In days of yore, Visa did processing on IBM iron. The iron in question took a while to boot, and time is very definitely money to Visa and they wanted to speed up reboots (e.g., after a crash). Saving seconds = $$$.

Visa to IBM: "Please give us the source code for the <boot path stuff>, it's costing us money."

IBM: LOL

Visa to some big banks: "Please tell IBM to give us the source code for this, it's costing you money."

IBM, a little later: "Here's a tape. Need any help?"

Visa is a clearing house whose members are banks. Think of it like a payment router between issuers (banks) and processors (banks).

Only sponsored organizations can directly use the "Visa rails", where "sponsor" is defined as a bank, a bank subsidiary, or an entity previously sponsored by one of the other two.

This is also the case for MasterCard and Discover. "Traditional" American Express is different though.

> Amazon, Walmart, Target and then increasingly unsure.

Those merchants use banks or one of their subsidiaries for processing credit card transactions. Most large merchants do as well in order to minimize their discount rate as well as other transaction fees. Smaller merchants often use ISO's or VAR's for business specific reason, knowing both ultimately transact with a bank or one of a bank's subsidiaries.

> Only thing that works is partnering up with existing bank

Could Visa just reject payments from this bank and kill your whole thing?

Regards: Game dev who cares about conservation and doesn't like chilling effects.

That attitude has recently become normalized, and I find it Concerning(TM).

But, in what way do you think those opposing “extreme” content being consumed by their fellow citizens are silent? State governments across the country are clamoring to censor all sorts of things, presumably to satisfy their constituents.

Try buying a second hand car and you want cash from the bank. Used to be very easy, but now you need to declare what your spending your money on.

You sold your car. O, its over 7 or 10k, well, this is getting reported to the local IRS. Where is that cash coming from, questions, questions?

Over here they are even cracking down on stuff like ebay, amazon because some people run a business on those sites and do not report the taxes. Result: If you make over 3k in the year on ebay, you need to provided your tax number, or ebay closes your account. And above 3k, it get reported to the IRS.

But wait, what happens if your a foreign national from some specific Asian countries and want to open a bank account? Refused, refused, refused... But you need a bank account for a lot of basic things. Well, tough luck. Lets not talk account closing issues.

And that is the EU, and just normal people. Nothing tax evasion, guns, or whatever. Just everybody putting up umbrella's to be sure, not understanding that when everybody does it, it really screws with people.

They are going crazy with this over regulation. Yes, i understand you want to fight black money but the people who get the big amounts will have ways to hide it. Your just hurting the normal people wanting to know what everybody is doing exactly with every cent.

You see this gradual effort to slowly phase out cash. Cashless payment are getting encouraged, cash withdrawals cost your money more and more, more questions regarding origins (so you say f it, and use bank deposits with release approvals).

Its not a surprise that we seen the increase in cryto usage (and the efforts of governments to control that also).

My understanding is that payment processors are obligated to follow the policies of Visa/MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover, but that those parties' policies don't explicitly ban these specific things for sale. Instead, they "strongly encourage" processors to ban them in their user agreements under the implicit threat of their risk level being increased, which in turn impacts the fees they pay to the credit card companies.

I've not been deep in this world since ~2014, but at that time the only processor I could find that wasn't specific to the porn industry, offered physical terminals, had reasonable (if high) fees, and didn't ban legal transactions in their user agreement was PAI ("Payment Alliance International"). A quick look at their site today shows that they seem to have been acquired by Brinks, so that may no longer be the case.

There are other payment processors in India/Japan/China/Brazil/etc. But none of them is internationally adopted like Visa/Mastercard.

Also that's not a reason to ban certain genres/kinks, which is what's happening here.

But it is possible that Visa sensibly and correctly said "anyone who makes or purchases such a game is a despicable scumbag, and we shouldn't assume the financial risk of dealing with them."

But then the blocks got full, fees and wait times skyrocketed, and in response to the customer backlash Steam removed Bitcoin.

Meanwhile Bitcoiners were (and still are) only focused on number go up instead of other, more productive, use cases.

Such a waste.

Fraud is likely more realistic of an issue, but that's probably an issue with games in general, not just adult titles.

There are already high-risk merchant accounts with higher fees and cash reserve requirements, but AFAIK companies like Valve aren't being given any options other than comply or be destroyed.

Given Valve's generous refund policies, and the fact that a steam store purchase on your credit card statement looks quite innocent, and that the credit card companies didn't complain to Valve about chargebacks but about content, my guess is there are hardly any chargebacks, and this is just about moral purity.

This is part of a long-term plan to de facto ban lgbtq content without having to deal with first amendment protections. First have the payment processors ban explicit content, then have queer content categorized as explicit.

I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to that degree of detail would describe themselves as both feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life.

If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on.

The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US party dichotomy doesn't come close to covering it.

I consider myself an AnCap (shocking given my username, I know), but grew up here surrounded by Republicans. I fit in well enough overall because this is where I developed my "social mask" in the first place. I lived in a community with nearly directly opposite politics (Charlottesville, VA) for a few years and found that I fit in pretty well with that crowd as well.

I share enough with both parties that I can have conversations on things that I agree with them on and connect to the point that they assume that I'm "one of them". Invariably, once conversation turns to other topics I'm accused of being a member of the other party. It's to the point that it amuses me when it happens, and I frankly enjoy being in a place where I can connect with most everyone and serve as a sort of translator: I've spent enough time "in enemy territory" from their perspectives that I can explain the other side's position fairly and with empathy while explicitly not holding that position. It makes for stimulating conversation with little risk of offense.

merchants don't deal with mastercard, they deal with an acquiring bank

of which there are hundreds

no doubt one of which will be happy to take the business