You don’t need exchanges.

I mean, it’s a nanny organization called Collective Shout that is claiming responsibility for these recent product bans/removals. They just pressured the payment processors instead of the companies who own the stores this time. And it worked.

The nanny group sucks the most here. The payment processors suck for acquiescing to the nanny group, and everyone else sucks for acquiescing to the payment processors.

They care about bad PR. Angry, organized people can create lots of bad PR.

Look, this whole subthread is jumping to conclusions based on speculation. Maybe they are using legal strategies, but that’s not obvious.

Changing payment processors/engaging a new one is anything but a short term thing to implement. Otherwise Mastercard and Visa wouldn’t be in this situation to have this level of control to begin with.

Don’t believe that either.

I’m not jumping to conclusions, I’m asking questions.

I get your point, but the stores are still caving. They are still playing ball and banning things. That needs to be remembered too.

The payment processors have the final say and have done this multiple times in the past, i wouldnt be surprised of the “nanny” was secretly paid by them to find this shit for them to censor.

If 50 Cent could sell album for crypto from his nothing website a decade ago I feel like Valve has the technical wherewithal to implement one of 1,000 preexisting checkout solutions in the short term.

I think selling steam giftcards (an existing solution they’re already using) at a markdown to expand that business would be pretty viable for a company that regularly marks their products down by up to 90%.

They could literally do both of these almost instantly as preferred options while still accepting the big cards.

Unfortunately, the alternative is that they cease to exist almost instantly. This is what happens when we allow monopolies and trusts.

What exactly would they demand from them? A cryptocurrency exchange is not like a credit card company which has a direct relationship with every customer and vendor and is in direct control of transactions, instead they just handle buying and selling of decentralized currencies which are transacted permissionlessly on their own networks.

It’s a lot more like cash, especially the ones designed for privacy.

That said, stablecoins might also be a target, since they have freeze functions, I could see that becoming a problem.

Yeah it wasn’t the internet’s fault that it became a ponzi scheme for techbros. Bitcoin got co-opted from its original use first, then became a laughingstock.

I don’t buy that, why would they have to care what these people think? Credit card companies have a history of being hostile to adult content, I think it’s because the people who own them have an interest in controlling others.

It turned out to be exactly what it was designed to be, a tool for making financial transactions online without needing anyone’s permission.

Some additional context to my previous comment: I work tech in the financial industry. I have some experience with payment processors and the stupid amount of bullshit around all this stuff. “They could do both of these things almost instantly” is a big assumption holding the entirety of the weight for your argument.

Anyway.

50 Cent was doing a one off publicity stunt, not trying to ensure continued existence as a company. How many mainstream artists are still doing that? I shouldn’t have to say that this is very much an apples and oranges comparison.

Your other idea has legs, but it’s still suggesting that Valve try entering a game of financial chicken with Visa and Mastercard. Effectively infinite money. And in the meantime most users would just be pissed off at Valve for making it harder to buy anything. We’re already seeing people attack itch.io for not standing up instead of bei g pissed at the payment processors.

Valve can’t make purchasing through a different processor a requirement for some games but not others because Visa and Mastercard said “stop selling games with this content entirely, or we stop processing your transactions entirely”. So anything they do will have to effect all transactions.

I’m frustrated Valve didn’t do more, and that they’ve not made any public statements about trying to fight this, but Valve isn’t just leaving money on the table because they’re lazy or dumb.

So you have a pair of strawmen there.

1. I’m not advocating for a single solution today to ensure the continued existance of the company. A supplementary strategy is completely viable and could be implemented in the short term. They have the all the resources they could possibly need from a technical and legal framework already. They may need to tinker with the financial backend, but it’s hardly an insurmountable challenge. If they can figure out proton, they can figure out plugging one of 1000 existing solutions into their checkout (Before we have another strawman I’m not saying those are the same thing, I’m saying they have a history of being smart, resourceful, problem solvers).

If that off the cuff, apples to oranges, example is too silly by a third, how about the entire US canibus industry? They’ve been prohibited from using the federal banking system and seem to be making ends meet alright.

If you work in the space then you know they’re going to have more and better solutions down the line. The EU is looking for solutions to circumvent the big US processors. Alipay and WeChat pay can already circumvent US credit card processors, and have made significant inroads in the US.

2. I’m not advocating for trying to split content by payment processor. Though I know others have. Right now they probably have to comply and they will need to continue using the major payment processors for the foreseeable future, but while those payment processors can prohibit “immoral” content, they can not prohibit Valve from including, and promoting competing payment solutions. They probably can’t even stop them from giving other processors preferential treatment.

I AM taking the position that unless they do something… Anything… A first turn out of the driveway to be 10% less dependent on alternative means of payment processing, there will never be a path to being 100% free from coersion.

They could be doing things today and right now it doesn’t look like they are.

Valve is estimated to be a multi billion dollar organization with a per head profit of 3.5 million. They have an extremely captive audience that’s deeply financially invested in the platform and would jump through a lot of hoops to keep using it. Pretending they’re helpless and shouldn’t be troubled to start steering in a pro-consumer direction just because they don’t have a 100% solution today is defeatist bullshit.

If Valve told the card companies to go fuck themselves then they would have never pulled support.

It was always a bluff, Visa and MC would never let go of that money over something so petty.

So yeah, I also blame the billion dollar corporations that rival the card companies bending to their demands.

Where did you ask a question in this reply chain?

Not me but

How do they apply pressure though?

Copy the whole thing:

How do they apply pressure though? (they threaten to sue)

Beside the fact that it wasn’t even you, they made a specific answer to that question as if it was authoritative. They were not “just asking questions”, either.

Payment Providers have been doing this for a longer time.

In 2010 for example they blocked donations towards WikiLeaks.