Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
173 comments
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It's only a matter of time before they come for furry stuff. They did it with fansly. It's apparently "simulated bestiality" and from what I've heard you aren't even allowed to reference trans puppy girls, pup play, etc without getting banned.
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Wait, puppy play would get you banned? Isn't that just, like, wearing funny ears and walking around on hands and knees or whatever? Maybe at most a tail buttplug? I don't really get the appeal myself, but it seems pretty damn benign.
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That's different than cub stuff right?
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Yes. Cub stuff can be banned for all I care.
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I wouldn't really care if Steam decided to crack down on porn games, its their store. Payment processors being the ones to force Valve's hands simply doesn't sit right.
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I didn't know this till I heard a podcast series about this, but the global rulemakes for porn are Visa and Mastercard. They decide what "goes too far" and remove a site from their service if they don't like it, effectively cutting off all revenue streams and killing the site. They did this with porn sites and threatened OnlyFans. There are a bunch of rules they've written for the industry (e.g. fingering an orofice with4 fingers was acceptable, but when the thumb goes in then it becomes "fisting" and this used to be unacceptable), but many rules are unwritten and have to be guessed.
I think this is the podcast series for anyone interested (although I heard this a long time ago and I'm not sure if it was a different series and I'm not going to listen again to confirm).
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yup they did this a LONG time ago with porn sites and DVD sales. I used to work in that industry as a web developer in the early 00s. Third party billers specifically set up for the porn industry thrived because of this.
there were many silly rules like you said, no fisting, at most two fingers in the asshole, Incest was "OK" as long as it was "step-" whatever BUT you could get away with it if you laid the ground work initially and say "step-mom" or whatever and then later on just say "mom". Step-Dad was...hit or miss if you could get away with it. Scat was a no go BUT piss was ok IF it was from Europe, sorry US folks, you're not allowed to piss on each other and film it in the good ol United States according to Visa and Mastercard. Finally some stuff like gang bangs or "abuse" porn was fine AS LONG as the girl at the end of the video has a mini interview claiming what a great time she had while covered in jizz. Visa and Mastercard needed to ensure this lady enjoyed herself.
fucking really dumb rules and I would have LOVED to be a fly in the room when Visa and Mastercard lawyers came up with these things.
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This might sound like a good idea. But it is not, since lets say some topic is too sensitive for the payment processor, then they have monopoly on what game can and can not be allowed on Steam.
So in the long run, this is a bad idea.
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Not a fan of porn games (which aren't available here anyway), but that is not a good sign.
Why would they even cater to payment providers? They should not be able to determine whether you bought a porn game or a regular game, just that it's something on Steam.
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Payment processors don't know which game you bought. That's not the concern.
Their concern is that the store they do business with provides services to content they deem inappropriate. Frankly, I'm surprised they allowed this much for so long given the past.
Why credit card processors are puritans, I have no idea. But MC, Visa and PayPal have historically always been super anti-porn.
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They act puritan to help facilitate business in more restricted cultures like China or Vietnam. Allowing everything that is allowed in the most liberal countries wouldn't loose them their marketshare in those countries. Disallowing it though, that opens those foreign markets with minimal negative effect to their processing volume. How many people are going to blame visa for this? Most will just blame Steam who is just conforming to the standards the processors set.
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That is exactly why I don't understand why they have an issue with it.
They do not know if someone is using the store to buy porn games. So why care? Their concern should be profit, not national driven policies.
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I hope that the EU creates a digital currency system that is universal, and for privacy coins to become common. I don't want to deal with American payment processors, because they want to prevent me from supporting the people who make my life better.
Payment should be a dumb pipe, allowing me and you to uphold the social contract.
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Ability to pay for anything legal implies accountability. I doubt payment processors are creating these rules because they're afraid of Jesus.
They just did the math and there's probably a ton of disputes/chargebacks on certain content.
Should two consenting adults be able to pay each other for whatever the fuck - absolutely. But dumb pipe only sounds really good until you get scammed.
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I doubt payment processors are creating these rules because they're afraid of Jesus
For starters, the biggest owners of both Visa and Mastercard are Mormons, so...
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I hope too, but likely will be shut down by the US, for "unfair state meddling with the free market".
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First they came for the incestuous porn
Then they came for the furries
Then they came for games with violence
Then...
Then...
Then... -
So… why tell payment processors exactly what was purchased? Why not call it “Steam store transaction” and that’s it?
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Ironically, when you look at the receipts that is all it says.
I think they're just blanket saying "follow our morals or die" rather than "this particular title offends us".
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Oh, okay. Still sucks, but at least I understand now. Thanks!
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in some previous times something like this happened (I forgot specifically which), visa/mastercard would deny all payments with a platform until whatever offended them was removed (don't know if they only threatened that or actually followed through)
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Steam should accept bitcoin or some other crypto as default for all titles and only use card for "safe" titles
Steam users are mostly tech savvy enough to do it
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Steam used to accept Bitcoin, they stopped when the transaction fees made it unusable. Every time I remember that I get really pissed off, had the block size been increased back then Bitcoin would still be accepted in the many places it was (Steam wasn't the only one, lots of stores online used to accept it), but because they kept promising a magic solution that never manifested people lost hope and jumped ship (which did solved the problem as nowadays only investors use Bitcoin, so a lot less transactions, a lot more value in them, and higher fees matter less)
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well now we have lightning maybe the time has come to try again.
Having already had an implementation working should hopefully help
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Can I send them an unmarked envelope with enough money to buy the games I want, with only my username in the envelope?
That would be cool.
But agreed, I think steam should accept crypto.
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They had Bitcoin integration for quite a while. It was removed during a system change, probably because very few people used it
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i had no idea and i've held crypto in some form or another since 2014. Maybe it wasnt marketed well
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This is actually a really good idea. The people that want these kinda games are either underage horndogs on their parents computer, or able to use crypto.
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Still waiting for NANO to become widespread 💀
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Ted Cruz in shambles
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No worries, Sex With Hitler is still available for purchase.
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Wait a minute, PayPal is pulling puritanical bullshit again? Did they learn nothing from the last time they tried that?
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This has been a thing for at least ten years now. Credit card and money processor companies have policied content for ages. That's why it's hard in some ways to pay for porn. They fucking strong arm and moralize. To be fair I only have like one game on steam that's smut but since it was snow days I'm betting it will be removed.
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You know what? I'm going to buy some yaoi on steam out of spite. Spite yaoi.
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There is a lot of talk dancing around the issue here. This isn't an American thing or a Puritan thing. This is purely a capitalism thing. They have been doing this for years. Do you think lolicon got forced off of every major platform for moral reasons? It breaks laws in various counties that the web hosts and payment processors operate in. Wincest porn, CNC porn, Zoo Porn, NSFL stuff. It's all illegal somewhere. These companies are chasing profits. Those niche topics mentioned above lock them out of expanding into some places. Like China. They don't give a fuck about the ethics of the content. They care that they're loosing money by not being able to conduct business in those markets. They care that hosting it makes them a target and possible have to deal with law enforment of some country, fines, or vigilante style attacks on their network. You'll loose your little family harem video game. They don't care. They're making billions processing the main narket. It's capitalism and the global economy that's making your platforms more conservative.
"It's just good business." It pisses me off.
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It's not unrelated to the puritanical thing. Otherwise they wouldn't be afraid of losing money facilitating payments for porn.
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After looking at the game list, I fully support this and urge anyone who doesn't to look at the banned games.
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yup. there's a whole bunch of people who will cry 'but this slippery slope' - sorry your incest twins use too much lube, that freaky slope is your problem, not Steam's. get over yourselves. it's a private company, nothing compels it to carry your daddy twins incest shit.
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It doesn't matter what was banned. It could be the most heinous shit imaginable and payment processors dictating what is allowed to exist would still be horrible.
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If the US used something like pix, MasterCard, visa, etc, wouldn't have any power to do this, but they want to make Brazil delete pix from existence. Interesting.
Edit: grammar
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But how could the poor little multi billon dollar multinational companies keep thier bully monopolies if they have competent competition /sarcasm/
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The central bank facilitating electronic cash flow makes so much more sense than letting random foreign corporations siphon billions in profit they clearly don't deserve in the slightest from your economy.
Good on Brazil for breaking free. There's finally been some push here in the EU for EPI/Wero, but progress has been frigid and online payment processing remains extremely fragmented to the point that if I buy something online outside the Benelux with a small vendor, chances are very high I will have to fall back to an American payment processor, which is insane.
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I wish I could use that as an American. I trust Brazil more than I trust America
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Hey if you want to goon and not pay might I suggest F95zone a wonderful porn game forum with a very good search system. I think it's the dot to that's the proper site, but it's hard to think right now because everything hurts for no fucking reason.
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Payment providers are run by fuckin’ puritans…
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If you can't buy these games on Steam anymore, where can you buy them?
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JAST, Kagura, DlSite, Itch, Patreon, and GOG are some vendors. I recommend JAST and Kagura, since they are dedicated to perverse games. DlSite is good if you want to buy Japanese exclusive games, and then pirate the unofficially translated versions.
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either patreon or itch-io. But it does depend on the creator. You’ll find many Japanese games on dl-site for example.
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I don't mind these games existing, but I'm also not going to be too sad if they leave steam, ngl.
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new gamestore named Steaming Hot
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A rare L for Steam.
Not exactly their fault, but I wonder what changed that made them start caring.
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Probably the last tweet that was posted on this thread, if PayPal was denying purchases in certain regions than steam would get scared
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That was kinda what I was alluding to. Apparently it worked before that, but they decided to make up extra rules or turned up enforcement.
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Oh shit, I saw that the original Leisure Suit Larry games are no longer for sale... wonder if this is why?
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Naw. That's a rights issue, however they are available on GOG.
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Does this mean they got rid of that one game where you drug your sister/wife repeatedly so a guy in the hallway doesn't kill you?
12 Minutes that's what it was called !
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I thought you were talking about Crusader Kings III
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Does it count as repeatedly when its in a time loop?
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I would argue that since the game requires you to do it multiple times to figure out what's going on, yes it does count as repeatedly.
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Finally good news
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While the effect of not having as much random porn on steam is kinda nice, the underlying reasons for this are fucking horrifying because it's further proof that some giant american companies (visa, paypal, mastercard) are the global morality police.
And it's just random porn subgenres getting removed anyway so it kinda does nothing about the flood of those anyway.
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It won't be random - MasterVisa attacks the more 'vile' genres first to establish precedent, then they will start to persecute LGBTQ+ sexuality. The endgame is to define your everyday life, including whom you are allowed to love.
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While the effect of not having as much random porn on steam is kinda nice, the underlying reasons for this are fucking horrifying because it’s further proof that some giant american companies (visa, paypal, mastercard) are the global morality police.
They have been for decades. You just aren't going to see news stories anywhere major when what's being banned by the morality police is something like loli or zoo content, but stuff no one wants to publicly defend are targeted first to set precedent to justify anything else they might want to ban later.
See the H.L. Mencken quote about defending scoundrels.
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While the effect of not having as much random porn on steam is kinda nice
There's a box you have to check in your settings to even see it. Just turn that off if you don't want to see it.
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Payment platforms have problems with incest and furry content from the looks of that list.
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If they’re going to enforce that rule impartially, they’ll have to ban Crusader Kings III as well.
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Is national payment processing the solution?... International public payment processing?
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I’m equally cautious and curious… Redemption of Li Wei…?
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Is it just me, or does the first photo seem to read that the payment processor standards and the removal of invest games are unrelated? Like, games removed that violate payments processor standards removed. At the same time, incest games are removed too.
With the paragraph break it feels unclear that these incest games are likely in violation of the standards, and instead that they are seperate matters and in fact payments processors may not care about incest games at all.
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It’s just you.
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I was gonna get The Adventures of Kincaid,a furry porn game where you can screw several characters and enemies when you defeat them. The player character is female, and the sex is framed as the character patching up defeated enemies.
There is a similar free game called Naughty Rabbit by a Japanese developer called Be Kon Box... but it is kinda rapey until you realize the females can refuse sex if you don't do it right, which makes me wonder if the sexual dynamics of the world involve kicking ass as courtship before screwing. Also he added some dynamics where the female enemies sexually assault the male player character. Its kinda fascinating.
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Link post about this thing an hour earlier - 10 upvotes. Picture with the same news one hour later - 10x more. Average Lemmy user is no longer distinguishable from a Reddit user :(
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What are you complaining about here exactly?
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I’m complaining about the state of things.
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G*mers and GabeN throwing a shit fit right now.
GabeN going to buy more Aston Martins to crash.
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Or maybe using the payment processor's TOS allows them to remove pervy Ai horseshit without having to mod their own TOS. Slam dunk, frankly:
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As long as I get to keep my VR Paradise
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Or maybe using the payment processor's TOS allows them to remove pervy Ai horseshit without having to mod their own TOS.
Slam dunk, frankly.
173 comments
On the one hand, oh noz, the incest games. Who will live without the low effort AI goon crap?
On the other hand, why do the payment companies get to dictate what sales are made? It's my fucking money, or my fucking store. It's not the job of the payment processors to determine if I'm buying illegal goods, just that the money goes from me to the store.
It's been like this for a while in the porn industry. In an interview a while back, Bree Mills says she gets more limited by payment processors than the government (though that might be switching).
Ever wonder why every faux-incest video goes out of the way to say everyone is a step family? Step father, step daughter, step mother, step brother, all somehow living in the same house, over 18, and no blood relation? The first amendment protects them from the US government, so that's not why. Credit card companies are why. The old Taboo series was distributed differently back in the day. Can't make that anymore.
This also applies to some of the more extreme BDSM stuff, like blood play or scat. Won't find them on kink.com.
Yeah, processors and web hosts both play a huge role in policing content. The beasiality and lolicon websites haven't been disappearing for the last 15 years because moral awakening. It's been the web hosts shutting down websites because they violate some local law and it interfered with there profits.
Well in germany doing porn that implies incest or csam even if the actors are not related or over 18 can still get you jail time
The payments can become a legal liability for the processors. I believe there are federal laws that have penalties for anyone who facilitates transactions for certain prohibited goods or services. It's the same reason cannabis shops have such a hard time getting payment and banking services.
The payment processors have very little incentive to take risks here. As others have noted, there isn't much competition pressure.
EDIT: I went to find a source, and found the cannabis analogy isn't right. Seems that Visa and MasterCard really are the primary censors of the porn industry. This archived FT article went in depth. https://archive.ph/zXKuD
It's not even legal risk. It's brand risk.
There's a difference with cannabis shops because that's actually still federally illegal. As such, the required business accounts and tax documents required to use a national payment processor are often not forthcoming. It's a low level regulation that you can't generally tell a federal bank you'd like an account to store the proceeds of a federal crime.
With porn, the legal standards and protections are pretty well established. As long as the company is in possession of the required tax documents and business accounts, there's no legal risk beyond the standard due diligence they need to do for every customer. Visa isn't generally liable if a tire shop is discovered to be breaking a non-financial law. What processors don't want is to have their brand attached to something that they worry could make them look bad.
Not really. In the US, the first amendment protects a lot. Just like with YouTube censorship, capitalism has created a more restrictive regime through financial pressure than the government does. This has affected the porn industry, as well (see another comment in this subthread on that).
They are just testing their power, make you get used to it. Someday they will make pressure for some ideology. Whenever there's a morality argument in place prepare to get fucked.
As a form of protest, we should all start scooping up incest porn games.
Found Jamie Lannister's account.
Why shouldn't the payment processors get a say in the payments they process? Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities instead of acquiescing to their demands.
Imagine you can't use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
Because it's none of their business what I buy. If a store is a reputable business that isn't defrauding me, and are a legal entity, then whatever they sell to me or I buy from them should only matter to me and the seller.
So half the market can get nuked once the CEO decides whatever faith du jour they have disallows whatever?
Because they're a financial institution, not an individual. They don't have beliefs.
Arguing that corporate "beliefs" (image management) and interests take priority over societal order is ridiculous.
We regulate banks and financial institutions all the time. We regulate businesses all the time.
They should suck it up and treat businesses with legal activities and proper tax documents as just another business. Kinda like how we have laws that say that public shipping companies need to generally treat all customers the same. It's why they don't typically ask what's in the box aside from questions related to operational characteristics. Porn doesn't spontaneously ignite and threaten an aircraft, but lithium batteries can.
Because corporate religions are obviously more important than individual religions and beliefs. It goes against my beliefs to pay overdraft fees. Do you think that shit would hold up? They are constantly changing the rules that you have to follow and enforcing their will on everyone whether they use their service or not.
Religion is vile.
Because it’s not their fucking money! If someone is selling a thing, offers to sell it to me for money, and I give them money, I get the fucking thing! The processors can fuck right off with their Victorian bullshit.
Things of questionable moral value have been available for sale for as long as money has existed. It’s not like this is new. Payment processors got into this business knowing perfectly well that some purchases may not align with their moral values. In fact, they’ve been profiting off it for decades. They don’t get to suddenly clutch their pearls now.
To be clear, I won’t miss the incest games. I just don’t like the precedent this is setting.
Because they hold an effective monopoly over the payment process.
Because I'm not a right-libertarian who ignores how corporations setup coercive structures all their own in a perversion of free association.
In a world without regulation etc... maybe. Bottom line we've given payment processors power. Bottom line we need to buy things in the digital world, unless crypto can actually be stabilized or designed in a way that doesn't require an unsustainable massive energy waste and polution to use.
There either needs to be a universal good as cash payment processor that anyone can easily use... or we need to force ones that exist to transfer payments without bias.
Because they're functionally a utility. If they want to throw their weight around they should be forced to compete with a public option
why is valve obligated to serve up this garbage? simply not being party to it is the best answer.
still nothing explaining why valve should be serving up this garbage. just downvotes. weak.
I'm in a similar boat. I actively dislike incest/fauxcest porn and porn games. I don't find it "naughty taboo" but gross and often fetishizing straight-up abuse. I'm not sad to see such games and videos, that I can never quite filter out because they are never consistently tagged, go. I am worried that they will try pulling the same shit as Tumblr and OF.
I mean isn’t this effectively the problem bitcoin aimed to solve originally? Don’t get me wrong, crypto is fucked and I’m not advocating for it here per se. But a locally processed, secure, digital version of cash bypasses the need for any of this. Granted it bypasses the need for some of the most powerful institutions on the planet too, and so will never happen in a truly egalitarian sense.
Also just cause it’s bugging me, you understand that a credit card, or even a debit card or PayPal/venmo account, does not equate to ‘your money’ the way physical cash does, right?
Im not saying you shouldn’t have the right to privacy when making a purchase. But mandating the processors of that purchase ignore what that money is doing is a fools errand as that’s basically a core mechanism in their operation and generation of profit.