change their mind about what the platform is for.
I agree that there's a huge non-porn market that's likely largely preferable, but said market is already on Patreon which, I think most people would agree, is overall a better platform to begin with.
Honestly OnlyFans has a more reliable website with better UX. Patreon was there first and isn't bad enough to give creators an reason to move, but I don't think it's "better".