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627 points cratermoon | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.46s | source | bottom
1. tyre ◴[] No.44461419[source]
The author is mad at Stripe and PayPal for banning transactions involving unicorn wieners but this is imposed on them by the backing banks.

The reason behind banning adult materials has to do with Puritanism and with the high rates of refunds on adult websites.

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2. anonzzzies ◴[] No.44461469[source]
I have an issue with Stripe or Paypal banning merchants without recourse that do not sell adult stuff or anything else bad/high refund, just because 'AI flagged the account'. And I know from Paypal that they have used 'AI' (statistics) to flag accounts, without recourse, almost since they started. It did cost us a lot of money; we had no refunds or anything and paypal was simply (in email and on the phone) repeating that there was no recourse. We moved to an EU system which we are using for 15 years now and never had any issues of course (as we never did anything weird, ever); also, I can call them or visit them if anything happens unlike the impersonal big guys. Far cheaper too. Screw paypal & stripe (their fees are an absolute joke, no idea why they are so popular), thanks.
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3. N_Lens ◴[] No.44461552[source]
There's a reason "Paypal mafia" is in the lexicon.
4. movetheworld ◴[] No.44461899[source]
Which EU system did you move to?
5. dspillett ◴[] No.44461934[source]
> no idea why they are so popular

Momentum. They are the big games in town because so many people use them, so many people use them because they are the big games in town. There was a time for both when they didn't suck as much as they do now, at least relative to what other options existed.

6. tavavex ◴[] No.44462167[source]
I still think it's mostly puritanism. "Adult transactions" is a massive category of goods and services, and I'm willing to bet that John the average guy buying an overpriced subscription on generic porn website #729 and regretting it 20 minutes later is much more likely to trigger a refund or chargeback than someone commissioning an artist or buying goods (anything from real-life things to 3D models).

Yet, the payment processors will all reliably treat anything NSFW equally by suppressing it as much as they can. From banning individuals who dare do transactions they don't approve of to directly pressuring websites that might tolerate NSFW content by threatening to take away their only means of making money. If they only cared about refunds and profitability, they wouldn't ban individual artists - because the fact how these artists often manage to stay undetected for years suggests that many of their customers aren't the kind to start complaining.

It's quite fascinating how this is the one area where the companies are willing to "self-regulate". They don't process sales of illicit drugs because the governments above them said no and put in extensive guardrails to make these illegal uses as difficult as reasonably possible. Yet, despite most first-world governments not taking issue with adult content at large (for now), the payment processors will act on their own and diligently turn away any potential revenue they could be collecting.