I'm glad the Mastercard-Visa duopoly is finally getting some attention, these companies shouldn't be allowed to exercise the financial control they do. Payment infrastructure is not a free market - you can't just choose to pay via some other processor if they turn you down, they ARE the processors. Therefore, they should be under intense scrutiny when they refuse.
dec0dedab0de · 1h ago
I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone.
these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.
I agree about the PO though. Social media shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise either.
dec0dedab0de · 34m ago
I think the federal reserve is too close to the status quo to be effective for this. It is owned by the federally chartered banks, the same ones that all have longstanding relationships with the current payment processors.
A government organization like the mint should be in charge of the layer 1 of money transfer. Let the current providers adapt and sell their other services on top of it. It could be crypto, copy the existing systems, or be something new all together. It doesn't even have to be free, they could add in a small transfer tax or whatever. The point is that any person or business should be able to send money to any other, for any reason. At the very least within the country.
easton · 56m ago
Is there another source that says what exactly happened in that executive order? I can't find one signed on june 6th that had anything to do with payments.
[0] was from March, and demanded treasury modernization (like paperless and stuff), but didn't really say anything about crypto or FedNow. And FedNow's website mentions nothing about the program being slowed down (just announcements about new things happening in Q3 and a bunch of new signed on banks).
Every time we have this discussion someone brings up FedNow, and I will repeat the same question I always ask: when I visit the farmer's market this weekend, will anyone there be able to practically accept payment in FedNow? What would that even look like? (FYI the vendors take most cards, Apple/Google Pay, Venmo, paper cash, Square Cash, Apple Cash, etc.)
If the answer is "no for these reasons", then this probably shines a big light on why FedNow is not serving the same use case.
Arubis · 1h ago
Ugh, they killed FedNow too? That hadn’t hit my radar. Why a waste.
toomuchtodo · 8m ago
FedNow has not been diminished through policy, still full speed ahead.
Heh, while I like the idea of using immediate electronic dispursement over the mail.
I do find the ending of the EO pretty amusing. You're telling the agencies exactly what to do, how is that not impairing their authority?
> Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
> (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
Arubis · 10m ago
You can be almost certain these EOs are composed in tandem with LLMs.
Maken · 57m ago
This is amazing.
guywithahat · 30m ago
I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct?
This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax document, and it would be down all the time. Think the line at the post office but for server up-times.
Similarly if the mint maintained a payment processor then they'd just create a legal monopoly (like the USPS did) and ban new processors. Not only would they be worse than VISA and MasterCard, but they'd make paypal and venmo illegal. Don't forget the USPS bans competitors from being cheaper than itself, and this is exactly what would happen if the Mint had its own payment processor.
rafterydj · 20m ago
Hard disagree on every point. Just because implementations aren't always perfect does not mean you should not have public services.
I know a librarian who spends an inordinate amount of time helping the elderly and tech illiterate members of the public with creating emails, because they're necessary. However, you can't create emails anywhere without a phone number these days - a post office option would fix that.
Email already gets enormous amounts of spam, and the only reason most don't see it is because private service providers like Google expend resources filtering them out. Why would a business not be able to charge for premium filter services on an email they don't host? Not to mention that private email services send you ads.
To be clear, I'm not saying we should shut down Gmail tomorrow, but having a free public email service option would allow many people to use internet infrastructure they don't have. It's an accessibility problem that should be addressed in the public's interest as well as shareholders.
No comments yet
wcarss · 5m ago
My local city runs a water heater rental company. It provides water heaters more or less at cost to residents because we have exceptionally hard water here and they need to be replaced every ten years or so. It's a well run, valuable public program, and its cost is minimal.
The US Digital Service made a number of good web services for the US federal government while it lasted. They didn't close at night.
There are many times where governments do a bad job of things, and times where they do a good job. They're just institutions made of people, but they have no other default orientation. Describing faults in some non-existent service you're just imagining, as though they would obviously happen, is frankly a bizarre thing to do.
May I suggest: consider getting involved in the governance of your world. You could meet the many humans who are already doing so, working to improve it, and learning something. You can actually do that! It might surprise you how much good work is being done.
You might also then be able to help prevent others from implementing your worst dreams, instead of treating them as obvious or foregone conclusions.
clarionbell · 2m ago
I hate this approach so much. Something doesn't work very well, so instead of putting pressure on making it work better, let us abandon it!
Don't get me wrong. There are cases when it makes sense, but only when it is certain that there is no way to make it better, or when making it better would be a waste of resources.
And neither is case here.
In my country, we have, what is essentially, a centralized email for communication with authorities. Taxes, permits, trials, it all goes there. There is no spam, you can set it up so that reminders about unread go to your normal email. It's not perfect, but it saves me hours of time I would otherwise have to waste in line.
So try for something like this. Instead of just giving up.
monkeyelite · 26m ago
> US-treasury direct
Ok but this one is good. And it works because it’s a tool they need to generate revenue
coredog64 · 24m ago
It's better now, but during the era of the on-screen keyboard it was atrocious.
guywithahat · 7m ago
I thought they still had the on-screen keyboard? They had it as of 6 months ago at least.
But still, atrocious site. I can't use the back button or it logs you out; logging in is like a 5 step chore, it's unintuitive and looks like it's from 2005. I can only assume it's unsafe and doing simple things like checking your balance take 20 minutes. There will never be an app and I'm sure they will continue to do no innovation on the customer service side.
nullstyle · 4m ago
Further invalidating the original objection that the site would be unmaintained.
throw10920 · 1h ago
Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence?
For the sake of reducing complexity in an already very complex world, I'd rather that it be illegal to require an email address to sign up for an account (or, alternatively, make it illegal to require an account for things like making a reservation at a restaurant) then being provided with an email by the USPS.
Doubly so given the interactions that I've had with digital services provided by my country's government and the bad (and in several cases extremely bad) experiences that I've had with them.
To be clear - I don't object to e.g. an address from the USPS complementing my existing email - I just don't want to be forced to use it for anything due to it being given some special properties that normal email providers aren't.
belval · 1h ago
> Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence?
No because these things are genuinely useful. As much as people lament that we are going cashless, it's very convenient to be able to just carry one card and it's genuinely useful to just give my email as an identifier when registering for stuff.
Regulating their necessity means forcing people to accept cash and then using this as a reason why MasterCard and Visa should be allowed exist. In practice if something is that ingrained into daily interaction, then it should have something like the common carrier rules, set the fee to a static percentage of the transaction and that's it. The current 50% profit margins rent-seeking approach is just inefficient.
throw10920 · 51m ago
I completely agree with a lot of what you said! I'm not against technology in general or think that things like email aren't useful.
I think my argument is harder to make for payment processors, but in the case of email, it is preferable to not need an email address to create an account (even if it's convenient to have the option), and have other identifiers that can be used, like OAuth using an existing account or phone number, for instance.
Or, like I said, even better if you don't even need to create an account to participate in a one-time transaction (instead of a service relationship) with an entity.
mapt · 49m ago
The USPS and state DMVs should also collaborate on the novel role of identity management. Right now if you lose your phone, half of your life disappears because Google won't even log you into the email address that contains every "lost my password" redirect without 2FA on a new device. This is a bad scene. We need boring old meatspace ways to establish, re-establish, and federate our identity as a real person. Something that demands that I wait in line, that I show them a utility bill or drivers' license, that I confirm with a retina scan or fingerprint printed out on a sheet of paper that nobody else has access to. Something that is only trackable in one direction, from which you can generate a new identity if one is compromised. This is so close to the functional role of the "Credit card number" that you may as well tack bank transfer verification on there.
The One Digital Identity Service To Rule Them All is always vulnerable to mass hacking. We need to connect it with something slower, something more private, and the interface to that slow identity needs to be something that already has a branch open in the middle of nowhere.
dmix · 38m ago
How does that fix censorship concerns? The main issue is that political pressure campaigns has a lever over the entire payment processing sector because of cartel like behaviour. A public service could provide an alternative for sure but it'd have to be done very carefully and independent.
Ericson2314 · 30m ago
Actual government stuff is way more legally constrained than private sector stuff. It would be trivially to sue for freedom of speech if I was gov.
Public-private partnerships like chartered banks, and outright cartels like Visa MasterCard, are much more fruitful mechanisms for this sort of civil liberties abuse.
ghostDancer · 1h ago
That's socialism or even communism./s
Damogran6 · 1h ago
What's the profit in that?
/s
Cthulhu_ · 54m ago
You say /s, but a government issued and USPS operated e-mail service may be very profitable. In the Netherlands we have a government message system where the tax office, local counties, water companies, etc can send you 'official' messages. Thing is though, each message costs €0.25 to send. I think this is ridiculously expensive for a glorified email, but I suppose they have a lot of certifications and audits and the like. I hope, anyway.
Anyway, email itself is broken, but this system works because if it costs money to send a message, it discourages any spambot and/or misuse.
p_ing · 3h ago
There's no meaningful attention, here. Until it is on the US Gov't radar, this 'attention' is just a collection of upset redditors furiously posting forum messages which will fissile out in a few months, at most.
Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.
perihelions · 3h ago
> "which will fissile out in a few months"
A tangential nitpick: it's fizzle out, from a Middle English etymology meaning "to fart"; not to fission (fissile being an adjectival form), from Latin "to split".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fizzle#Etymology ("Attested in English since 1525-35. From earlier fysel (“to fart”). Related to fīsa (“to fart”). Compare with Swedish fisa (“to fart (silently)”). See also feist.")
I don't think having this on USgov radar would improve the situation. Since FOSTA/SESTA, and various state level age verification laws, it seems likely that government attention would simply bring a bigger hammer down on games. It's the US anti-money-laundering system that ultimately exerts a lot of financial control, after all.
delta_p_delta_x · 3h ago
> it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA
In many countries, if you pay locally, you absolutely can. China's UnionPay, India's UPI, PayNow in Singapore, PromptPay in Thailand, PayPal, Cash App, and more.
wongarsu · 3h ago
And places like Steam take a lot of payment options. Most online services that wanted to have wide international appeal in the 90s and 2000s had to simply because credit cards were rare in many places, and a lot of those services still have a wide array of options
je42 · 1h ago
Steam added recently a rule 15th what you should not publish:
15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.
Maybe they could come out with a client named "Steamy" where they post all the nudie games and take all forms of shady, underground, scandalous payment methods, like btc and doge.
mathiaspoint · 2h ago
The US also has Discover/Capital One and American Express and if you live in some of the nicer parts people still take checks.
Spivak · 2h ago
Does that actually help? Because it would send a pretty strong message if the payment screen said, "sorry you can only buy this with amex/discover" (click here for why) but that doesn't seem to be how this plays out.
15155 · 1h ago
Because making these products for sale at all in the catalog will cause Visa/MC to pull out for other, "approved" offerings.
pwillia7 · 2h ago
You need the government to cajole the market to create safe and free inter bank transfer programs. We're not going to do that in the USA -- no one's buddies would get their kickbacks!
Not even close the service offered by, as an example, Pix in Brazil.
ethbr1 · 56m ago
Granted, but Pix didn't have to compete against entrenched political interests.
I expect the meta-plot with FedNow is to commoditize the backend network, then allow private companies to compete on top of it (e.g. Zelle on FedNow), then after adoption as the backbone, finally roll out P2P and P2B type support that finally kills off Visa / Mastercard / Amex (as processing networks).
sofixa · 1h ago
> You need the government to cajole the market to create safe and free inter bank transfer programs
We've had that in EU/eurozone for years, SEPA.
p_ing · 3h ago
That's great to hear, but this is a US-centric complaint discussing US-centric companies.
tau255 · 3h ago
It is not really US-centric. VISA and Mastercard actions resulted in delisting content in all the markets globally. Steam and Itch.io pulled games from all regions, Manga Library Z was hit in Japan, Patreon and Stripe are pressured globally. Suggesting to boycott VISA and Mastercard if you have an alternative is valid.
cubefox · 3h ago
In principle, a service like this could be offered in the US as well, without any credit card companies acting as middle men: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow
pchangr · 1h ago
Germany actually uses their own card system .. or cash. They are very much against visa/mastercard due to their “high commission fees” and “privacy concerns”
Unfortunately, that's not enough to shake the MasterCard/Visa stranglehold. Even if all of Valve's German customers used Girocard and Steam sold those particular games only in Germany, they would still have to yield to pressure from MC and Visa because losing them would cost them many more of their global customers.
It's not enough to simply have an alternative to the credit cards, that alternative has to be in the pockets of 90% of your user base before you'd be willing to lose the method of transaction they currently rely on.
EgregiousCube · 1h ago
You're comparing a regional debit network to an overarching network that includes lots of different fee structures. The USA has debit networks (STAR, etc) with similar cost structures too - Germany is not unique in this regard.
k_g_b_ · 56m ago
That's somewhat outdated and Wikipedia even slightly alludes to it with "Some banks are phasing out girocards". "some" in reality is "nearly all". Girocard is practically dead and I don't see it coming back without state intervention.
There's a few holdouts in stores here and there that only accept Girocard and no other cards (my vet for example), but it's on the decline there, too.
"Privacy concerns" won't hold out long against relentless pushes for more deregulation of privacy laws for AI/other tech/"the economy"/etc and removal of data access hurdles for police/security services/etc coming from certain political spectrum - whose voters generally don't have high concern for such fundamental rights issues when at the ballot box.
f6v · 1h ago
So does Russia, Denmark, Belgium/Netherlands, Iran, China. I’m sure there’re others. I know someone working on unified payment platform for games in Africa. They have dozens of different payment systems instead of the two.
gruez · 1h ago
>Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3%
AFAIK all credit cards in the EU have similarly low interchange rates because of EU regulation.
Maken · 56m ago
Germany also sold Eurocard to MasterCard.
bityard · 1h ago
> Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.
Why not? Lots of people, especially in lower income brackets, don't have ANY credit cards at all. I know many. They buy groceries and gas with cash and pay their utilities by ACH or mailing a check. Everything else they need, they buy locally.
What you mean to say is that it's _inconvenient_ for you personally to boycott Visa/Mastercard. Which may be true enough.
no_wizard · 1h ago
Visa and Mastercard run debit networks for majority of banks and credit unions. They get fees there as well.
Even lower income citizens use debit cards more than cash nowadays.
You would need to use different networks like Discover and American Express to effectively boycott them
no_wizard · 1h ago
You can, if you switch to using American Express and Discover cards. They’re both closed networks that only take their particular card.
It’s almost trading one for another but it would be an effective way to boycott these companies
infecto · 2h ago
Whole heartedly agree. I would also rather the discussion be how can we disrupt the problem rather than a mob mentality to take down Visa (which is never going anywhere anyway).
gus_massa · 3h ago
You can switch to Amex, but here in Argentina like half of the postnets don't recognize it.
Also there are a few QR networks, some made by the banks like "Modo" and other no-a-bank ones like "MercadoPago" and a few minor ones. Even the guy/gal that sells hot bread on the street accept most of them.
xeonmc · 2h ago
> You can switch to Amex, but here in Argentina like half of the postnets don't recognize it.
To this point, it was even a punchline in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
Hamuko · 2h ago
Amex is only available on Steam in the US. I have a basic free Amex card as a backup, but I wouldn't be able to use it for my Steam purchases. Presumably because the processing fees are just that much higher.
Somehow I'm able to use a JCB card though. As far as I'm aware, JCB cards aren't even available here.
ipaddr · 2h ago
You can boycott both but say goodbye to saas purchases and being tracked.
raincole · 3h ago
> Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA
Most countries have some kinds of domestic transaction systems, or at least a more local credit card brand. They're also usually instant. It's more or less an US-only situation that people use Visa/Mastercard even for intranational stuff.
forgotoldacc · 2h ago
Most countries I've been to use Visa as their most common card. Living in a major Asian country and every bank and credit card company offers Visa as their main card as well.
China is kind of an outlier with Union Pay, and while a large number of countries offer their own alternatives, I'd say most are Visa-first. Apparently about 37% of cards around the world are Visa, so that's a huge chunk. JCB is the biggest non-Chinese non-American provider by revenue, and even they're a minor player in their home country.
weberer · 2h ago
That is absolutely false. In pretty much any western country, you're forced to use the VISA network, even for debit cards. Take a closer look at your locally branded card, and you'll almost certainly see a VISA log tucked away somewhere.
bolobo · 1h ago
Depends, in France for instance all the cards are dual "VISA/Mastercard" and "CB ". They will use CB in france and use the partner network in foreign countries.
fennecfoxy · 2h ago
The EU should certainly look into this though. I don't always like what they do, but a conglomerate of many large markets (countries) means that these shitty fucking companies and scumbag executives get forced to sit up and listen.
Guthur · 1h ago
It is on their radar, but they only care that the whole world pays a US tax via these payment providers. The US does look to kindly on local payment systems.
Honestly, I'm really critical towards EU, but this is one of the few things that EU does well. When the market is stagnating, it's better than nothing to propose an alternative or some kind of benefits in order to change the market a bit. Like the Roaming in EU.
Regarding the rest, the EU is mining competition with the obsession of regulating everything.
ginko · 2h ago
I don't even think this is a problem of competition (although more is welcome).
This is just Visa+Mastercard abusing their market position and the EU should come down on them like a ton of bricks.
Incur heavy fines or break them up if necessary.
danaris · 43m ago
How is "abusing their market position" not a "problem of competition"?
The only reason they have that market position is because there is insufficient competition.
Herz · 2h ago
I disagree. The need for regulation in this case stems from a lack of competition.
Regulations are empirical decisions, based on a very limited amount of data, whose implications can be endless. Regulations are a shortcut capable of poisoning the market and competition. Just look at what's been done with energy, automobiles, AI, GDPR, etc. Bureaucrats are not gods; they often make mistakes and don't predict the future. Regulations should be the last resort.
Furthermore, we're talking about a US monopoly here. The goal would be to grab a share of the pie through honest competition, not to enstablish golden collars.
Regulation should facilitate competition, not legitimize the status quo.
sofixa · 1h ago
> Regarding the rest, the EU is mining competition with the obsession of regulating everything.
Like with DMA/DSA that force gatekeepers to open up? SEPA that mandates free immediate bank transfers? Caps on credit/debit card transaction fees? The million infrastructure projects? Ensuring that AI can't be used to make life or death decisions if it's decision making can't be explained (which the AI act boils down to)? Ensuring there is competition on e.g. railway operations?
It's such a common refrain that EU is just stifling competition with "regulating everything", but quite oftne EU regulations are actually forcing competition where none was possible before.
Herz · 48m ago
I stated quite clearly that not every regulation is bad. But it seems that you want to hear that every decision made by the EU is right. I'm sorry, but I'm not a religious person. And I think self-criticism is a great privilege of democratic (not dictatorial) countries, so let's use it.
> Ensuring that AI can't be used to make life or death decisions if its decision-making can't be explained (which the AI Act boils down to)? Ensuring there is competition on, for example, railway operations?
It's such a naive question that I can't understand how you can take it seriously.
Just because you can explain how you arrived at a specific decision does not mean that failure does not exist. Every machine is fallible. Every human is fallible. Moreover, you cannot determine decision-making made by humans. So how can you trust humans? Why should you trust them?
I would like to see the data, not the social or individual biases. It's only a matter of "when" AI will prove to be safer than humans at performing task X. I find it absurd to deprive ourselves of such an advantage, supported by data, just because our understanding isn't absolute.
Can we prove the safety or determinism of what we use or do on a daily basis? I doubt.
Shouldn't we experiment with physics because our understanding is limited, and we might accidentally create a black hole? I doubt.
Also, I find it such a generic definition... Google Maps implements AI, and accidentally sends you into a ditch. What do you do? Ban AI from Google Maps? What doesn't put people's lives at risk?
I totally understand the skepticism and fear. The risks, etc. But I'll leave it to the fortune tellers to pass judgment before it's even "a thing".
> It's such a common refrain that EU is just stifling competition with "regulating everything", but quite oftne EU regulations are actually forcing competition where none was possible before.
Is killing the car market "forcing the competition"? How?
goopypoop · 1h ago
"under the radar" means not noticed
bboygravity · 3h ago
Oh the EU will happily pass new laws to screen your entire life when you'd like to buy a game (and to record and store everything you talk about with fellow gamers in case you say something that goes against EU policies).
EU will even arrange a special new bank account for ya outside of Visa Mastercard called CBDC.
No problem. EU is here for ya! /s
yladiz · 2h ago
What are you even talking about?
p_ing · 3h ago
1984 took place in the EU. I mean, if Brexit hadn't happened and the EU existed in 1984, of course.
seanhunter · 2h ago
That’s factually untrue. 1984 takes place in Britain (now known as “Airstrip one”) which in the universe of the book is part of Oceania along with Australia, southern Africa and the Americas.
The other two superpowers are Eurasia (which as the name suggests is Europe less the UK and Ireland but with Asia) and Eastasia, which is South-East Asia more or less
Does the government view it as 2 throats to choke and so the risk is 'worth it' or is it just a condition of gilded age II and corp and political greed and corruption?
Why did we make all those monopoly laws only to completely forget they exist or why we ever made them?
ethbr1 · 2h ago
It's mostly just the way things turned out without government intervention.
Well, it's worse than a duopoly. But of course, we can't talk about it here.
digitalsushi · 1h ago
why cant we? are you self-censoring because there's some policy forbidding us to talk about something clandestine here?
i dont have access to the joke, or inside club, or inner sanctum, and maybe theres other people like me that want to know more and if the mystery is self-imposed then i might respectfully push back that we cant talk about it
EliasWatson · 1h ago
This is the kind of problem that Bitcoin was designed to solve.
tdb7893 · 1h ago
Isn't Bitcoin impractical for these sorts of transactions (slow, high fees, no privacy, etc)? People always say Bitcoin was designed to solve this sort of thing but whenever I've looked into it it's been fairly impractical for use in most day-to-day transactions.
hahn-kev · 58m ago
Honestly buying a digital game is perfect. Steam can just give it to you right away, and if the transaction doesn't clear they can just revoke the game later.
messe · 38m ago
Only in the presence of DRM—an evil I'd prefer to do without when possible.
kmfrk · 3h ago
Full title that doesn't fit in the HN headline:
"Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand"
(For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)
weberer · 3h ago
It was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve. The whole system is set up so one transaction has to go through up to 6 different companies, and they all have to abide by each other's rules. The US Internet Preservation Society explained it recently:
>Each of these companies maintains its own terms of service and each of them can block a transaction by themselves. Additionally, intermediary companies that handle card transactions are mutually and individually bound to the terms of every Card Network, so even if you never do business with Discover or American Express, you must still obey their rules if you want to accept Visa or Mastercard. For online businesses, there are no alternatives: you will do exactly what they want, or you will not do business at all.
>If you are banned from processing payments, you will not be informed why or by which point of failure. "Risk management" is considered a trade secret in the industry. You have no right to know, you cannot sue to discover what has happened, and you also have no right to appeal.
> was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve
Did Mastercard threaten Valve? Or did Valve precomply?
amiga386 · 2h ago
Valve's payment processors told Valve they would withdraw payment processing unless Valve banned specific categories of game from their online store.
The payment processors did not cite any law; Valve selling those games was not illegal. Instead they cited Mastercard's rules, which say that they cannot submit transactions that Mastercard believe might damage Mastercard's goodwill or reflect negatively on its brand. Those rules also say Mastercard has sole discretion as to what it considers breach these rules, and Mastercard gives a list of what it deems unacceptable:
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
> The Corporation considers any of the following activities to be in violation of this Rule:
> 2. The sale of a product or service, including an image, which is patently offensive and lacks serious artistic value (such as, by way of example and not limitation, images of nonconsensual sexual behavior, sexual exploitation of a minor, nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part, and bestiality), or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark.
The payment processors threatened Valve first. Mastercard doesn't need to threaten Valve or even contact them at all to force its will on them: it just needs to threaten its payment processors, the same outcome is achieved. Valve did not remove games from sale until threatened. If they did not do that, and instead initiated some kind of fightback, they would most likely find themselves completely removed from all payment processors, with no recourse. If you want to call that "precompliance", so be it.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
> Valve's payment processors told Valve they would withdraw payment processing unless Valve banned specific categories of game from their online store
Do we have a statement from
Valve saying as much?
amiga386 · 2h ago
Click on the article link at the top of this page and find out. Let me quote the article for you:
> In a statement provided to PC Gamer, Valve said that it had tried to work things out with Mastercard directly prior to removing the games, and suggested that Mastercard did have at least an indirect influence on the outcome.
> "Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so," a Valve representative said. "Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution.
> "Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand."
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
This text is also consistent with Valve making a determination, checking with payment processors and not being told no. (Versus the payment processors reaching out to Valve first.)
Like yes, there is a problem with Mastercard. But I want to know this isn’t Valve having complied with some activists trying to cover their tracks.
amiga386 · 1h ago
If this is just evil old Valve, why did itch.io - a site founded on openness and the right to sell adult-only games, especially if they cover LGBT themes, tell everyone that their payment processors also want them not to offer adult-only games?
Which is more likely:
1. Porn-hating, sex-hating, LGBT-hating activist group from Australia bombards Mastercard with complaints that Valve and Itch are selling adult games. Mastercard reminds its payment processors not to bring shame on The Mark. Valve's and Itch's payment processors tell them not to sell adult games.
2. Porn-hating, sex-hating, LGBT-hating activist group from Australia bombards Mastercard with complaints that Valve and Itch are selling adult games. Valve and Itch agree with these harpies and remove their revenue streams and support for developers (because they hate revenue and hate supporting their developers; they'd much rather align with moral prudes from Australia in order to lose money and abandon the people who make them that money), then they sneakily pin the blame on Mastercard. Valve and Itch also use telepathy to know Collective Shout's desires, which they agree with, to ban games precisely at the time Collective Shout are calling up Mastercard, in order for it to be Collective Shout -> Valve/Itch rather than Collective Shout -> Mastercard -> Payment processors -> Valve/Itch
JumpCrisscross · 1h ago
> why did itch.io - a site founded on openness and the right to sell adult-only games, especially if they cover LGBT themes, tell everyone that their payment processors also want them not to offer adult-only games?
Thank you, this is the context I was missing.
nemomarx · 1h ago
As far as it goes, collective shout claimed Valve didn't respond to them and that's why they complained to MC visa about it. They even mention how many calls they made to them to get the complaint heard.
So everyone would have to be pretty invested in this show for it to have originated from Valve?
Maken · 22m ago
Which means Collective Shout didn't have any legal weight behind their demands.
nemomarx · 45s ago
Of course - they've never invoked a legal justification. What they seem to be leaning on is basically "we can create bad press about you supporting payments for X", promising headlines like "MasterCard is paying for women to be beaten and raped!" or other sensational nonsense.
rpdillon · 1h ago
Mastercard pressured their processors and the processors turned around and talked to Valve about it and cited Mastercard's rules. It wasn't pre-compliance, but there was a proxy that allows Mastercard to deflect responsibility.
braiamp · 2h ago
They cite a rule about Mastercard brand damage. If Mastercard didn't specify that such content would result in MC brand damage why would they cite it rather than their own rules?
detaro · 2h ago
Some options:
a) they are worried Mastercard might randomly decide it does and punish them
b) it's convenient to be able to blame someone else
c) someone somewhere said something and the rest of the orgs isn't aware or over-interpreted a statement
Vague rules like this are great to dilute responsibility. It can both be true that Mastercard didn't tell the payment processors to force the issue and that the payment processors strongly thought they had to.
immibis · 52m ago
As I understand it, Valve was threatened by a middleman because the middleman precomplied with Mastercard.
petcat · 3h ago
There are definitely a lot of links in this chain. Maybe leafo can chime-in and say exactly what happened with Itch.io. But I suspect that someone downstream of Visa/Mastercard anticipated that the payment card companies would not permit the transactions and relayed that back up to the merchants, and they shut it off preemptively.
But it's hard to say. Mastercard is now saying that they never said or did anything. So where did the outrage come from? Someone must have done something.
Shank · 3h ago
> But I suspect that someone downstream of Visa/Mastercard anticipated that the payment card companies would not permit the transactions and relayed that back up to the merchants, and they shut it off preemptively.
It sure is tragic that benevolent and majestic Mastercard is having their name thrown into the mud over this. Coincidentally, it sure is convenient that they have a number of middleman scapegoats who can take the blame on their behalf.
Mindwipe · 3h ago
FWIW Mastercard are simply lying, as anyone who has ever had to touch adult payment processing will tell you.
There's even a (non-public) list of keyword banned terms.
TimorousBestie · 2h ago
Indeed, and the keywords are vague and they refuse to rigorously define them. Adult payment processors just run around in the dark until they trip over one of these landmines.
Even the (rare) categories of content that have been legally determined to be non-obscene (e.g., werewolf erotica [1]) can fall under banned keywords (in this case, “bestiality”).
It’s a stupid extralegal system and ought to be destroyed.
Do people think USD being accepted at kink stores gives the USA a reputation risk?
I just don't see the argument that a payment processor being able to process payments legitimately gives them reputation risk. I don't doubt that people write in to MasterCard to claim it does but people write about everything.
roenxi · 3h ago
The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games. Various factions - exactly who it is difficult to pin down - have been working hard to set up a system where they can shut things down without ever explicitly instructing anyone to do anything. This appears to be the system engaging by accident because some crazy from Australia accidentally said the right thing to the right people.
So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.
perihelions · 3h ago
> "The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games."
First Amendment applies to the _government_, not private entities.
CoastalCoder · 3h ago
I think the larger point here is that the government is suppressing protected speech by using private sector actors as intermediaries.
roblabla · 3h ago
Is there proof the government actually uses this apparatus?
I don't think there's any government involvement necessary here - Mastercard has some censorship apparatus (which they claim to be necessary for their brand's reputation), and they used it (apparently through pressure from an Australian group) towards video games.
This is really bad but I don't think it makes sense to believe a government was ever involved here. Of course, there should be laws put in place to regulate mastercard into a common infrastructure. They should not be able to deny processing a legal payment because of nebulous "brand reputation" reason.
dlgeek · 41m ago
In this case? Not that I know of, but I'm not following closely.
In general? Absolutely - search 'Operation Chokepoint'.
if we're going to point to this there are much much more problematic instances of this happening, in particular democratic pressure to platforms like twitter and facebook to suppress certain information as "disinformation" even when it later came out to be true (hunter biden laptop)
weberer · 3h ago
Now read the grandparent comment you're replying to. You're just talking in circles now.
KingOfCoders · 3h ago
Say fuck on TV.
chrisrhoden · 3h ago
In addition to the sibling comment about safe harbor hours, the FCC regulates not speech but the shared airwaves. Print is irrelevant, and that’s why you can do whatever you want on cable.
Also, the FCC does not directly set standards and instead responds to complaints from the communities in which the broadcast is available. So it’s conceivable that in an environment where nobody cared, you could do this at any time of day.
KingOfCoders · 1h ago
Didn't know the FCC regulates Youtube. Nevertheless, in a country with no regulations about saying "fuck" on TV, I get beeps on Youtube.
terinjokes · 2h ago
Many stations affiliated with the ABC network did, from 2001 to 2004, in primetime by airing "Saving Private Ryan" unedited for Veterans Day.
rs186 · 3h ago
Apparently you can do that between 10pm and 6pm on broadcast TV, or on cable TV.
Which is a pretty messed up situation.
infecto · 2h ago
I am quite surprised how wrong opinions like yours are. There is no argument of free speech here, they are a private business and as such can decide what they allow and don’t allow on their network. It’s no different than if cloudflare had a click through that said no adult material.
You can hand wave around well they are a monopoly or some related argument but the government does not see it that way. Visa and Mastercard for decades have censored adult sites on their network. At the end of the day I suspect they would be happy to take the fees but they are the ones underwriting the risk and there have been cases over the year in the US at least that challenge how extreme you can go with Adult material. Even today there are certain categories that are much harder to get setup for processing.
Edit: to be ultra clear, I would love more competition in this space but at the same time there is no argument around free speech here.
Kinrany · 2h ago
The argument from free speech is that government should not be allowed to censor, regardless of the mechanism. Payment processors currently offer that mechanism.
infecto · 2h ago
If the government were coercing Mastercard into censorship, that would be a free speech issue. But absent state pressure, a private company choosing not to do business with certain content isn’t censorship in the constitutional sense. That’s just market behavior. If you want to challenge the influence of financial infrastructure on speech, that’s a separate (and valid) policy debate but it’s not a First Amendment violation.
root_axis · 1h ago
What is the government's role here? As far as I can tell the censorship was coordinated and facilitated by private parties.
welshwelsh · 47m ago
You're confusing the concept of free speech with the First Amendment. Any time a person is prevented from expressing themselves is a violation of their freedom of speech, even if they have no legal right to speak.
But even in the context of the First Amendment, freedom of speech does not only apply to the government. For example, net neutrality laws prevent ISPs, which are generally private companies, from restricting Internet traffic on free speech grounds.
To the extent that it is legal for a payment processor to censor speech, the only reasonable conclusion is that the law is wrong and must be amended. Large corporations are much more similar to governments than they are to private so individuals, and should be treated as such.
charcircuit · 1h ago
Competition doesn't matter if entities have to simultaneously follow all of the payment processors' rules. It means in order to compete you have to find people willing to give up everything else. Which is an impossible proposition.
It's like if a tier 1 ISP only peered with networks that peer with networks that censor XYZ. Allowing for these kind of agreements leads to censorship and is why net neutrality is important from the government.
immibis · 44m ago
FWIW, "tier 1 ISP" is less prestigious than you'd think. Many tier 2's are bigger than many tier 1's. Being a tier 1 is kind of a self-exclusionary, nose-snubbing policy and in some ways it's surprising they manage to hang onto existence at all, though not in all ways.
This typically comes up when someone thinks they're getting better transit service from a tier-1 than a tier-2. They're not. A tier-2 ISP can have better routes, since a tier-1 will refuse to deliver your traffic anywhere that requires them to pay money. Some places are just unreachable from tier-1 ISPs.
Famously, for over a decade Cogent has refused to receive packets from Hurricane Electric without payment because idk profits, and Hurricane Electric has refused to pay them because it's a tier-1-ish, so you just can't talk to Cogent customers if you're an HE customer and vice versa. (I think HE eventually relented by paying a third-party to forward packets to specifically Cogent, even though they have tier-1 status to everywhere else)
hollerith · 42m ago
What prevents any old ISP from claiming it is tier 1?
lightedman · 2h ago
"There is no argument of free speech here, they are a private business"
Constitutional rights are also civil rights - businesses may not violate them nilly-willy in this specific manner which causes damages to people.
infecto · 2h ago
You’re confusing constitutional rights with business obligations. The First Amendment restricts government actions, not private companies. Mastercard isn’t violating free speech by refusing to process certain payments. Civil rights laws protect against discrimination in specific categories like race or religion, not content moderation. Unless adult content is a protected class, your argument doesn’t apply.
nottorp · 4h ago
Wrong title.
"Mastercard finds out there are a lot of gamers out there, makes an attempt at damage control." would be more appropriate.
v3ss0n · 3h ago
Why you care about whatever we do with do with digital pixels at our free time ? Gamers trying to save the game they play and Master card have no business banning the games we play on our own private
makeitdouble · 3h ago
> Mastercard's Rule 5.12.7 relates to "illegal or brand-damaging transactions," and states:
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
I didn't expect they had such clear rules expliciting they can ban any kind of transactions they don't like or would make them look bad, regardless of the legality of it.
Hamuko · 2h ago
I called MasterCard twice and both times they a) guessed that I was calling about content on Steam without ever mentioning Steam b) said that they only restricted "illegal adult content" and have "standards based on rule of law". Said absolutely nothing about protecting the brand. Also couldn't say if said "standards" were actual laws or MasterCard's own (legal) standards.
loa_in_ · 2h ago
Good argument to record any calls with them and submit the recordings to the press
Hamuko · 2h ago
You don't really have to record the phone call. If anyone in the press wants to hear them saying that they don't block legal content, call them and ask about Steam. They have a ready-made PR response that they will read to you.
Why is Mastercard processing money for this movie that contains a rape scene?
wongarsu · 3h ago
Still waiting for Game of Thrones to be removed from all streaming services for gratuitous sexual depictions and on-screen depictions of rape
Freak_NL · 3h ago
It's not targetted by pressure groups at the moment. MasterCard isn't acting out of its own moral convictions here, so don't expect these rules to be enforced wherever they might apply.
baobabKoodaa · 2h ago
Oh please. As if Mastercard is beholden to some grass roots movement from Australia.
dpoloncsak · 43m ago
...So their quote "we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content." is just a lie?
polytely · 1h ago
I wonder if Valve could (threaten to) become their own payment processor if this becomes too big of a threat. They are one of the few companies on earth with enough money to attempt it.
If I remember correctly a big part of Valves heavy investment into linux was Microsoft wanting to lock windows down more, and now in 2025 gaming on linux is a viable alternative to windows.
8n4vidtmkvmk · 1h ago
I don't know how that helps. PayPal and stripe are the payment processors, no? Visa and MasterCard are the payment network. Steam can build their own Stripe probably, but are they going to make their own credit card network too? Probably not. They can maybe try taking money directly from your bank though, like Wise. But if you've ever tried it, that looks like such a shit show. Every bank and every country does it a little differently, has its own limits and fees, and the authentication is really ghetto.
master-lincoln · 1h ago
What would that change? The assumption here is that payment processors need to comply with MasterCards rules. So would Valve if they would become a payment processor, no?
f6v · 1h ago
Well, you can buy Steam gift cards for cash in underdeveloped markets like Germany. Can’t imagine how else would it work.
ranguna · 22m ago
You can't buy gift cards in other underdeveloped markets like Japan, Camboja, the US, Mexico, etc?
rs186 · 3h ago
Dumb question: what if Steam only takes cash or crypto payment for these games, and leave them on the market? Cash is loaded from debit card and can be used for buying any games, while crypto apparently always works for everything. Would they still be on the hook?
reginald78 · 3h ago
IIRC the rule Mastercard cited was so vague that trying to workaround it almost seemed potentially pointless. It was basically a blanket "we think it makes MasterCard look bad so we end our relationship". Anyway, debit cards are still Visa/mastercard so using them as cash has the same problem. I was thinking they could just use Steam gift cards but since those are often themselves purchased in stores or with credit cards it seems to just push the problem a little further away.
I believe Steam did support bitcoin at one point but decided to end usage over because the price fluctuations made it to unpredictable on their end. Maybe the landscape has changed though.
root_axis · 55m ago
Debit cards use the same network. Either way, it's a non-starter from a business perspective, even if they accepted cryptocurrency, majority of the economy does not use it.
ascagnel_ · 3h ago
Debit cards still go through MasterCard and/or Visa. They could take crypto, but crypto is far too volatile for the types of transactions Valve wants to be handling.
alexvitkov · 2h ago
Volatility isn't an issue for the merchant - prices can be adjusted in real-time based on the cryptocurrency's value at the time of purchase, and if they don't want to be exposed, they can sell it immediately on purchase.
Whether or not Valve would want to encourage people to pay with crypto and expose their customer base to its volatility is another matter.
ascagnel_ · 2h ago
In a world where people need both fiat and crypto, the volatility of crypto precludes returns.
wiseowise · 3h ago
What they mean is that you top up your Steam credit and rest is between you and Steam.
numpad0 · 2h ago
That's where it gets disgusting. They don't tolerate that solution, which is a proof that this has nothing to do with brand protection or chargeback rates or anything of sorts.
So either those poor games need to be kicked out, or everyone has to switch to cash/app overnight. The transition process has to be easy enough that the dumbest addict you have seen in worst fast food restaurant place can complete in few clicks. That has proven difficult for many, and sadly the former options are usually taken.
krainboltgreene · 3h ago
Yes, but also the crypto option has been tried and absolutely doesn’t work.
jksflkjl3jk3 · 56m ago
Why not? I regularly buy products and services online with crypto and it works quite well, usually a better experience than with a credit card.
There are plenty of chains that can confirm transactions in a couple seconds, and if you're concerned with volatility, just use USDC/USDT. There are crypto payment processors that handle all of this and allow payment across a range of chains and handle the volatility so that the merchant doesn't need to worry about anything crypto and just receives fiat.
krainboltgreene · 20m ago
I think I trust Stripe and Steam, probably two of the biggest money movers online by volume, to know when something doesn't work over just you.
alexvitkov · 3h ago
It really hasn't. Everything has been tried with crypto, except actually buying things with it.
Ruthalas · 2h ago
To be fair, in the case of Steam they legitimately did try. They supported bitcoin purchases for nearly two years before they stopped, citing volatility and processing fees:
I wouldn't call using Bitcoin legitimately trying. Even in 2017 Monero existed, which solves both the fee and transaction time problems, and as an added bonus is way more private.
krainboltgreene · 22m ago
This is literally wrong. It's even googleable.
littlecranky67 · 3h ago
Can you elaborate? If crypto is the only viable option to pay for something, I would agree due to the low amount of people familar in dealing with crypto. If it is an additional option, what part of it is not working?
Japan lets you make payments for online content at convenience stores.
How it works is you purchase a product online and it gives you a barcode that can be scanned at any major convenience store. You go to the store, scan the code, hand over cash, and the content you bought is instantly unlocked once the payment is confirmed.
TehCorwiz · 3h ago
Steam sells physical gift cards. You can buy them at convenience stores, Walmart, etc. you can pay cash for them.
mattnewton · 1h ago
those stores would absolutely stop carrying the gift cards if customers could not pay with visa/mastercard for them.
v5v3 · 3h ago
Mullvad VPN takes cash, you post it to them.
roblabla · 3h ago
I doubt Mullvad has anywhere near the volume of transaction Valve does. And mullvad has plenty of other payment methods, so only a tiny, tiny fraction of their userbase likely pays in mail-in cash.
I don't think Valve could feasibly implement this at their scale - especially if this method was the _only_ way to acquire the games in question.
Shank · 3h ago
This realistically doesn’t work that well above anything like a micro scale. It’s also a crime to mail cash across many borders, so it only really works domestically.
harvie · 2h ago
There already was a time when Steam managed to free people from need to use funny pieces of plastic in their lifes... They've done that with CDs, they can do it again with Cards.
master-lincoln · 1h ago
Yeah, that was when Steam freed the users from actually owning any game and instead gave the users limited licenses for using games.
I am looking forward to the day when they shutdown and everybody realizes this.
MarioMan · 7m ago
Steam has famously gone on record that they will provide a DRM removal patch for everything they’re legally allowed to, if/when they go under.
If they don’t do this and it’s all just lip service, then it makes a strong argument for ethical piracy at that time.
zamadatix · 27m ago
The real loss was in the inability to sell the 90% of titles I no longer care about owning, but that's already true immediately after purchase.
Steam shutting down and taking your library with it really doesn't change much except you lose that nice delivery platform with good integrations (achievements, workshop mods, multiplayer integration, automatic updates) for games you're active in. For the 90% you were never going to touch again it wouldn't be noticeable, outside the annoying reminder you were never able to resell them. The other 10% just reverts back to "pirate it" which is about here on my scale:
"find that legal physical copy to play with" < "pirate it" < "click button on Steam"
dpoloncsak · 40m ago
Can't I still just run the .exe of the game? Or DRM nightmares?
hexmiles · 30m ago
All (most?) Steam games have a very simple DRM that is extremely easy to bypass, and you can find examples on github.
However, a lot of games add their own DRM and/or protection scheme that complicates things.
EDIT: technically there are two distinct component: the actual DRM, called steamstub, and the steamwork library, that does not work without steam but it is not considered drm. Both can be easily bypassed/emulated.
stego-tech · 3h ago
The payment processor censorship issue backs up a point I made elsewhere about companies being involved in politics: they shouldn’t be, and shareholders should be screaming with rage that these companies have inserted themselves into these discussions on purpose.
They’re payment processors, for crying out loud. Their entire grift is taking a slice of every transaction processed, ergo, the only restriction they should ever have in processing payments is whether or not the transaction is legal under the law, full stop.
If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (including games), then don’t be a payment processor. They’re a business, not a person, and therefore their “preferences” regarding content are irrelevant.
infecto · 2h ago
I am again going to be the outlier here and state that I don’t think this is an issue with Visa or Mastercard. As public companies I suspect they would love to be processing as much as possible and unfortunately they have to walk a balance in some categories, like Adult content, where they are overly careful to make sure they are 1) not antagonizing regulators with extreme content and 2) try to keep on the positive side from a PR perspective.
I definitely wish there were more option in payment processing and this is a good example of how crypto has failed, it should be a seamless drop-in imo. I also don’t believe this is a matter of free speech. It surprising to see so many folks wave the free speech flag where I don’t follow the logic. The government under any administration is not going to come to the rescue of free speech laws.
jksflkjl3jk3 · 53m ago
> 1) not antagonizing regulators with extreme content
Who is this regulator that's going to care that Visa and Mastercard are processing payments for porn?
braiamp · 2h ago
They should be allowing all lawful transactions, and if they can't, they should get broken up.
shagie · 47m ago
That would be a change from preventing illegal transactions.
As it stands currently, the risk associated to the company for allowing illegal transactions is what drives their policy since they get brought into lawsuits for allowing monetization of illegal content in some jurisdiction.
Changing it (world wide) so that payment processors are not subject to money laundering laws and cannot be held liable when a merchant sells something illegal would allow them to change their model to allow all lawful transactions and not have false negatives.
Until false positives (allowing an illegal transaction) is not a risk for them, their policies are unlikely to change.
jasonlotito · 8m ago
They do allow lawful transactions. However, they do require that these transactions be properly coded. If you are processing for certain types of products (adult in nature) it has to be coded as such. If Itch and Steam aren't coding these properly, or don't have the appropriate relation and accounts to process these transactions, you run into issues like this.
infecto · 2h ago
People keep saying this but I don’t see any reason any administration would do this. It is that type of argument that feels good to think about but has no legal basis.
TimorousBestie · 2h ago
It’s not credible that Collective Shout actually caused some change in policy. They’re being used to deflect blame from Visa/MC, who in any case have done rolling purges of adult content creators’ accounts for decades.
zb3 · 3h ago
If there was a law that mandates that payment processors have to accept all transactions, then there'd be no reason to cite "brand damage" because Mastercard could just point out that they're not in control because of the law, and no other processor could censor that content either.
Unfortunately, laws like EU AML law go the opposite direction, where banks are allowed to close accounts only if they deem them "too risky".. this is not good.
numpad0 · 2h ago
I kind of wonder if there had been misinterpretations as to the results of previous campaigns against Japan.
English in Japan is more of a customer support tool than a language. Proficiency is improving in some places, but on decline at large, below already atrocious status quo. This means the size of English-speaking audiences for actually Japan-centric news is small and not the first priority, not small && more important. Extremely little of whatever happening in Japan appear on mainstream English social media, let alone regular mainstream media.
If that much was not obvious to whoever pulling strings on this ongoing thing, I think there may be a chance that lack of observable responses after their earlier actions led to a misplaced confidence that gaming is a tiny top-down market and consumer resistance is nonexistent.
The responses were significant enough that it elected an equivalent of senate for third term and got former PM Kishida make a hand-wavy assurance on video even just few days before this one. It was almost certainly just a lip service, but also not nothing. How would anyone interpret that as a situation safe to escalate further?
aussieguy1234 · 3h ago
Yes, Mastercard didn't pressure valve and itch.io. They had an intermediary do it for them.
dude250711 · 3h ago
Anti-monopoly laws are good, but how about some harsh anti-duopoly laws?
Could also hit the iOS-Android bird with the same stone!
dchest · 3h ago
Existing "antimonopoly" laws already cover unfair competition, market manipulation, etc. regardless of the number of entities.
techpression · 3h ago
It’s not even a duopoly, look at the majority shareholders of both Visa and Mastercard, Vanguard and Black-rock in both. So it’s effectively a monopoly.
dublinben · 11m ago
Vanguard and Blackrock are just asset managers. Public companies are owned by everyone with mutual funds, like pension funds and individual retirement accounts.
What's stopping a large, profitable company like Valve from starting its own payment processor? Surely the technology part of it can't be an impossible hurdle.
mschild · 3h ago
Adoption.
You'd have to onboard hundreds/thousands of banks and terminal providers so they accept/give out your card.
I excpect the underlying technical stuff isn't that hard compared to getting people and companies to actually use it.
creer · 23m ago
> You'd have to onboard hundreds/thousands of banks
It's perhaps a good idea. It's likely that not very many banks and terminal makers and payment processors really matter. It would be a little delicate because the ones that matter would be pressured or at least would feel pressured NOT to participate on threat to their currently main business.
And the project doesn't have to become mainstream probably, just accepted "enough".
A better reason is that it's not really Valve's battle. They have plenty of other business. They don't need to fight this war. A company like OnlyFans, yeah perhaps they do - but they are likely much smaller.
Valve is in a situation that helps: they charge separately for each item. Some that the credit card networks are okay with and some that they are not. So they could support two regimes on their site: some items could only be paid through the Valve new card network (and gift cards and bitcoin), while other items could be paid through all the above plus the legacy credit card networks.
Valve (and/or OnlyFans) then gets paid for trying to enter the very lucrative payment network business. And gets to use these separate charges / two regimes of payments to distribute content that would be too dangerous within the current single payment framework.
scotty79 · 3h ago
Aren't cards last century technology? I'm paying with my phone anyways. Seller can use phone as well. Why does it need to involve incumbent banks and terminal providers at all? If Valve started something like that the banks would bang on its door relentlessly just to not be left out of the loop.
Gaming is the business bigger than movies, music and books combined and Valve is Google of games.
Jensson · 3h ago
> Gaming is the business bigger than movies, music and books combined and Valve is Google of games.
Valve is not Google of games, the app stores Google and Apple has dwarfs steam sales and the individual game consoles are similar size as the steam store.
> I'm paying with my phone anyways
Right, since the phone ecosystem is large enough to be its own payment processor, unlike steam.
scotty79 · 2h ago
Phone is the platform. You can put any payment system there. In various countries it was figured out in a lot of different ways. Valve with global reach could really compete.
Also Google Play store might have more consumers and or sales but they are of worse quality. It's scummy, it's exploitative. The whole system is propped up by whales decieved by gambling mechanics and deceptive ads. It's nowhere close to real world economy. Valve is much closer. Despite using Play Store since it came to existance I never paid for anything on Google Play because I don't trust it enough to add a single payment method there.
mpalmer · 3h ago
You should maybe look up how paying with your phone works.
And what in your mind is the thing banks will be begging Steam to be let in on? This reads like payment processing fan fiction.
scotty79 · 2h ago
I know how it works because connecting your bank account to your phone can be crappy and fiddly as it goes through Visa/Mastercard. But it works that way just to ride on customers of legacy systems. It doesn't have to work that way if you bring your own customers. It would have to start online of course and eventually move through phones to the real world.
I don't trust Paypal, at all, because its brand is damaged beyond repair, but I would put enough money on Valve account to do all of my online shopping with it if Valve did even just what Paypal does (even without connecting Visa or Mastercard directly).
mpalmer · 34m ago
It seems like you're treating your personal knowledge and preferences as the basis for Valve to take on an entirely new source of revenue and risk. It's a fantasy.
Even if 100% of Valve's user base cared as much as you (they do not), why would Valve take on the massive risk of connecting to its users' bank accounts? Of having to collect on debts? etc.
numpad0 · 2h ago
The backend of electronic payment is a huge mess of microservices, and lots of those services has portions of infra shared with Visa/Mastercard. So whichever alternative service you use is likely vulnerable to the same pressure.
yetihehe · 2h ago
> Aren't cards last century technology?
I don't pay with credit or debit card for steam, I can use Blik, which is paying with my phone or one other payment processor, but I'm not in USA. This is USA problem.
scotty79 · 2h ago
My point exactly. Valve could easily introduce something like Blik globally.
raincole · 3h ago
You mean Valve, the company that has been intentionally keeping itself lean to the point they only have 300 employees?
(Visa employee count: 30,000+)
kasey_junk · 3h ago
If you believe Steam et al, the payment processors are bowing to the card networks in this. So being a payment processor wouldn’t help. You need to sidestep the networks.
In the US that means either dealing with ACH at scale, which is a challenge, building a new card networks (which is hard) or only using alternative payment methods such as bnpl or crypto.
Each of those will limit your buyers, which as a merchant is a tough business decision.
benterix · 3h ago
> In the US that means either dealing with ACH at scale, which is a challenge, building a new card networks (which is hard)
Which is why someone has big interest in keeping it this way as in Europe practically every country solved this issue a long time ago and people do daily shopping completely omitting Visa/Mastercard. They try to fight back without much success.
kasey_junk · 37m ago
Europe is not a monolith on this. You see utilization rates going as high as 75% in Europe for credit cards, so in those countries merchants would have similar choices to American merchants. That’s before accounting for debit cards which use the main network rails.
And most of the alternatives are either government controlled and thus subject to different censorship concerns or private (for instance bnpl) and subject to the same.
That is to say people seem to be dancing around there being some fundamental right to transact. Thats not one of the traditional rights and not one that is codified most places (anyplace?).
Moomoomoo309 · 2h ago
The regulatory environment is absolutely insane. The things you'd need to do to interoperate are nightmarish, it's damn close to an impossible hurdle. (I work at a fintech company)
ddtaylor · 3h ago
I mean they kind of do. Most of the time I would hand wave away any company offering gift cards or credits, but Steam has created an economy / structure that I think warrants mentioning here.
I have sold a few items on Steam because I don't care about cosmetics in games. I'm also lazy and because of that "sat" on items for a while that appreciated. I mention this because Steam credit is very fungible: it can be easily converted.
Steam also makes it very easy to redeem credit, gift, etc.
I believe you can buy Steam cards at most places Xbox cards and similar are sold as well.
Also in the early days of Bitcoin buying and selling of digital Steam assets was one of the most popular things.
ascagnel_ · 3h ago
On the other hand, I'm absolutely amazed some US states hasn't yet gone after Valve for running an unlicensed casino with no age verification.
ddtaylor · 2h ago
I think loot boxes as a whole need to be regulated as they are clearly gambling. I'm not a fan of regulation as a solution to most problems, but when it involves children I think it sets a good framework for safety and if someone wants to start gambling later they are free to do so.
Hamuko · 3h ago
I know that physical Steam gift cards exist but I've quite frankly never seen them anywhere. Nintendo/PlayStation/Xbox cards are pretty ubiquitous though. I recently tried getting a Steam one from a grocery store but they only had the console ones.
reginald78 · 3h ago
I've definitely seen them. A quick search shows them available at BestBuy and Walmart at least.
Hamuko · 2h ago
I'm not American so I've never stepped inside a BestBuy and Walmart. The last place I checked was a Lidl, where they only had the console ones.
giantg2 · 3h ago
If they start their own payment processing company, they will then be subject to the same laws and regulations and the existing processing companies. Who manages the money doesn't matter. Even if you use Crypto, Steam would still remove the games due to the Australian law.
raincole · 3h ago
Steam didn't remove the games due to Australian law lol. Where did you get this idea?
Steam games' availability is per-country. They could've removed games for Australian users only. NSFW games are not shown to Chinese and German players on Steam since forever.
IshKebab · 3h ago
How would that help? Then MasterCard would drop them directly.
WolfRazu · 3h ago
Well in this case MasterCard is claiming it wasn't them, but their intermediary.
yupyupyups · 22m ago
>rape, incest and child abuse games
Wake me up when something of value is lost.
crinkly · 4h ago
A classic tale. Finger pointing between merchants, card providers and banks. All of them: it was someone else!
yreg · 4h ago
In this story, Itch and Valve are 10x more trustworthy than the card processors.
otherme123 · 3h ago
The fact that Visa and MasterCard are the primary payment options for OnlyFans, makes this story a mess. Some time ago Visa and MasterCard very vocally banned Pornhub (at least) from using their cards, 100% sure this comes from them.
duped · 2h ago
> Visa and MasterCard very vocally banned Pornhub
Not exactly. Visa was named as a counterparty in a class action against Mindgeek for monetizing child porn on their website. They lost, and there have been subsequent class actions.
Ultimately the ban was undone in exchange for onlyfans limiting the type of content available on the platform. So effectively, payment processors dictate which type of sexual activities, performed by consenting adults, are OK to depict and sell. Why? Why do they have that power?
crinkly · 3h ago
Oh 100% agree there. It's who they have to deal with who are the problem.
vintermann · 4h ago
That also suggests they do not want to out exactly who pushed them to this, whether it was external or internal.
amiga386 · 3h ago
But it seems fairly straightforward who it is.
If it was indeed Collective Shout's pressure campaign that led to Valve and itch.io being told by their payment processors to remove games, then this is how it went:
Collective Shout -> Mastercard -> Mastercard's head of brand risk (or equivalent role) -> Mastercard's business partners -> Valve and itch.io
We know it was Mastercard who told the payment processors what to do, as the rule they cited to Valve says "in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation" -- the Mastercard Corporation used its sole discretion to tell payment processors what to tell Valve and itch.io. The payment processors did not decide this for themselves.
Mob bosses order hits, wise guys carry them out. The mob boss has clean hands.
Keep the pressure on Mastercard.
We need to stop these side-channel attacks on democracy. If a government deems some media lawful, you shouldn't get to de-facto ban it by going after publicity-averse private companies that provide hosting, payment processing, etc. https://protectthestack.org/
cucubeleza · 3h ago
"you'll own nothing and be happy"
koonsolo · 3h ago
If only we had some kind of decentralized internet money system.
mananaysiempre · 3h ago
Or a legally protected right to transact, ideally with cash-equivalent anonymity. I’d take either one.
ranguna · 18m ago
The digital euro will be released in the coming years. It allows for digital offline transfers.
anankaie · 3h ago
I'm feeling a little maximalist about this: How about both?
zb3 · 3h ago
Both require repealing AML/CFT laws. But maybe that's the way and we should focus on the underlying crime instead..
wongarsu · 2h ago
Bitcoin (and most other crypto) unintentionally strikes an interesting balance here. Through the ability to trace blockchain transactions and impose KYC laws on exchanges you can in principle figure out who most money belongs to. That puts you in a position where if A wants to send B money you can't prevent that, but you can go after either A or B. That gives you freedom of payment, but after the fact you can still go after people laundering money or financing terrorism
zb3 · 2h ago
Until the bank closes your account because it's deemed "high risk" and they're absolutely allowed to do that without explanations.
littlecranky67 · 3h ago
And this is not the first time this happens. The exact same thing happened to PornHub - their premium subscription model got cancelled due to Visa/MC not liking some "questionable" content. Even though PH purged 60% of its content (basically every video uploaded from an unverified account), they are to this day still not accepting CC - probably as they are still banned. Instead they accept Crypto and SEPA payments in the EU.
This makes a strong case for Bitcoin - no matter if you consider it a ponzi scheme, or the BTC price to be overinflated, you will not be able to deny it is truly censorship free.
projektfu · 1h ago
It's a strong case for, perhaps, Algorand[1], but Bitcoin can no longer play this role properly. Transactions are too difficult and slow and the network is too expensive. And Lightning is not a real solution.
1. Specifically a stablecoin running on the network
jasonlotito · 6m ago
One that is anti-consumer when compared to the CC system.
weberer · 2h ago
We have privacy focused crypto systems like Monero, but the EU effectively banned them last year through "money laundering" laws, and they're moving to completely ban them within the next few years.
So when some country decides something isn't appropriate for their culture, that's being backward, look at American exceptionalism and free speech..... unless its payment gateways enforcing their thumb down any free speech throats.
phkahler · 4h ago
Tossing around "free speech" in this case is kinda silly. The first amendment only applies to the government, not some company.
mathiaspoint · 3h ago
Free speech the idea applies to everyone. Free speech the implementation applies to the state's delegation of power to the federal government via the constitution.
SSLy · 3h ago
the concept is not limited to what the US constitution specifies.
reactordev · 3h ago
Incorrect, it applies to companies too as companies are citizens according to citizens united ruling over a decade ago.
criley2 · 3h ago
>Incorrect, it applies to companies too as companies are citizens according to citizens united ruling over a decade ago.
This doesn't even make sense. If a corporation is a person, then 1A Freedom of Speech means that the government cannot restrict the corporations political speech.
The corporation is absolutely allowed to restrict their users free speech, including political speech, because A) the bill of rights only binds the government, not corporations and B) it would actually be against free speech to compell a private corporation to engage in speech it does not agree with.
Should you be forced to post political or sexual content that you disagree with on your accounts or on a wall at your house? Of course not. Similarly, if you start a business, you cannot be forced to post political or sexual content you disagree with. Your freedom of speech as a business is what matters here.
The idea that we have "speech anarchy" where all people can say anything they want and punish anyone who doesn't reproduce their speech is insanity.
zb3 · 3h ago
What kind of "speech" are we talking about here? If a payment processor is already required to be secure, it could also be required not to deny any legal transactions. This isn't even political, you wouldn't expect a mobile carrier to censor your phone calls (at least in the EU we don't have that.. yet).
criley2 · 3h ago
The concept that you're talking about in the US is a "common carrier" e.g. a taxi can't deny some people or a hotel can't refuse some people.
In the US, payment processors are not common carriers and operate on a contractual regime that allows them to refuse or terminate service for non-compliance, risk management, or policy reasons.
Mobile companies here are common carriers and are much more strictly regulated.
_Algernon_ · 3h ago
Free speech can refer to two distinct but related concepts.
1. Free speech as in the US first amendment. This indeed is limited to the government.
2. Free speech as in the enlightenment ideal upon which western liberal societies are built.
It is usually obvious that people mean the second because it is the only one that is even relevant outside the US. Somehow the narrow-minded people who can not conceptualize that free speech is broader than the first definition think it is a big gotcha' to jump into conversations with this kind of "um achtually".
This is becoming tiresome.
khalic · 3h ago
Before getting all worked up, I would advise people to look at what games exactly were banned, and see if it’s a case of power abuse or simply a case of “we can all agree that rape and incest games are disgusting and have no place in an entertainment web site visited by kids”.
jksflkjl3jk3 · 40m ago
Unless there is actual real-word harm to someone (which is hard to imagine happening from a video game), no, I don't agree with you.
What your kids are exposed to is your responsibility. Don't burden the rest of society because you can't be bothered to set your own boundaries.
makeitdouble · 2h ago
You should bark at Steam if you want more curation.
What people are pissed at is a card payment network abused for moral regulation.
aesh2Xa1 · 2h ago
Furthermore, there's no public list of exactly which games were removed.
f6v · 52m ago
> we can all agree that rape and incest games are disgusting and have no place in an entertainment web site visited by kids
We can then also agree that a game where you beat someone into a bloody pulp with a bat is equally disgusting. Why do we treat rape and murder differently?
braiamp · 1h ago
It doesn't matter because it is up to Steam what products they list to sell, not to MC/Visa.
IanCal · 3h ago
I feel like nobody cares really and none of the companies care, but are all worried because of the massive stranglehold 2 players have (and realistically each has almost entire control).
Mastercard don't care you want porn, or games, or whatever. Neither does VISA. They like money. They want money and want people to move their money so they can siphon off some of it for their own pockets. Almost nobody is going to avoid using a bank because their card provider let some other people buy rude games on steam.
The payment processors don't care. They want you to send money through them so they can take their cut.
Steam doesn't care. The people making the games don't care. They all just want to sell stuff.
The only thing that impacts this really is chargebacks, which iiuc are much more common with adult stuff.
But payment processors can't guarantee what mastercard or visa will do, and players like steam (and they're huge, this is not about tiny store issues) can't guarantee what payment processors will do and given the potential downside - blocking all sales - people need to be careful.
While I can see how these situations come up, it's also absolutely insane as an end result because I just want to give *my money* to someone else. I've ended up using crypto before for buying things, not for ideological reasons, but purely because I could buy them and then give them to someone else for the "flagged as risky" goods/services because I couldn't pay for things using my money and my card.
giantg2 · 3h ago
This has nothing to do with charge backs and everything to do with the Australian and US laws.
simion314 · 3h ago
>The only thing that impacts this really is chargebacks, which iiuc are much more common with adult stuff.
I think this makes no sense, like "we makes less profits from adult stuff because of charge back, so let\s give up on this profits". Anyway this companies did not use this excuse so why do this old excuse is resufecing now if they did not use it.
giantg2 · 3h ago
They usually just charge a higher fee for the riskier category. If a particular vendor has too many charge backs, they could drop them for that. Obviously not the case with Steam.
littlecranky67 · 3h ago
I really hope Steam will start to accept Bitcoin (via Lightning possibly) over this. Due to its decentralization, it is censorship free by default. And if Steam accepts Bitcoin, that would be a massive boost for the liquidity aspect of BTC: You could basically sell your BTC to anyone who wants to make a Steam purchase, making it similarly fungible as Amazon gift vouchers.
ranguna · 17m ago
Not sure about bitcoin, but maybe a stable coin would be interesting.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 2h ago
> making it similarly fungible as Amazon gift vouchers
This isn’t as accurate as you might hope. I can pretty much only buy hobby-related things on Steam but I can buy just about any non-perishable household item on Amazon.
baobabKoodaa · 2h ago
Didn't Steam previously accept Bitcoin and then stop as no-one was using that option?
giantg2 · 3h ago
Lots of outrage at the card companies, but strangely, no outrage at the laws that actually caused this. One is the Australian law to remove that type of content and the other is the US law that says the payment processor can't participate in illegal transactions.
freddie_mercury · 3h ago
Why would there be outrage at laws when the article we're talking about specifically says this isn't about any laws but instead about a Mastercard rule about damaging their brand?
tmvphil · 3h ago
As opposed to a hypothetical scenario where it is legal to participate in illegal transactions?
No comments yet
Jensson · 3h ago
Then they would just get removed in Australia, not worldwide.
giantg2 · 3h ago
My guess is that Steam wasn't able to adequately block the games in Austrailia. If people use a VPN to access the content, could Steam still be liable?
meinersbur · 2h ago
They absolutely do have that infrastructure. They implemented every country's content rating system, such as PEGI, ESRB, ... . Games are regionally banned, such as in Germany [1]. Games can also have regionally censored games, typically for violence/gore in Germany [2]. With the strange effect that if you change your account's region, it re-downloads some of the games.
The legal situation with VPNs and traveling between regions is the same as with any internet service.
Your steam account has a record of the country it was created in, and so does your credit card when you use it. You'd have to also get a foreign credit card and create a new steam account to even use a VPN to buy games from another region.
benterix · 3h ago
No, it's enough that they do basic geoblocking just like streaming and other companies.
Mindwipe · 3h ago
Steam already blocks games sufficiently for Australian law in some cases about ratings and drug use, as it does in many territories.
ohdeargodno · 3h ago
No, it hasn't been the case. The group in question, Collective Shout, has been pressuring Mastercard. Not Mastercard Australia, not Steam Australia: it's a concerted action to take down things they don't want. It's not a one time thing either: sex workers have been under attack by similar extremist catholic bigots. Furries, porn, anything they see as deviant is being attacked. And MC/Visa are happy to help.
Do I mind that MDMA Date With Hitler was taken down ? No, I don't believe it's a massive loss. However, the way it was done, through payment providers threatening to shut off access to the entire payment system because of their rules, is incredibly dangerous to the whole world.
Maken · 15m ago
This so much. The problem here is not the content that was blocked, it's the completely unaccountable process that was used to block content worldwide bypassing any legal protection.
ddtaylor · 3h ago
Do you have info on the US law? I am curious if it follows the same trend Russia set years ago with requiring them to put a large deposit and if they break the rules they get to keep all the money.
giantg2 · 3h ago
It doesn't go that far. These are part of the Know Your Customer type of law. These have increasingly been pushed as part of anti money laundering onto banks, investments, and processors. If a company is selling illegal things or things that even could potentially be illegal, then they get blacklisted. Similar thing to pot companies.
ascagnel_ · 3h ago
Marijuana sales, at least in the US, are a whole different can of worms, because marijuana exists as kind of a Schroedinger's illicit substance: its legal at a state level in most US states, while simultaneously illegal at the federal level. Anyone with a multi-state footprint that exists in that transaction chain could be held liable.
ddtaylor · 2h ago
And they have threatened payment processors, etc. basically anyone who gets to big.
v5v3 · 3h ago
But it wasn't illegal to put up a NSFW game if sold to a adult.
Were Steam selling it to kids?
shagie · 41m ago
How would Steam know?
And yes, that's a problem that they're dealing with right now. Bellular News : Steam Faces Financial Obliteration: Others Are Already Dead https://youtu.be/AlDkL3DndtM
That said, not all NSFW content is allowed in all jurisdictions. Australia and Japan (for example) have laws about particular content that differs from US laws.
xbar · 1h ago
MC/Visa wield a great deal of market power, which is bad because they become directly controllable entities.
I can't believe I am about to say this: Bitcoin fixes this.
TJTorola · 1h ago
Some other cryptocurrency fixes this, maybe (big maybe). But as long as _Bitcoin_ is seen primarily as an investment opportunity it can't really function as a means of exchange. For the same reason that we expect and need USD to lose value over time, people need to be encouraged to exchange their currency, not sit on it forever.
these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.
Well, it probably would be, except guess who killed it in favor of a crypto scheme? https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-execut...
I agree about the PO though. Social media shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise either.
A government organization like the mint should be in charge of the layer 1 of money transfer. Let the current providers adapt and sell their other services on top of it. It could be crypto, copy the existing systems, or be something new all together. It doesn't even have to be free, they could add in a small transfer tax or whatever. The point is that any person or business should be able to send money to any other, for any reason. At the very least within the country.
[0] was from March, and demanded treasury modernization (like paperless and stuff), but didn't really say anything about crypto or FedNow. And FedNow's website mentions nothing about the program being slowed down (just announcements about new things happening in Q3 and a bunch of new signed on banks).
0: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/28/2025-05...
If the answer is "no for these reasons", then this probably shines a big light on why FedNow is not serving the same use case.
I do find the ending of the EO pretty amusing. You're telling the agencies exactly what to do, how is that not impairing their authority?
> Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
> (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax document, and it would be down all the time. Think the line at the post office but for server up-times.
Similarly if the mint maintained a payment processor then they'd just create a legal monopoly (like the USPS did) and ban new processors. Not only would they be worse than VISA and MasterCard, but they'd make paypal and venmo illegal. Don't forget the USPS bans competitors from being cheaper than itself, and this is exactly what would happen if the Mint had its own payment processor.
I know a librarian who spends an inordinate amount of time helping the elderly and tech illiterate members of the public with creating emails, because they're necessary. However, you can't create emails anywhere without a phone number these days - a post office option would fix that.
Email already gets enormous amounts of spam, and the only reason most don't see it is because private service providers like Google expend resources filtering them out. Why would a business not be able to charge for premium filter services on an email they don't host? Not to mention that private email services send you ads.
To be clear, I'm not saying we should shut down Gmail tomorrow, but having a free public email service option would allow many people to use internet infrastructure they don't have. It's an accessibility problem that should be addressed in the public's interest as well as shareholders.
No comments yet
The US Digital Service made a number of good web services for the US federal government while it lasted. They didn't close at night.
There are many times where governments do a bad job of things, and times where they do a good job. They're just institutions made of people, but they have no other default orientation. Describing faults in some non-existent service you're just imagining, as though they would obviously happen, is frankly a bizarre thing to do.
May I suggest: consider getting involved in the governance of your world. You could meet the many humans who are already doing so, working to improve it, and learning something. You can actually do that! It might surprise you how much good work is being done.
You might also then be able to help prevent others from implementing your worst dreams, instead of treating them as obvious or foregone conclusions.
Don't get me wrong. There are cases when it makes sense, but only when it is certain that there is no way to make it better, or when making it better would be a waste of resources. And neither is case here.
In my country, we have, what is essentially, a centralized email for communication with authorities. Taxes, permits, trials, it all goes there. There is no spam, you can set it up so that reminders about unread go to your normal email. It's not perfect, but it saves me hours of time I would otherwise have to waste in line.
So try for something like this. Instead of just giving up.
Ok but this one is good. And it works because it’s a tool they need to generate revenue
But still, atrocious site. I can't use the back button or it logs you out; logging in is like a 5 step chore, it's unintuitive and looks like it's from 2005. I can only assume it's unsafe and doing simple things like checking your balance take 20 minutes. There will never be an app and I'm sure they will continue to do no innovation on the customer service side.
For the sake of reducing complexity in an already very complex world, I'd rather that it be illegal to require an email address to sign up for an account (or, alternatively, make it illegal to require an account for things like making a reservation at a restaurant) then being provided with an email by the USPS.
Doubly so given the interactions that I've had with digital services provided by my country's government and the bad (and in several cases extremely bad) experiences that I've had with them.
To be clear - I don't object to e.g. an address from the USPS complementing my existing email - I just don't want to be forced to use it for anything due to it being given some special properties that normal email providers aren't.
No because these things are genuinely useful. As much as people lament that we are going cashless, it's very convenient to be able to just carry one card and it's genuinely useful to just give my email as an identifier when registering for stuff.
Regulating their necessity means forcing people to accept cash and then using this as a reason why MasterCard and Visa should be allowed exist. In practice if something is that ingrained into daily interaction, then it should have something like the common carrier rules, set the fee to a static percentage of the transaction and that's it. The current 50% profit margins rent-seeking approach is just inefficient.
I think my argument is harder to make for payment processors, but in the case of email, it is preferable to not need an email address to create an account (even if it's convenient to have the option), and have other identifiers that can be used, like OAuth using an existing account or phone number, for instance.
Or, like I said, even better if you don't even need to create an account to participate in a one-time transaction (instead of a service relationship) with an entity.
The One Digital Identity Service To Rule Them All is always vulnerable to mass hacking. We need to connect it with something slower, something more private, and the interface to that slow identity needs to be something that already has a branch open in the middle of nowhere.
Public-private partnerships like chartered banks, and outright cartels like Visa MasterCard, are much more fruitful mechanisms for this sort of civil liberties abuse.
/s
Anyway, email itself is broken, but this system works because if it costs money to send a message, it discourages any spambot and/or misuse.
Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.
A tangential nitpick: it's fizzle out, from a Middle English etymology meaning "to fart"; not to fission (fissile being an adjectival form), from Latin "to split".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fizzle#Etymology ("Attested in English since 1525-35. From earlier fysel (“to fart”). Related to fīsa (“to fart”). Compare with Swedish fisa (“to fart (silently)”). See also feist.")
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feist#Etymology
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fissile#Etymology ("From Latin fissilis.")
Like after lighting a firework that didn't actually go off.
"It's fizzled out!"
Does this mean "Missile" means "to miss"? 'Cause boy have we been using those things wrong :-)
https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ
In many countries, if you pay locally, you absolutely can. China's UnionPay, India's UPI, PayNow in Singapore, PromptPay in Thailand, PayPal, Cash App, and more.
15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.
See discussion here for example: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/6019100814124...
I expect the meta-plot with FedNow is to commoditize the backend network, then allow private companies to compete on top of it (e.g. Zelle on FedNow), then after adoption as the backbone, finally roll out P2P and P2B type support that finally kills off Visa / Mastercard / Amex (as processing networks).
We've had that in EU/eurozone for years, SEPA.
Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3%
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard
It's not enough to simply have an alternative to the credit cards, that alternative has to be in the pockets of 90% of your user base before you'd be willing to lose the method of transaction they currently rely on.
"Privacy concerns" won't hold out long against relentless pushes for more deregulation of privacy laws for AI/other tech/"the economy"/etc and removal of data access hurdles for police/security services/etc coming from certain political spectrum - whose voters generally don't have high concern for such fundamental rights issues when at the ballot box.
AFAIK all credit cards in the EU have similarly low interchange rates because of EU regulation.
Why not? Lots of people, especially in lower income brackets, don't have ANY credit cards at all. I know many. They buy groceries and gas with cash and pay their utilities by ACH or mailing a check. Everything else they need, they buy locally.
What you mean to say is that it's _inconvenient_ for you personally to boycott Visa/Mastercard. Which may be true enough.
Even lower income citizens use debit cards more than cash nowadays.
You would need to use different networks like Discover and American Express to effectively boycott them
It’s almost trading one for another but it would be an effective way to boycott these companies
Also there are a few QR networks, some made by the banks like "Modo" and other no-a-bank ones like "MercadoPago" and a few minor ones. Even the guy/gal that sells hot bread on the street accept most of them.
To this point, it was even a punchline in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
Somehow I'm able to use a JCB card though. As far as I'm aware, JCB cards aren't even available here.
Most countries have some kinds of domestic transaction systems, or at least a more local credit card brand. They're also usually instant. It's more or less an US-only situation that people use Visa/Mastercard even for intranational stuff.
China is kind of an outlier with Union Pay, and while a large number of countries offer their own alternatives, I'd say most are Visa-first. Apparently about 37% of cards around the world are Visa, so that's a huge chunk. JCB is the biggest non-Chinese non-American provider by revenue, and even they're a minor player in their home country.
Honestly, I'm really critical towards EU, but this is one of the few things that EU does well. When the market is stagnating, it's better than nothing to propose an alternative or some kind of benefits in order to change the market a bit. Like the Roaming in EU.
Regarding the rest, the EU is mining competition with the obsession of regulating everything.
This is just Visa+Mastercard abusing their market position and the EU should come down on them like a ton of bricks. Incur heavy fines or break them up if necessary.
The only reason they have that market position is because there is insufficient competition.
Regulations are empirical decisions, based on a very limited amount of data, whose implications can be endless. Regulations are a shortcut capable of poisoning the market and competition. Just look at what's been done with energy, automobiles, AI, GDPR, etc. Bureaucrats are not gods; they often make mistakes and don't predict the future. Regulations should be the last resort.
Furthermore, we're talking about a US monopoly here. The goal would be to grab a share of the pie through honest competition, not to enstablish golden collars.
Regulation should facilitate competition, not legitimize the status quo.
Like with DMA/DSA that force gatekeepers to open up? SEPA that mandates free immediate bank transfers? Caps on credit/debit card transaction fees? The million infrastructure projects? Ensuring that AI can't be used to make life or death decisions if it's decision making can't be explained (which the AI act boils down to)? Ensuring there is competition on e.g. railway operations?
It's such a common refrain that EU is just stifling competition with "regulating everything", but quite oftne EU regulations are actually forcing competition where none was possible before.
> Ensuring that AI can't be used to make life or death decisions if its decision-making can't be explained (which the AI Act boils down to)? Ensuring there is competition on, for example, railway operations?
It's such a naive question that I can't understand how you can take it seriously.
Just because you can explain how you arrived at a specific decision does not mean that failure does not exist. Every machine is fallible. Every human is fallible. Moreover, you cannot determine decision-making made by humans. So how can you trust humans? Why should you trust them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot
I would like to see the data, not the social or individual biases. It's only a matter of "when" AI will prove to be safer than humans at performing task X. I find it absurd to deprive ourselves of such an advantage, supported by data, just because our understanding isn't absolute.
Can we prove the safety or determinism of what we use or do on a daily basis? I doubt. Shouldn't we experiment with physics because our understanding is limited, and we might accidentally create a black hole? I doubt.
Also, I find it such a generic definition... Google Maps implements AI, and accidentally sends you into a ditch. What do you do? Ban AI from Google Maps? What doesn't put people's lives at risk?
I totally understand the skepticism and fear. The risks, etc. But I'll leave it to the fortune tellers to pass judgment before it's even "a thing".
> It's such a common refrain that EU is just stifling competition with "regulating everything", but quite oftne EU regulations are actually forcing competition where none was possible before.
Is killing the car market "forcing the competition"? How?
EU will even arrange a special new bank account for ya outside of Visa Mastercard called CBDC.
No problem. EU is here for ya! /s
The other two superpowers are Eurasia (which as the name suggests is Europe less the UK and Ireland but with Asia) and Eastasia, which is South-East Asia more or less
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_geography_of_Ninetee...
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Why did we make all those monopoly laws only to completely forget they exist or why we ever made them?
American Express' card started in 1958, as a pivot of their then already 100-year-old business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Express#1920s%E2%80%9...
Visa also in 1958 as a Bank of America (and friends) card, which quietly expanded into the mid-60s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.#History
Mastercard in the mid-60s from banks who BoA wouldn't invite into the Visa clubhouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastercard#History
And Discover in the mid-80s because Sears was big enough to be its own financial services firm: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discover_Card#History
i dont have access to the joke, or inside club, or inner sanctum, and maybe theres other people like me that want to know more and if the mystery is self-imposed then i might respectfully push back that we cant talk about it
"Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand"
(For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)
>Each of these companies maintains its own terms of service and each of them can block a transaction by themselves. Additionally, intermediary companies that handle card transactions are mutually and individually bound to the terms of every Card Network, so even if you never do business with Discover or American Express, you must still obey their rules if you want to accept Visa or Mastercard. For online businesses, there are no alternatives: you will do exactly what they want, or you will not do business at all.
>If you are banned from processing payments, you will not be informed why or by which point of failure. "Risk management" is considered a trade secret in the industry. You have no right to know, you cannot sue to discover what has happened, and you also have no right to appeal.
https://usips.org/blog/2025/07/fair-access-to-banking/
Did Mastercard threaten Valve? Or did Valve precomply?
The payment processors did not cite any law; Valve selling those games was not illegal. Instead they cited Mastercard's rules, which say that they cannot submit transactions that Mastercard believe might damage Mastercard's goodwill or reflect negatively on its brand. Those rules also say Mastercard has sole discretion as to what it considers breach these rules, and Mastercard gives a list of what it deems unacceptable:
https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/n...
> 5.12.7 Illegal or Brand-damaging Transactions
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
> The Corporation considers any of the following activities to be in violation of this Rule:
> 2. The sale of a product or service, including an image, which is patently offensive and lacks serious artistic value (such as, by way of example and not limitation, images of nonconsensual sexual behavior, sexual exploitation of a minor, nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part, and bestiality), or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark.
The payment processors threatened Valve first. Mastercard doesn't need to threaten Valve or even contact them at all to force its will on them: it just needs to threaten its payment processors, the same outcome is achieved. Valve did not remove games from sale until threatened. If they did not do that, and instead initiated some kind of fightback, they would most likely find themselves completely removed from all payment processors, with no recourse. If you want to call that "precompliance", so be it.
Do we have a statement from Valve saying as much?
> In a statement provided to PC Gamer, Valve said that it had tried to work things out with Mastercard directly prior to removing the games, and suggested that Mastercard did have at least an indirect influence on the outcome.
> "Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so," a Valve representative said. "Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution.
> "Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand."
Like yes, there is a problem with Mastercard. But I want to know this isn’t Valve having complied with some activists trying to cover their tracks.
Which is more likely:
1. Porn-hating, sex-hating, LGBT-hating activist group from Australia bombards Mastercard with complaints that Valve and Itch are selling adult games. Mastercard reminds its payment processors not to bring shame on The Mark. Valve's and Itch's payment processors tell them not to sell adult games.
2. Porn-hating, sex-hating, LGBT-hating activist group from Australia bombards Mastercard with complaints that Valve and Itch are selling adult games. Valve and Itch agree with these harpies and remove their revenue streams and support for developers (because they hate revenue and hate supporting their developers; they'd much rather align with moral prudes from Australia in order to lose money and abandon the people who make them that money), then they sneakily pin the blame on Mastercard. Valve and Itch also use telepathy to know Collective Shout's desires, which they agree with, to ban games precisely at the time Collective Shout are calling up Mastercard, in order for it to be Collective Shout -> Valve/Itch rather than Collective Shout -> Mastercard -> Payment processors -> Valve/Itch
Thank you, this is the context I was missing.
So everyone would have to be pretty invested in this show for it to have originated from Valve?
a) they are worried Mastercard might randomly decide it does and punish them
b) it's convenient to be able to blame someone else
c) someone somewhere said something and the rest of the orgs isn't aware or over-interpreted a statement
Vague rules like this are great to dilute responsibility. It can both be true that Mastercard didn't tell the payment processors to force the issue and that the payment processors strongly thought they had to.
But it's hard to say. Mastercard is now saying that they never said or did anything. So where did the outrage come from? Someone must have done something.
It sure is tragic that benevolent and majestic Mastercard is having their name thrown into the mud over this. Coincidentally, it sure is convenient that they have a number of middleman scapegoats who can take the blame on their behalf.
There's even a (non-public) list of keyword banned terms.
Even the (rare) categories of content that have been legally determined to be non-obscene (e.g., werewolf erotica [1]) can fall under banned keywords (in this case, “bestiality”).
It’s a stupid extralegal system and ought to be destroyed.
[1] https://time.com/archive/7118599/california-prisoner-fights-...
I just don't see the argument that a payment processor being able to process payments legitimately gives them reputation risk. I don't doubt that people write in to MasterCard to claim it does but people write about everything.
So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.
For background,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan... ("Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association" (2011) ("ruling that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment as other forms of media"))
I don't think there's any government involvement necessary here - Mastercard has some censorship apparatus (which they claim to be necessary for their brand's reputation), and they used it (apparently through pressure from an Australian group) towards video games.
This is really bad but I don't think it makes sense to believe a government was ever involved here. Of course, there should be laws put in place to regulate mastercard into a common infrastructure. They should not be able to deny processing a legal payment because of nebulous "brand reputation" reason.
In general? Absolutely - search 'Operation Chokepoint'.
There's a great summary in the middle of this (very long) article under that header: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
Also, the FCC does not directly set standards and instead responds to complaints from the communities in which the broadcast is available. So it’s conceivable that in an environment where nobody cared, you could do this at any time of day.
Which is a pretty messed up situation.
You can hand wave around well they are a monopoly or some related argument but the government does not see it that way. Visa and Mastercard for decades have censored adult sites on their network. At the end of the day I suspect they would be happy to take the fees but they are the ones underwriting the risk and there have been cases over the year in the US at least that challenge how extreme you can go with Adult material. Even today there are certain categories that are much harder to get setup for processing.
Edit: to be ultra clear, I would love more competition in this space but at the same time there is no argument around free speech here.
But even in the context of the First Amendment, freedom of speech does not only apply to the government. For example, net neutrality laws prevent ISPs, which are generally private companies, from restricting Internet traffic on free speech grounds.
To the extent that it is legal for a payment processor to censor speech, the only reasonable conclusion is that the law is wrong and must be amended. Large corporations are much more similar to governments than they are to private so individuals, and should be treated as such.
It's like if a tier 1 ISP only peered with networks that peer with networks that censor XYZ. Allowing for these kind of agreements leads to censorship and is why net neutrality is important from the government.
This typically comes up when someone thinks they're getting better transit service from a tier-1 than a tier-2. They're not. A tier-2 ISP can have better routes, since a tier-1 will refuse to deliver your traffic anywhere that requires them to pay money. Some places are just unreachable from tier-1 ISPs.
Famously, for over a decade Cogent has refused to receive packets from Hurricane Electric without payment because idk profits, and Hurricane Electric has refused to pay them because it's a tier-1-ish, so you just can't talk to Cogent customers if you're an HE customer and vice versa. (I think HE eventually relented by paying a third-party to forward packets to specifically Cogent, even though they have tier-1 status to everywhere else)
Constitutional rights are also civil rights - businesses may not violate them nilly-willy in this specific manner which causes damages to people.
"Mastercard finds out there are a lot of gamers out there, makes an attempt at damage control." would be more appropriate.
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
I didn't expect they had such clear rules expliciting they can ban any kind of transactions they don't like or would make them look bad, regardless of the legality of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Streetcar-Named-Desire-Blu-ray/dp/B07...
Why is Mastercard processing money for this movie that contains a rape scene?
If I remember correctly a big part of Valves heavy investment into linux was Microsoft wanting to lock windows down more, and now in 2025 gaming on linux is a viable alternative to windows.
I believe Steam did support bitcoin at one point but decided to end usage over because the price fluctuations made it to unpredictable on their end. Maybe the landscape has changed though.
Whether or not Valve would want to encourage people to pay with crypto and expose their customer base to its volatility is another matter.
So either those poor games need to be kicked out, or everyone has to switch to cash/app overnight. The transition process has to be easy enough that the dumbest addict you have seen in worst fast food restaurant place can complete in few clicks. That has proven difficult for many, and sadly the former options are usually taken.
There are plenty of chains that can confirm transactions in a couple seconds, and if you're concerned with volatility, just use USDC/USDT. There are crypto payment processors that handle all of this and allow payment across a range of chains and handle the volatility so that the merchant doesn't need to worry about anything crypto and just receives fiat.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...
How it works is you purchase a product online and it gives you a barcode that can be scanned at any major convenience store. You go to the store, scan the code, hand over cash, and the content you bought is instantly unlocked once the payment is confirmed.
I don't think Valve could feasibly implement this at their scale - especially if this method was the _only_ way to acquire the games in question.
I am looking forward to the day when they shutdown and everybody realizes this.
If they don’t do this and it’s all just lip service, then it makes a strong argument for ethical piracy at that time.
Steam shutting down and taking your library with it really doesn't change much except you lose that nice delivery platform with good integrations (achievements, workshop mods, multiplayer integration, automatic updates) for games you're active in. For the 90% you were never going to touch again it wouldn't be noticeable, outside the annoying reminder you were never able to resell them. The other 10% just reverts back to "pirate it" which is about here on my scale:
"find that legal physical copy to play with" < "pirate it" < "click button on Steam"
However, a lot of games add their own DRM and/or protection scheme that complicates things.
EDIT: technically there are two distinct component: the actual DRM, called steamstub, and the steamwork library, that does not work without steam but it is not considered drm. Both can be easily bypassed/emulated.
They’re payment processors, for crying out loud. Their entire grift is taking a slice of every transaction processed, ergo, the only restriction they should ever have in processing payments is whether or not the transaction is legal under the law, full stop.
If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (including games), then don’t be a payment processor. They’re a business, not a person, and therefore their “preferences” regarding content are irrelevant.
I definitely wish there were more option in payment processing and this is a good example of how crypto has failed, it should be a seamless drop-in imo. I also don’t believe this is a matter of free speech. It surprising to see so many folks wave the free speech flag where I don’t follow the logic. The government under any administration is not going to come to the rescue of free speech laws.
Who is this regulator that's going to care that Visa and Mastercard are processing payments for porn?
As it stands currently, the risk associated to the company for allowing illegal transactions is what drives their policy since they get brought into lawsuits for allowing monetization of illegal content in some jurisdiction.
Changing it (world wide) so that payment processors are not subject to money laundering laws and cannot be held liable when a merchant sells something illegal would allow them to change their model to allow all lawful transactions and not have false negatives.
Until false positives (allowing an illegal transaction) is not a risk for them, their policies are unlikely to change.
Unfortunately, laws like EU AML law go the opposite direction, where banks are allowed to close accounts only if they deem them "too risky".. this is not good.
English in Japan is more of a customer support tool than a language. Proficiency is improving in some places, but on decline at large, below already atrocious status quo. This means the size of English-speaking audiences for actually Japan-centric news is small and not the first priority, not small && more important. Extremely little of whatever happening in Japan appear on mainstream English social media, let alone regular mainstream media.
If that much was not obvious to whoever pulling strings on this ongoing thing, I think there may be a chance that lack of observable responses after their earlier actions led to a misplaced confidence that gaming is a tiny top-down market and consumer resistance is nonexistent.
The responses were significant enough that it elected an equivalent of senate for third term and got former PM Kishida make a hand-wavy assurance on video even just few days before this one. It was almost certainly just a lip service, but also not nothing. How would anyone interpret that as a situation safe to escalate further?
Could also hit the iOS-Android bird with the same stone!
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.34N76K4
You'd have to onboard hundreds/thousands of banks and terminal providers so they accept/give out your card.
I excpect the underlying technical stuff isn't that hard compared to getting people and companies to actually use it.
It's perhaps a good idea. It's likely that not very many banks and terminal makers and payment processors really matter. It would be a little delicate because the ones that matter would be pressured or at least would feel pressured NOT to participate on threat to their currently main business.
And the project doesn't have to become mainstream probably, just accepted "enough".
A better reason is that it's not really Valve's battle. They have plenty of other business. They don't need to fight this war. A company like OnlyFans, yeah perhaps they do - but they are likely much smaller.
Valve is in a situation that helps: they charge separately for each item. Some that the credit card networks are okay with and some that they are not. So they could support two regimes on their site: some items could only be paid through the Valve new card network (and gift cards and bitcoin), while other items could be paid through all the above plus the legacy credit card networks.
Valve (and/or OnlyFans) then gets paid for trying to enter the very lucrative payment network business. And gets to use these separate charges / two regimes of payments to distribute content that would be too dangerous within the current single payment framework.
Gaming is the business bigger than movies, music and books combined and Valve is Google of games.
Valve is not Google of games, the app stores Google and Apple has dwarfs steam sales and the individual game consoles are similar size as the steam store.
> I'm paying with my phone anyways
Right, since the phone ecosystem is large enough to be its own payment processor, unlike steam.
Also Google Play store might have more consumers and or sales but they are of worse quality. It's scummy, it's exploitative. The whole system is propped up by whales decieved by gambling mechanics and deceptive ads. It's nowhere close to real world economy. Valve is much closer. Despite using Play Store since it came to existance I never paid for anything on Google Play because I don't trust it enough to add a single payment method there.
And what in your mind is the thing banks will be begging Steam to be let in on? This reads like payment processing fan fiction.
I don't trust Paypal, at all, because its brand is damaged beyond repair, but I would put enough money on Valve account to do all of my online shopping with it if Valve did even just what Paypal does (even without connecting Visa or Mastercard directly).
Even if 100% of Valve's user base cared as much as you (they do not), why would Valve take on the massive risk of connecting to its users' bank accounts? Of having to collect on debts? etc.
I don't pay with credit or debit card for steam, I can use Blik, which is paying with my phone or one other payment processor, but I'm not in USA. This is USA problem.
(Visa employee count: 30,000+)
In the US that means either dealing with ACH at scale, which is a challenge, building a new card networks (which is hard) or only using alternative payment methods such as bnpl or crypto.
Each of those will limit your buyers, which as a merchant is a tough business decision.
Which is why someone has big interest in keeping it this way as in Europe practically every country solved this issue a long time ago and people do daily shopping completely omitting Visa/Mastercard. They try to fight back without much success.
And most of the alternatives are either government controlled and thus subject to different censorship concerns or private (for instance bnpl) and subject to the same.
That is to say people seem to be dancing around there being some fundamental right to transact. Thats not one of the traditional rights and not one that is codified most places (anyplace?).
I have sold a few items on Steam because I don't care about cosmetics in games. I'm also lazy and because of that "sat" on items for a while that appreciated. I mention this because Steam credit is very fungible: it can be easily converted.
Steam also makes it very easy to redeem credit, gift, etc.
I believe you can buy Steam cards at most places Xbox cards and similar are sold as well.
Also in the early days of Bitcoin buying and selling of digital Steam assets was one of the most popular things.
Steam games' availability is per-country. They could've removed games for Australian users only. NSFW games are not shown to Chinese and German players on Steam since forever.
Wake me up when something of value is lost.
Not exactly. Visa was named as a counterparty in a class action against Mindgeek for monetizing child porn on their website. They lost, and there have been subsequent class actions.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/19/onlyfans-to-...
Ultimately the ban was undone in exchange for onlyfans limiting the type of content available on the platform. So effectively, payment processors dictate which type of sexual activities, performed by consenting adults, are OK to depict and sell. Why? Why do they have that power?
If it was indeed Collective Shout's pressure campaign that led to Valve and itch.io being told by their payment processors to remove games, then this is how it went:
We know it was Mastercard who told the payment processors what to do, as the rule they cited to Valve says "in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation" -- the Mastercard Corporation used its sole discretion to tell payment processors what to tell Valve and itch.io. The payment processors did not decide this for themselves.Mob bosses order hits, wise guys carry them out. The mob boss has clean hands.
Keep the pressure on Mastercard.
We need to stop these side-channel attacks on democracy. If a government deems some media lawful, you shouldn't get to de-facto ban it by going after publicity-averse private companies that provide hosting, payment processing, etc. https://protectthestack.org/
This makes a strong case for Bitcoin - no matter if you consider it a ponzi scheme, or the BTC price to be overinflated, you will not be able to deny it is truly censorship free.
1. Specifically a stablecoin running on the network
https://www.bitcoinsensus.com/news/altcoins/eu-to-restrict-m...
So when some country decides something isn't appropriate for their culture, that's being backward, look at American exceptionalism and free speech..... unless its payment gateways enforcing their thumb down any free speech throats.
This doesn't even make sense. If a corporation is a person, then 1A Freedom of Speech means that the government cannot restrict the corporations political speech.
The corporation is absolutely allowed to restrict their users free speech, including political speech, because A) the bill of rights only binds the government, not corporations and B) it would actually be against free speech to compell a private corporation to engage in speech it does not agree with.
Should you be forced to post political or sexual content that you disagree with on your accounts or on a wall at your house? Of course not. Similarly, if you start a business, you cannot be forced to post political or sexual content you disagree with. Your freedom of speech as a business is what matters here.
The idea that we have "speech anarchy" where all people can say anything they want and punish anyone who doesn't reproduce their speech is insanity.
In the US, payment processors are not common carriers and operate on a contractual regime that allows them to refuse or terminate service for non-compliance, risk management, or policy reasons.
Mobile companies here are common carriers and are much more strictly regulated.
1. Free speech as in the US first amendment. This indeed is limited to the government.
2. Free speech as in the enlightenment ideal upon which western liberal societies are built.
It is usually obvious that people mean the second because it is the only one that is even relevant outside the US. Somehow the narrow-minded people who can not conceptualize that free speech is broader than the first definition think it is a big gotcha' to jump into conversations with this kind of "um achtually".
This is becoming tiresome.
What your kids are exposed to is your responsibility. Don't burden the rest of society because you can't be bothered to set your own boundaries.
What people are pissed at is a card payment network abused for moral regulation.
We can then also agree that a game where you beat someone into a bloody pulp with a bat is equally disgusting. Why do we treat rape and murder differently?
Mastercard don't care you want porn, or games, or whatever. Neither does VISA. They like money. They want money and want people to move their money so they can siphon off some of it for their own pockets. Almost nobody is going to avoid using a bank because their card provider let some other people buy rude games on steam.
The payment processors don't care. They want you to send money through them so they can take their cut.
Steam doesn't care. The people making the games don't care. They all just want to sell stuff.
The only thing that impacts this really is chargebacks, which iiuc are much more common with adult stuff.
But payment processors can't guarantee what mastercard or visa will do, and players like steam (and they're huge, this is not about tiny store issues) can't guarantee what payment processors will do and given the potential downside - blocking all sales - people need to be careful.
While I can see how these situations come up, it's also absolutely insane as an end result because I just want to give *my money* to someone else. I've ended up using crypto before for buying things, not for ideological reasons, but purely because I could buy them and then give them to someone else for the "flagged as risky" goods/services because I couldn't pay for things using my money and my card.
I think this makes no sense, like "we makes less profits from adult stuff because of charge back, so let\s give up on this profits". Anyway this companies did not use this excuse so why do this old excuse is resufecing now if they did not use it.
This isn’t as accurate as you might hope. I can pretty much only buy hobby-related things on Steam but I can buy just about any non-perishable household item on Amazon.
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The legal situation with VPNs and traveling between regions is the same as with any internet service.
[1] https://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut/discussions/17/41... [2] https://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut/discussions/17/39...
Do I mind that MDMA Date With Hitler was taken down ? No, I don't believe it's a massive loss. However, the way it was done, through payment providers threatening to shut off access to the entire payment system because of their rules, is incredibly dangerous to the whole world.
Were Steam selling it to kids?
And yes, that's a problem that they're dealing with right now. Bellular News : Steam Faces Financial Obliteration: Others Are Already Dead https://youtu.be/AlDkL3DndtM
The law being talked about in the video is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Act_2023 / https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act...
That said, not all NSFW content is allowed in all jurisdictions. Australia and Japan (for example) have laws about particular content that differs from US laws.
I can't believe I am about to say this: Bitcoin fixes this.