Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/10/10/credit-card-firms-are-becoming-reluctant-regulators-of-the-web

by mastazi • 5 years ago

305 275 5 years ago

economist.com

epicureanideal• 5 years ago

Reluctant? Really? Citation needed.

toyg4• 5 years ago

My thoughts exactly. They might be reluctant to show they have so much power, but they're definitely not reluctant to wield it.

rektide2• 5 years ago

They're reluctant to take on risk, but that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact & what isn't. I'm sure they've had to grow headcount to tackle this expanding question, and they certainly don't consider it as driving up business value: it's a growing overhead to avoid risk, without cutting off too much business, and without becoming too visible/noteable for refusing service. None of these activities are in any way a win.

MattGaiser2• 5 years ago

Reluctant because they aren't taking the initiative on these things. Some lawmakers or activist groups created a lot of pressure and they bowed to it.

I don't think they want to be dealing with any of this as it is costly (compliance staff and lost revenue) and fraught with political peril. But when the alternative is press releases arguing that Visa is helping aid sexual exploitation, they are going to choose to wash their hands of the market segment.

koheripbal2• 5 years ago

Because enforcing regulations is expensive. They'd rather just take the revenues.

manquer2• 5 years ago

Simple economics is main reason.

Regulating is expensive and they are not being paid for it. It Same reason why online social media would do as little content moderation as they can get away with .

Jon Oliver did a great piece yesterday on the state of non English content moderation on popular social media like YouTube and Facebook : the numbers he gave were 90% users can be non English but only 13% of the moderators deployed for other languages .

The real sad part is most of the content moderators for these companies all come from developing countries like India and already know a lot of other languages better than they do English.

They only care so far as to make users and regulators think they doing enough.

aomobile• 5 years ago

Can’t read the whole article however, from what is mentioned in the visible part, I find it a bit strange that free speech and monetary transactions, aka earning money with said free speech, is something that should be protected by law somehow.

foxfluff2• 5 years ago

How about covering the costs?

Is it free speech if it's only for those who can afford it?

ArtTimeInvestor6• 5 years ago

The Lightning Network might or might not lead to a widely used open payment network.

I would love to hear more from people who already use it. How well does it work?

As far as I know, El Salvador is currently trying to shift their whole economy to Bitcoin. Handling day to day payments via Lightning. Is anybody from HN there? How practical is it for non tech people to use it for their daily payments?

lawn4• 5 years ago

Very poorly. The only way it's usable is by relying on third parties, at which point you might as well use standard services. Or even actual cryptocurrencies for that matter.

ArtTimeInvestor6• 5 years ago

Which third parties do you mean?

vmception2• 5 years ago

Its an option.

Basically a litmus test will be when a gigantic brothel in Europe or a European country’s Caribbean district does a very public but permissionless capital raise, gets filled by retail, and pays dividends while shares being actively traded permissionlessly.

Thats when you’ll know the floodgates are open. Just given how much unwanted attention and publicity that will generate.

To me, its surprising it hasnt happened yet but I think now it is just a matter of time. Many services will take a second look when ownership by address is still concealed. Most crypto platforms do not offer that yet for shares/assets issued on their platform (ie. Monero has no ability to have fungible assets traded on it). Lightning Network has a theoretical but limited ability to do this. Bitcoin will have a greater ability to do this after its current inprogress upgrade goes live (taproot, schnorr) but not a complete solution out of the box even then.

pjc502• 5 years ago

You don't generally need to raise capital for sex work, and the problem there is having a physical location that will be raided if it's illegal.

To me, the important litmus test is when bitcoin gets definitively linked to a specific terrorist incident. Now, terrorism in the West is mostly out of fashion, except US rightwing extremists, because it's hard to have a death toll that anyone would notice over COVID, but that's not to say it won't happen in the future.

kevinak2• 5 years ago

I use it almost daily, don't have any issues. I run my own node though for my main "wallet". I've done transactions of up to 3k without hick-ups.

Any custodial ones I have tested have worked well, though.

ArtTimeInvestor6• 5 years ago

What do you use it for?

Any benefits over paying with credit cards / cash / direct deposits?

ur-whale• 5 years ago

https://archive.vn/CC0Ez

Isinlor4• 5 years ago

I would want to see regulations where banks are explicitly forbidden from blocking legal transactions.

If it's legal then banks should have no choice but to handle it.

AnthonyMouse2• 5 years ago

The biggest problem with this is that we already have regulations than punish banks for processing illegal transactions.

If you don't want that, and you want the banks not to refuse any legal transactions, that's easy. They then don't refuse to process any transactions at all.

If you do want them to refuse illegal transactions, and they're allowed to refuse legal transactions, that makes it easy for the bank because then they just refuse anything marginal even if it's totally legitimate. This is what we have now. It's not a problem for the bank but it's a big problem for the people getting unjustly locked out.

Expecting the bank to process no illegal transactions and all legal transactions is an impossible burden, because nobody actually knows what that means. The meaning of a lot of laws isn't even settled until they get litigated in court and set a precedent. It would require the bank to be infallible, and know everything about everybody's business, because a mistake in either direction would incur penalties.

So which one do you want? (The first one actually looks pretty good when you consider the alternatives. Let the police be the police and the bank be the bank.)

sverhagen2• 5 years ago

Isn't that a false choice, that's only phrased to cater to the "that makes it easy for the bank"? They are now categorically refusing certain businesses. If those businesses could at least appeal and demonstrate that they are within the law, why wouldn't banks be mandated to process the transactions? This could go with some sort of safe haven for the banks, that if they did this review process that they won't be liable if an illegal transaction slips through. (And sure, some illegal transactions would slip through, but I'm convinced that this is already the case.)

rich_sasha3• 5 years ago

There is a third way. Financial institutions cannot facilitate money laundering (well...). But they can’t just let that hang. You do due diligence, you’re either happy that the business looks legit enough, or you have doubts . In the latter case you inform authorities, and they sort the question. Either you get the go ahead or you’re dealing with a criminal, and the state takes it out of your hands.

You can imagine a similar model for payments. The bank can’t just indefinitely say “umm not sure”, it has to go one way or the other.

Isinlor4• 5 years ago

It should not be so much whether it is legal or illegal in the strict sense. The question is whether bank has sufficient evidence to suspect that illegal activity is taking place.

So bank should be held liable if they:

- do not collect evidence

- do not act on evidence

- if they act without evidence

The bank should face appropriate penalties for making misjudgments in both directions. For example, you should have a right to sue bank for refusing to provide a service. The court could judge whether bank had sufficient grounds to refuse to conduct the business with you.

The bank should also provide the evidence to law enforcement to trigger investigation into alleged illegal misconduct. If the judicial systems clears you, then again, you should be able to compel bank to provide the basic financial services.

There is regulation like that for individuals in EU. Banks are obliged by the law to provide basic financial services (bank account and identification services if I recall correctly) to EU residents as part of the European Single Market.

londons_explore3• 5 years ago

a mistake in either direction would incur penalties.

It seems reasonable to just make the fines small, and the bank can try to minimize them by having their policies match what a court will find for those which are taken to court.

0xy• 5 years ago

It's a very difficult task to determine if a transaction is legal or not, sometimes impossible. Regulations differ not only on the country and state level, but sometimes the city level.

For example, can you buy alcohol in Delaware? Well, not if it's Sunday. How about a weekday? Not if it's between 1am and 9am.

Can you buy alcohol in New Jersey on Sunday? Sure, well not if you're in Bergen County.

That's one product. How do you propose these companies codify the entire world's regulations? It would require thousands of people to maintain the rule engine.

sverhagen2• 5 years ago

So, are you suggesting that credit card firms no longer process liquor transactions? I think it's understood that there are nuanced difficulties, but does that mean they should categorically shut out entire industries? (I feel like for liquor we generally fall on the side of "no".)

rich_sasha3• 5 years ago

The bar should be, is this business legally allowed to conduct business, not finer grained. It’s on the business not not break local laws.

ClumsyPilot2• 5 years ago

"For example, can you buy alcohol in Delaware?"

Next, TESLA eula will forbid you from going to questionable establishments, and the car will shut off if you arwle going to a strip club.

USSR couldn't dream of this level of surveillance, turns out the trick was to privatise it.

croes• 5 years ago

The banks of the power and lobbyists to make certain things illegal.

makeitdouble2• 5 years ago

We would need at least _one_ chain of bank - payment processor that only works on payment fees and has a public mandate of letting the maximum transactions go through.

Basically a pubic service PSP with loss financed by govs. I'm not holding my breath, and I can't imagine what could realistically be done at our level to be even an inch closer to that ideal. It's depressing.

makeitdouble2• 5 years ago

We would need at least _one_ chain of bank - payment processor that only works on payment fees and has a public mandate of letting the maximum transactions go through.

Basically a pubic service PSP with loss financed by govs. I'm not holding my breath, and I can't see a single action I could take that would bring us even a millimeter closer to this goal. It's depressing.

dotancohen2• 5 years ago

I believe that the concept is called Common Carrier in other fields and legislation is very well established and developed.

Kalium2• 5 years ago

From the way you frame this, you seem to think legal or illegal is an easy thing for a bank to evaluate quickly and accurately. Is that a correct statement of your position?

i21QMgplhRJs2OL• 5 years ago

More likely to get the opposite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

Imnimo• 5 years ago

What would be the impact on consumer protections like chargebacks if banks were forced to process transactions they deemed to have a high risk of fraud?

ars2• 5 years ago

I would want to see regulations where banks are explicitly forbidden from blocking legal transactions.

I want the same thing from web service providers - if the content is legal then Amazon, etc. should not be permitted to refuse service.

Twitter should not be permitted to have its own terms and conditions, rather they should follow the law - it's either illegal, and ban the person, or it's legal and they must leave it up.

Maybe put a limit like: If your number of registered users is at least 5% of the US adult population, then a new set of rules kicks in.

There are some details I don't have answers for: What if someone posts things that are legal, but offtopic for the location? I don't want to prevent moderators from removing that kind of thing, but I also don't want them using it as a false reason.

I'm sure there are other edge cases I have not thought of.

colejohnson66• 5 years ago

That literally flies in the face of the first amendment. Forcing a website to host something they don’t like is compelled speech. They’re private corporations and can do what they want. The courts are very clear on that. If you want them to be forced to host everyone, you nationalize them into a utility.

HWR_143• 5 years ago

The issue there is when it comes to likely fraudulent transactions. Like, a bank shouldn't have to give you 10MM in US currency because you hand them a "totally real check from Bill Gates" that looks like it was printed off a laserjet printer. But, they do make laserjet printed checks and maybe Gates uses them for the lulz.

All transactions have some likelihood of fraud, so it's a fuzzy line.

nobody99992• 5 years ago

If it's legal then banks should have no choice but to handle it.

Right. But banks are regulated by the US Federal government. And according to US federal law[0], possessing and selling cannabis is just as illegal as possessing and selling methamphetamine or heroin.

As such, unless and until that changes, the banks aren't going to involve themselves in what the US Federal government deems a felony, regardless of what the several states do.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act

throwawaysea• 5 years ago

Payments should be treated like a public utility services, so that they cannot deny customers or uses that are legal. It is a bad idea to let any private service that is so widespread and fundamental to function as a proxy regulator of speech.

This problem was very apparent when Wikileaks faced a payment blockade a decade back (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2012/07/18/wikileaks-break...). We are overdue to reign in Visa and MasterCard, just as we are with giant social media common carriers.

vineyardmike• 5 years ago

they cannot deny customers or uses that are legal

What about services that are maybe-legal? As I understand, a lot of the sex-related industry (porn, etc) have some issues related to revenge porn, consent, exploitation, etc. Its hard for the payment processor to trust that every transaction is legal. Especially when occasional illegal content slips in.

foxfluff2• 5 years ago

It shouldn't be their job, and blanket bans on specific subjects because "someone may do something illegal" is prejudice with a lot of collateral.

If someone is doing something illegal, it should be the authorities job to deal with it.

shartacct3• 5 years ago

No they shouldn't. There are high-risk payment processors that will serve foreign intelligence operations like wikileaks, fascist political donation services, fraud-heavy industries like fiat to crypto onramps and socially regressive businesses like porn. There's no need to regulate low-risk payment processors as the industry is not monopolized in any way and it's trivial to find one that will take your money.

rektide2• 5 years ago

Weird to me how misdirected the mass outrage against tech censorship feels, given that it's really the payment processors doing the most to stigmatize & make untenable any form of speech & commerce they consider risky.

MattGaiser2• 5 years ago

Payment processors are doing it in response to mass outrage, particularly about revenge porn.

concordDance• 5 years ago

Really? I thought they just had rather conservative people on their board.

matheusmoreira9• 5 years ago

Google and other advertisers are also part of the problem. They set policies on what is and isn't acceptable for sites with ads they serve. Sites will literally censor themselves out of fear Google will pull their ads.

matheusmoreira9• 5 years ago

What do you mean, "are becoming"? They have always been. If the payment processors don't want to be associated with a service, they'll refuse to handle payments and then there's simply no way for the service providers to get paid. See wikileaks and other "problematic" sites.

Advertisers are also regulators. I've seen sites start heavily censoring themselves because someone complained to Google and they pulled the ads. Stuff like this ruins the web.

White_Wolf• 5 years ago

In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company (Ex: Water, electricity).

Advertising is a different beast altogether. Being able to to exchanges (money for goods, etc) is something quite a basic right(If I can call it that). That doesn't apply to making money though. I don't think it's normal in any way to force anyone to conduct business with someone they don't want to unless is a basic necessity in that particular day and age.

dotancohen2• 5 years ago

I'm not a fan of digital currencies, but this is one of their shining points.

lotsofpulp3• 5 years ago

It is supposedly coming, albeit decades late:

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow

mcherm• 5 years ago

In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company

I'm not sure if you are missing contacts or providing irony. But the fact is payment processors and banking in general is extremely heavily regulated.

A few years ago when you saw almost all banks and payment companies starting to crack down on spending money to buy and sell cryptocurrency, that was to no small extent because federal regulators gave them a little side-eye about the subject. No specific regulations, to be clear, but a few pointed questions.

When every means of sending money overseas demands clear documentation of your identity, That's not so much because banks feel the need to know every detail of your business; it is strictly mandated by federal law. And while my examples all involve US banking, most governments around the world are similarly strict.

franga20006• 5 years ago

How credit card processing hasn't been classified and regulated as a utility is truly baffling to me. Especially with governments explicitly recommending contactless card payments instead of cash during the pandemic and many doing things like taking large bank notes out of circulation for years now.

We don't need crazy things like crypto - we need decentralised and accountable banks and payment processors (not that the distinction between the two makes any sense either). Speaking of credit card companies: why do they exist?? Why can't my card just sign a digital request for transfer and tell the POS terminal to send it to my bank to be executed. A room of computer science students could write an open standard for that in like a month and have a working implementation within the year.

chuckee• 5 years ago

Advertising is a different beast altogether.

You are correct. Web advertising is long overdue for some trust-busting. But for some reason, antitrust law is rarely enforced.

rawbot• 5 years ago

This is a recent situation. Back in the early 00's, paying for something online with a credit card, other than porn, was a novelty. I think things started to change in the late 00's.

I remember a LOT of software being sold online (licenses and such) was sold via money orders or sometimes wire transfers.

thriftwy3• 5 years ago

Travel is what enabled CC payments over the net. Airline/train tickets and hotel accomodations and internet payments are a match.

h2odragon• 5 years ago

The first time I had a customer lose their credit card merchant acct for political incorrectness was in 1997. They put a goat on stage with a "Clinton" sign on it at an event.

dhosek• 5 years ago

I was accepting credit cards online from 1994 (although I have to confess now that the business is defunct that the form—which didn't use https(!)—just emailed the entry to me(!)). My first order from Amazon was in 1997 (it was two books: The Psychology of Religion and Varieties of Religious Experience). I bought a number of musical instruments online with credit cards as early as 1998. Buying things from individuals was a bit dicey for a while, with a lot of trust involved where you'd send a check or money order to the seller and hope they'd send the promised merchandise. Paypal did a lot to mitigate that, and I opened my Paypal account in 1999.

danachow• 5 years ago

In the US/Canada and Japan at least, it’s not that recent Perhaps a novelty in the early 90s - even then, the major online services all had online shopping options. Ebay, PayPal, and Amazon were all growing rapidly by 1999, and the dot-com boom was filled with retail shopping startups that were popular - just not profitable or well managed.

Cthulhu_• 5 years ago

And they should, for their own protection; they will be taken down hard if they are found to be complicit in financing things like terrorism and child pornography.

When it comes to the recent events around Pornhub and Onlyfans, the payment processors erred on the side of caution, because those two customers of theirs couldn't for definite guarantee that nothing shady was going on on their websites.

ClumsyPilot2• 5 years ago

"nothing shady was going on on their websites"

There is more childporn on Facebook than Pornhub, you know why? Because pornhub requires an ID. But Facebook is untouchable because it's too big.

If they were concerned about 'shady', they would shut down Wells Fargo for fraud

matheusmoreira9• 5 years ago

they will be taken down hard if they are found to be complicit

How can the provider of vital infrastructure be complicit in anything? Is the engineer who designed and built a bridge complicit when a criminal crosses it?

They should be considered neutral. Just like information carriers are considered neutral. Not liable for what goes on inside their networks. Searching for and punishing anyone violating any law is up to the authorities and they must do that without violating everyone else's privacy no matter how frustrating it must be for them.

spottybanana• 5 years ago

I've seen sites start heavily censoring themselves because someone complained to Google and they pulled the ads. Stuff like this ruins the web.

You mean my web is ruined because I don't see more those ads selling the newest crypto ponzi scheme which promises 10000% yearly returns?

Let's deal with it, if advertising was totally uncensored that would be a nightmare for average user.

jstanley• 5 years ago

More like your web is ruined because the site that tries to write about some controversial topic has to stay less controversial else they can't make money by showing ads.

gumby• 5 years ago

If the payment processors don't want to be associated with a service

Generally financial institutions are happy to take anyone’s money, and lend to them too unless they don’t think they’ll get their money back.

Their regulators can change those criteria though, forcing upon them an unfunded mandate. This is no different than policing entities washing their searches through private entities (e.g. the telecoms).

I consider this a pernicious trend.

streamofdigits• 5 years ago

Everybody wants to become a "reluctant regulator of the web" if it means them getting a cut of all economic activity (as the new tax man) without any liability

Let us not be naive. The decades long preference for oligopolistic rather than competitive markets is what created behemoths (both new and old) and now the only question is who of them is going to be granted the keys to the digital kingdom by fiat.

webspinner5• 5 years ago

They aren't so reluctant. I think they get off on the power of doing this, but that's just me.

kmfrk• 5 years ago

More than ten years ago since Visa, Mastercard etc blocked access to WikiLeaks: https://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html.

I guess they started blocking things The Economist care about.

BiteCode_dev• 5 years ago

Yeah, and didn't seem reluctant at all at the time.

ews• 5 years ago

they just shrugged back then

"But calibrating that response raises questions of principle, practice and priority. Businesses will go their own way. Some, such as PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which handled donations to WikiLeaks, and Amazon, which provided web-hosting services, have dumped it as a customer in response to American outrage. More may follow. They risk attacks from its fans, just as those that refuse face hostility from their customers in America. Too bad: business is full of hard choices."

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/12/09/the-right-react...

busymom02• 5 years ago

Every single time there’s a HN discussion about censorship and I comment about how we shouldn’t be okay with censorship of anyone regardless of how offensive they might be or whether or not it’s some private corporation and usually it gets downvoted. When the wind starts blowing the opposite direction, only then do people wake up.

webspinner5• 5 years ago

I remember this whole thing. No one was ever reluctant! It happened pretty quickly.

koheripbal2• 5 years ago

That was not optional. The gov't forced them.

mickjagger• 5 years ago

Is there anyone at all who doesn’t feel extremely uncomfortable with this development?

tonyedgecombe2• 5 years ago

I'm more uncomfortable with the fact that Visa and MasterCard have a duopoly around most of the world. Without that most of these questions would become irrelevant because there would always be an alternative.

oleganza3• 5 years ago

Since HN generally does not like mentions of Bitcoin, here are some stats.

Bitcoin was launched 12 years ago, reached $1'000'000'000'000 monetization this year (>1.5x larger than IMF), exploded interest and funding for cryptography and p2p networking over the past 6-8 years, and is marching towards reaching monetization of gold ($11T).

Lightning network runs over 3 years already and growing its capacity exponentially, offering truly "digital cash" capability: no trusted third parties and instant transactions.

Yes, Bitcoin is volatile and it will remain so until it saturates the market like gold did, and every person has as much bitcoin as they want to carry, relative to other assets.

tonyedgecombe2• 5 years ago

and every person has as much bitcoin as they want to carry

People never have enough, they can never be satisfied if there is someone else who might have more than them.

oleganza3• 5 years ago

I mean, relative to other other assets in your own portfolio. You can always switch between 1%, 10% and 100%, however you like at any point in time. As of Bitcoin, there are plenty of people who have 0% and haven't come about to increase it to X%.

If you want to maximize your $$$ _compared to others_, that's up for your enterprising skills, and nothing to do with bitcoin monetization progress.

pornel2• 5 years ago

Now do stats about energy usage!

oleganza3• 5 years ago

Sorry, that's a purely political take, nothing to do with economics or technology. Everyone is using energy to do the things they want to do.

Notice that Bitcoin is somehow specially demonized, but vacation travels or Li-Ion battery production is not. (Although, travels are largerly banned, so there's some progress there.)

I'm pretty sure even if everyone transitioned to "renewable energy" (also largely ideological concept), it would still be useful to demonize Bitcoin for using too much energy, like it's not good to "hoard" money. The reason for that is that Bitcoin is the hardest money there has ever been, so people are fighting to accumulate as much of it as possible before everyone else.

FireBeyond• 5 years ago

Bitcoin was launched 12 years ago, reached $1'000'000'000'000 monetization this year (>1.5x larger than IMF), exploded interest and funding for cryptography and p2p networking over the past 6-8 years, and is marching towards reaching monetization of gold ($11T).

12 years to get to 8% is not really "marching towards".

And then your flippant "everyone uses energy to do things" dismissal doesn't help. Yes, they do. But people don't buy power plants just to run payment processors. But they do buy them to mine Bitcoin.

braddeicide• 5 years ago

Seriously this is a topic from the absolute start of commercial activity appearing on the web.

mildmotive2• 5 years ago

There was this case where Pornhub hosted a lot of rape footage of teenagers[1]. Victims came forward, they testified of their abuse and said that they tried very hard to remove videos involving their sexual assault from the platform. They were however unable to successfully do so because not only were Pornhub careless and unresponsive, the videos would shortly after being removed (if they ever were) resurface on the same platform. A petition was launched and signed by circa 2 million people (including myself). Pornhub was brought to court[2] and found themselves forced to remove any material that they could not verify was consensual. Millions of videos ended up getting purged[3]. Visa refused to handle payments from them as a result of what had happened[4].

What Pornhub and by extension its mother company MindGeek has done is obviously beyond despicable. After myself knowing the context of some of the services that these payment processors have refused to work with (particularly in the “adult” industry), I would never call what they are doing censorship. I’m instead happy that someone with authority is stepping up. Could this authority be abused? Sure. Is the aforementioned an example of abuse of authority? Absolutely not. It’s an example of when people in authority are doing their job. I don’t want to see anyone’s mother, sister or daughter getting raped and have their rape being filmed for the sexual gratification of millions of viewers online. Seeing Visa and others do the right thing in this case is a breath of fresh air.

[1] https://traffickinghubpetition.com/

[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=b4auDHtorGM

[3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/pornhub-purges-a...

[4] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/14/business/mastercard-visa-...

zpeti• 5 years ago

Don't forget that in this case 2 million people signed a petition saying what's happening on the platform is non consensual, AND they got taken to court and lost.

That is the legal system working. Taking payments away for someone who has lost in the legal system, on the censorship scale is probably more acceptable even to someone who's very pro free speech.

It's another thing when visa and mastercard ban forums or subscriptions for people who are voicing their personal political opinions. That becomes a slippery slope very quickly. What court or jurisdiction or due process to visa and mastercard have to decide what is acceptable or not? Is being anti immigration acceptable, or is that racist? What about anti illegal immigration? What about feminists worried about trans rights? What about covid vaccinations? Youtube has blanket banned pro and anti vaccination content. Should mastercard follow? What about anti climate change discussion? What about anti green tax discussion, does that count as anti climate change?

We are on this slippery slope already IMO. And it's not looking very good good for free speech.

pessimizer2• 5 years ago

Or for something actually happening, how about people accused of "critical race theory" or endorsing BDS? These are prohibitions that are entering state law - so are these more acceptable for people who are "very pro free speech?"

Right-wing talk about free speech usually just sounds like people want to make being a right-wing bigot a protected class. I've heard a reasonable argument that it's really just a largely unrecognized ethnic group of Scots-Irish evangelicals. From that point of view, it makes a little sense.

cblconfederate• 5 years ago

Sounds like too much fuss for a what was a tiny amount of videos,and an antiporn crusade started by an NYTimes columnist. Great for the anti porn crusaders i guess but this is the kind of thing that urges people to do away with the dystopian fiat money system. Looking forward to see them suing facebook which hosts far more CP

colde• 5 years ago

MindGeek could obviously have done more. But i don't think you are being transparent about who promoted and ran that petition.

It was heavily promoted by Exodus Cry, an organisation that seeks to completely ban porn, strip clubs and any type of sex work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Cry

This whole thing has lead to a lot unintended consequences that has significantly hurt, or impacted sex workers negatively, such as the MasterCard changes that made Onlyfans try and get rid of sexual content.

xdennis• 5 years ago

I’m instead happy that someone with authority is stepping up.

Their authority is just rule by fiat. They are not answerable to the people like an institution in a democracy.

What Mastercard/Visa are doing is not a proper way to run a country, let alone the world.

MelvinButtsESQ• 5 years ago

Bullshit. It's pretty common for young women to consent to do porn and then after the fact (weeks, months, years later) decide that they shouldn't have. If you sign a contract, you've signed a contract and need to abide by it. I'm of course against non-consensual stuff, but don't cry "I was a victim" later on because you've had a change of heart.

The other unfortunate reality of sex work is that women "busted" by law enforcement are of course going to claim their trafficked when it gets them out of a legal bind.

The root cause of all this a puritanical western society using the power of the state to impose their morals on others. What consenting adults do among themselves, even if for compensation, is nobodies business besides those involved ... and CERTAINLY shouldn't be illegal. So many of us are still conflating sex work with "human trafficking" ... and are party to the PERCEIVED problem by not understanding it can be legitimate work.

mildmotive2• 5 years ago

Bullshit. It's pretty common for young women to consent to do porn and then after the fact (weeks, months, years later) decide that they shouldn't have.

Women who consent is out of topic. Although how much some of this consent is meaningful is another can of worms.

If you sign a contract, you've signed a contract and need to abide by it. I'm of course against non-consensual stuff, but don't cry "I was a victim" later on because you've had a change of heart.

So what kind of evidence do you need that a woman has been raped? Can there be such evidence that can’t be disputed by you or someone else? Can we ever say that a woman has been raped?

I’m seriously curious how you’re reasoning here.

The root cause of all this a puritanical western society using the power of the state to impose their morals on others.

The West is hardly puritanical, porn and prostitution in general are large industries. The laws are not puritanical, Pornhub got a slap on the wrist relative to what they’ve done. Maybe it’s too puritanical for you, I don’t know.

So many of us are still conflating sex work with "human trafficking"

That’s a straw-man. It can be argued that an increase in prostitution is positively correlated with an increase in sex trafficking. But that’s not like saying that they are one and the same, no one here is arguing that they are.

curtisblaine2• 5 years ago

I always thought that cryptocurrencies and the whole circuit around them are "useful" in the sense that they provide an alternative to the Mastercard / VISA duopoly - see all the "free speech" platform that were refused by CC circuits and at the moment are alive only thanks to crypto payments.

Obviously, a day will come when the biggest processors (ie Coinbase) will be forced to not accept certain clients / transactions, effectively destroying in practice the possibility of exchanging cryptocurrencies with dollars.

TacticalCoder• 5 years ago

Obviously, a day will come when the biggest processors (ie Coinbase) will be forced to not accept certain clients / transactions, effectively destroying in practice the possibility of exchanging cryptocurrencies with dollars.

This would only prevent that possibility for the affected clients and only on Coinbase.

By the way Coinbase already has the possibility to blacklist any USDC address it is required to do so by law enforcement. (USDC being a stable coins basically worth 1:1 with USD at this point). And that is because the smart contract governing USDC can have its list of blacklisted addresses updated at any moment.

So in a way the day you're talking about is already there.

curtisblaine2• 5 years ago

By the way Coinbase already has the possibility to blacklist any USDC address it is required to do so by law enforcement
So in a way the day you're talking about is already there

In a way, yes. But there's a difference between "being required to do so by law enforcement" and "doing it preemptively". And obviously, there are many exchanges other than Coinbase.

The point is, I'm not even a crypto fan, but everytime someone comes up with the "how are crypto useful?" question, I can't help thinking "at the moment, they're the only alternative to VISA / MC for payments".

dogman144• 5 years ago

Agreed.

The relevant point, to me, has always been that CCs never needed to work perfectly for the payment use case, they just had to work well enough to be a viable alternative (warts and all).

The fact that some of them do fill this role and have since their creation, namely bitcoin, is what makes me pay attention to the space.

traveler012• 5 years ago

They're basically commiting suicide at this point.

With them blocking all that kind of stuff, people will start looking another way (you know).

realmod• 5 years ago

And this "other way" won't be cryptocurrency. Countries are and will continue to push for e-currency. It is simply too much power and granular control to give up.

traveler012• 5 years ago

It's not like they have a choice.

walterbell• 5 years ago

US, UK, Europe and China are exploring CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies), e.g. June '21, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-of-england-tells-...

Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference on Monday that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency ... what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]? ... Sir Jon Cunliffe, a deputy Governor at the Bank, said digital currencies could be programmed for commercial or social purposes ... “You could think of giving your children pocket money, but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets. There is a whole range of things that money could do, programmable money, which we cannot do with the current technology.”

At an IMF meeting last October, Swiss BIS director Carstens commented on CBDCs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVmKN4DSu3g&t=1451s

With cash, we don't know who is using the 100 dollar bill today ... a key difference with CBDC is that the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that determine the expression of that central bank liability .. also we will have the technology to enforce that ... if an advanced economy issues a CBDC, and someone in a 3rd country wants to use it, it will require the consent of the central bank of the residence of that person, therefore the degree of control will be far bigger.

Well-intentioned initiatives like Linux Foundation GHP (https://www.goodhealthpass.org/), EU digital health certificate and Apple+Android digital driver's license can all be drafted into the service of CBDC initiatives which require digital identity for digital currency wallets, unifying online and offline policy for programmable "permissions" like carbon/food quotas or other social credits. If western citizens acclimate to "showing papers" for routine daily movement, then real-time policy can be applied to those movements.

This could replace fungible currency with "colored credits", with policy attached to both the origin of money and a whitelist of possible destinations, goods or services. PayPal has amended their ToS to include merchant content regulation as a condition of payment processing.

ajsnigrutin• 5 years ago

Credit card firms should be just utility providers... Like roads are. You go on a highway, pay your toll, and noone asks you if you're driving to meet your parents, if you're going to get a prostitute or if you're going to buy drugs.

Law enforcement should deal with the endpoints, so dealers, brothels, and your moms shitty meatloaf.

lotsofpulp3• 5 years ago

I do not see why credit specifically be a utility. But electronic transfer of money should be, and supposedly will be:

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow

Root_Denied• 5 years ago

Regulations like OFAC are still going to restrict payments, especially those made internationally or over a certain amount.

I'm not saying that the regulatory framework should allow payments to known terrorists or terrorist groups, more pointing out that electronic transfers are never going to be structured like a utility without significant restructuring of banking laws.

bduerst• 5 years ago

Do you mean Common Carrier laws? Kind of like how FedEx won't care that you're shipping to their competitor, like UPS.

This could happen, but it would also mean overhauling some of the finance laws that hold credit card companies accountable.

nickthemagicman• 5 years ago

This is the free market. Using cryptocurrency is also the free market.

tenebrisalietum• 5 years ago

Back in my day, before the Internet, when you might find things of interest in classified ads, you could send a money order. Who's gonna stop that? Now of course this is less secure than using credit card companies/payment processors but I bought so many cassettes and CDs in the 90's from various non-mainstream labels this way.

dangerface• 5 years ago

Reluctant? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Journalism today "What you don't know about the sky could kill you! Journalist uncovered the truth the sky is actually blue!"

cletus2• 5 years ago

I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly.

But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system.

It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK.

Worse, dispensaries have to operate on an all-cash basis because they simply can't get bank accounts.

Granted, the legality of cannabis is a grey area since states allow it but the Federal government still maintains it as illegal.

I personally don't like the financial system being gatekept for legal activity this way.

Whether or not they could is a legal question. It seems though they're happy to appease politicians and "values" voters by virtue signaling on these issues, however.

As for sex work, in particular, this one is tricky. While I fully support body autonomy and in an ideal world, sex-for-money and the like should be legal, it's not that simple in reality. Why? Because the sex industry is deeply tied to human trafficking. I have no idea how to solve that problem.

paisawalla2• 5 years ago

I find it remarkable that in the same post where you criticize those who would maintain bans on drug purchases, you end up finding your own reasons why to maintain a ban on a different vice. But sex work has externalities I guess is how you might respond, but drug bans are also based on arguments of externalized social harm.

At first I thought you were going to give an argument for removing financial gatekeeping, which I think is an inappropriate point to apply leverage towards moral ends. But -- and this is the heart of the problem everywhere -- you end up picking and choosing between vices. This maintains the processor's position as the morality enforcer, which is the entire issue: it's just one more thing that power-driven agents can strive to influence.

HWR_143• 5 years ago

you end up finding your own reasons why to maintain a ban on a different vice.

From my understanding, based on that 2018 rule, the executives at CC processors are personally liable if they process money for sex work. Like "you are an accomplice to human trafficking" guilty.

cletus2• 5 years ago

... where you criticize those who would maintain bans on drug purchases, you end up finding your own reasons why to maintain a ban on a different vice.

Well done on missing my point entirely, possibly intentionally. I'm fine with whatever happening between consenting adults. Unfortunately, there's a link between sex work and human trafficking that cannot be ignored [1]:

Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited.

and

Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows.

Sex trafficking impacts people who aren't consenting (including minors).

So what are the negative externalities of cannabis consumption? Long term cannabis abuse can be a problem but pales in comparison to, say, alcohol abuse. Basically, there's no world that makes sense for alcohol to be legal and cannabis not to be.

Also, cannabis legalization has arguably hurt the illegal drug trade [2].

[1] https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...

[2] https://time.com/3801889/us-legalization-marijuana-trade/

villasv• 5 years ago

The US is an exception in its fragmented banking system. Usually there's no conflict of legality between state and federal government, and banks are consolidated in a few big players that are pretty eager to satisfy business owners demands so having bank accounts is not usually an issue (even for somewhat-illegal or unregulated market business). Even startups nowadays are getting fast access to corporate credit cards.

But credit cards are on scope of an entirely different order of magnitude compared to a local bank checking account. Visa and Mastercard are global authorities on cashflow. And this is exactly why they're accidentally becoming regulators, they transcend the US weirdly fragmented banking system.

A4ET8a8uTh02• 5 years ago

I was initially going to say the same thing, but then I reflected on what I saw in the past.

In a very real sense, government required compliance effectively forces banks into a gatekeeper position. And while some BSA enforcers do act in their interest the same any group does ( cops, politicians, IC, doctors ) by extending their reach and influence, others are wary of expanding it beyond current regime ( which is already pretty onerous ).

It does help that banks tend to get very sensitive about some things as they do rely on deposits to survive. In one of the banks I used to work for, teller BSA training included a mention to be sensitive about customers and questions along with a story of a teller, who prodded a little beyond what the customer deemed acceptable and who then proceeded to close the account with 'none of your god damn business'.

What I am saying is that things are only the way they are, because we allow it that way. Cash is still a viable, albeit annoying choice.

And banks have been complacent until now, but the cost of complacency seems to be going up.

All that said, ABA better gets it shit together. Between high compliance burden on banks combined with low to non-existent compliance on fintech startups can quickly amount to real trouble for the banking system in US.

_fat_santa2• 5 years ago

Dispensaries are getting wise too. Even though you can't use a credit card anywhere, they have found a way for you to use a debit card. Basically it's just like an ATM withdrawl but they tie it into the checkout flow so to you the customer, its just like you paid with a debit card.

wutbrodo2• 5 years ago

I've used a credit card at dispensaries many times. Details in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28829949

shartacct3• 5 years ago

Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK.

Every dispensary I've visited here in the northeast accepts cash and debit cards, I assume they don't accept credit due to higher processing fees and higher risk of chargebacks rather than processors being problematic (otherwise they would not accept debit since they get ran through the same system anyway).

jeromegv• 5 years ago

Your assumption is wrong, they are being refused by Square, Stripe, etc, etc. CBD are also in a grey zone which cause them tons of problems accepting credit cards. This isn't because of higher processing fees.

rootusrootus2• 5 years ago

Or they are working the system and making an ATM withdrawal look like a debit from the consumer's point of view.

micromacrofoot• 5 years ago

That's not true at all. I live in the northeast and my dispensary simply can not take credit cards even if they wanted to; credit card companies are liable for the transaction and they don't want to run up against federal law.

Some dispensaries can take debit card transactions, and they have to do so through "high risk" processors... companies like Square will not work with them because of federal law.

jnwatson• 5 years ago

The clothing manufacturing industry is also deeply tied to human trafficking, but no one is talking about banning credit card transactions at the Nike store.

devoutsalsa• 5 years ago

I had no idea that human trafficking in the garment industry was a thing.

https://www.borgenmagazine.com/textile-industry/

tantalor2• 5 years ago

There is no US law against that.

kevingadd• 5 years ago

Human trafficking isn't happening on Patreon or OnlyFans, though.

some_random• 5 years ago

It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK.

There is not a single state where cannabis is legal, there are only states that have decided they won't enforce federal law.

doublescoop• 5 years ago

No states enforce federal laws. The federal government does that. If there is no state law criminalizing cannabis use there it's legal in that state.

vdqtp3• 5 years ago

States don't enforce federal law.

cronix• 5 years ago

There is not a single state where cannabis is legal, there are only states that have decided they won't enforce federal law.

The feds don't really enforce it either. Is there a state the feds have sanctioned over legalization? They even collect federal tax dollars on the businesses selling these "illegal" products. Unless a law is actually enforced, it's just words on paper.

jonas21• 5 years ago

Granted, the legality of cannabis is a grey area since states allow it but the Federal government still maintains it as illegal.

This isn't some incidental detail - it's the entire reason why the banking and credit card industry doesn't want to interact with cannabis right now.

Guess who regulates the banking industry and has authority over interstate commerce? The federal government. This particular example has nothing to do with credit card companies making a statement against cannabis, and everything to do with them not wanting to break the law.

tantalor2• 5 years ago

You don't give the banking industry enough credit here. They are involved in designing the legislation/regulations governing themselves.

The market for legal marijuana projected to be $100B by 2030. If the banks want a piece of that pie, then they will change the rules and "fix" the problem.

https://flowhub.com/cannabis-industry-statistics

ashtonkem2• 5 years ago

The moment they’re legally allowed to they will be all over legal weed. It’s not like the finance industry has any issues profiting from other recreational substances, such as alcohol or tobacco.

mbesto• 5 years ago

This isn't some incidental detail - it's the entire reason why the banking and credit card industry doesn't want to interact with cannabis right now.

FYI - Banks do work with cannabis in states where it's legal. Those banks just can't be national banks - they have to be state ones that are regulated by the state. In other words, Chase/BoA/etc. can't touch it because they operate at the federal level and are highly regulated.

https://www.riskscout.com/post/the-state-of-cannabis-banking

wutbrodo2• 5 years ago

Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK.

The dispensaries I've been to in LA will generally take credit cards now. They round it up to multiples of 5 and give you change in cash, and I think under-the-hood they're doing a cash advance or something?

This doesn't detract from your point; if anything, it reinforces it. Just an interesting factual point.

morpheuskafka• 5 years ago

If they were doing this with credit cards people would know since they'd be hit with a cash advance fee and no grace period on interest.

romwell• 5 years ago

They take cards, not credit cards.

Those are debit cards; the transaction is a cashback (that's why they give change in cash).

echelon• 5 years ago

The reason the payments industry doesn't like sex isn't human trafficking. It's the high fraud and charge back rate.

When your parent or partner finds out you paid for an OnlyFans membership, you lie and tell them you lost your card. This happens incredibly often, and payments companies don't want to touch this.

xer0x• 5 years ago

+1 the credit-card companies are surprisingly keen to be our morality police.

varispeed• 5 years ago

Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK.

You can in the UK. Dispensaries here do accept credit cards.

zinekeller• 5 years ago

"anywhere" is basically inside US, not in other countries.

(Yes, I also hate it, but I do concede that America is physically big.)

dec0dedab0de• 5 years ago

You can't solve that problem, but I believe you could mitigate it by making prostitution legal. Funny thing is that prostitution is legal at the federal level, it's just that all the states except Nevada have laws against it. So it's kind of the opposite of cannabis, and if the credit card companies wanted to be consistent in following federal law they would allow it.

snotrockets2• 5 years ago

The Netherlands can serve as a counter-example to your wrongly held belief

obviouslynotme• 5 years ago

The credit card companies, like every heavily regulated industry works like the federal government without the rules holding them back. Banking is only the most powerful hammer for it's favorite nails, but has been reluctant to use it much until recently. Once they started removing the gun industry's credit card access, it has slowly creeped everywhere. I am happy because it will only be a matter of time before people move to alternatives like crypto.

heavyset_go• 5 years ago

Why? Because the sex industry is deeply tied to human trafficking. I have no idea how to solve that problem.

I mean, drug trafficking is deeply tied to human trafficking, as well, and your post concerns cannabis legalization, which is one way to combat that problem.

robbedpeter• 5 years ago

The benefit of public oversight over free trade is accountability via due process. If you manufacture a hot dog and it's contaminated with something, or falsely advertised as kosher or halal, or doesn't meet any of a thousand little constraints in production, maintenance, delivery, and communication about the product, you are held accountable for violating the law.

Sex trade is different because of stigma and culture and prohibition. Stigma and culture have to change through education, activism, and time, but prohibition can be dealt with immediately. Create a robust framework of protections for sex work, protecting the rights of workers, and incorporate the industry into the existing legal system.

Getting rid of trafficking, pimps, and lack of recourse for workers and consumers negates far greater harms than any moral social corruption predicted by pearl clutchers.

The same applies to almost everything which society tries to cope with through prohibition. Black markets spawn second class dealers in vice, money and trade off book to the detriment of everyone except kingpins and corrupt agents of government and law enforcement. The vulnerable and desperate get locked into feedback loops of abuse and exploitation.

Legalizing all drugs and sex work almost completely eliminates the niches that perpetuate black markets. Forcing banks and legal jurisdictions to treat trade in vice equally to any other economic activity gives society the opportunity to treat drug abuse as a health issue. It enables sex workers to receive justice for abuse. It virtually eliminates the primary sources of income for cartels and kingpins. It forces culture to adapt, eventually allowing activists the opportunity to destigmatize responsible activities of adults in private.

We have laws that protect consumers and service providers, that give resource for violence and theft and fraud. It shouldn't matter what substance or sex act or hot dog brand was involved if a citizen is injured.

Adults have no business telling other adults what they can consume, or do in private. The business of government is behavior in public and in maintaining the rights of citizens in private.

We have ample and overwhelming evidence that prohibition always creates more harm than good, across thousands of years of history. It never works and always creates opportunities for abuse and horror. We also know that legalized vice results in more responsible use and less frequent consumption and fewer harms across the board.

It should be a no brainer. We should have responsible drug use education. We should have public sex work education.

Financial institutions crafting pseudo-moral gatekeeping policy from the whims of executives, pr departments, and Twitter outrage is a disgusting offense against society.

yunesj• 5 years ago

HN readers are wrong to think this will be fixed when the government creates a CBDC or regulates payment providers like a utility.

In addition to the government currently blocking transactions from semi-legal industries that should be legal (cannabis), the government has a history of censoring mail mentioning contraceptives (Comstock Laws) and pressuring banks to cut businesses with legal, undesirable industries (Operation Chokepoint). A few weeks ago, an IRS agent at a service center refused to help me because they didn’t like my clothes. (I was wearing a tank top.) This is inevitable when you create government-backed monopolies.

JumpCrisscross4• 5 years ago

the government currently blocking transactions from semi-legal industries that should be legal (cannabis)

What does this refer to?

mmastrac• 5 years ago

I think that a cursory search for banking and cannabis will reveal the pressure the US government puts on this industry. Banking for cannabis is much easier in canada. You can purchase weed with a Visa no problem.

HWR_143• 5 years ago

How strange, because your examples don't make sense.

Sure, some things should be legal but aren't. It hardly seems surprising that while they are illegal the federal government tries to prevent them.

The Comstock Laws applied to all carriers (private or public) and therefore would apply to FedEx or UPS as well. They also were ruled unconstitutional over a hundred years ago.

Meanwhile, Operation Chokepoint was something that lasted less than a year before the same administration said it was an overreach and reversed it. It was an error, and between that and congressional oversight got fixed. It sucks, but it should be pointed out that, again, it was government pressure on private entities. Nothing that wouldn't be at least as good under government control.

Meanwhile, if an IRS agent refuses to help you because you're wearing a tank top, that seems like something you should escalate. But I will point out many private enterprises (airlines, etc.) have refused to serve people wearing tank tops. To the point of refusing to honor their ticket and screwing up their whole vacation with no recourse. But the only official IRS dress code deals with profane/offensive writings. Tank tops are allowed, even for IRS agents.

jimbob452• 5 years ago

The intuition here is that credit-card firms have to take these precautions in order to protect against excessive chargebacks, right? Would it not be possible to create a new style of transaction that is unable to be charged back but requires account authorization and 3-days forewarning (maybe with small withdrawals first)?

_fat_santa2• 5 years ago

I wonder where this will go with the rise of Stablecoins like USDC, USDT and DAI. The traditional argument to this is just "use crypto" but the traditional counterargument is "what if BTC falls off a cliff tomorrow" or similar comments about the volatility of crypto.

But now with stablecoins, I wonder how long before all places deemed too unsavory to will just start accepting Tether or another stablecoin. You can already see the govt scrambling to patch their own weakness in this area with their own coin (forgot what it's called). The govt knows they are in the weaker position here because they have virtually zero regulatory authority over stablecoins.

nullc• 5 years ago

The death of due process.

jashmenn• 5 years ago

If only there was a permissionless way to transfer value and payments across the internet without a gatekeeper

programmarchy• 5 years ago

If there was, it'd only be used for Ponzi schemes and other criminal activities.

manquer2• 5 years ago

I would modify that statement without only a single gatekeeper. All countries ( ideally democratically elected) should have a say in how that system operates.

Having gatekeepers is not inherently bad, having just one who can effectively block anything is problematic.

webspinner5• 5 years ago

OK so back in 2012, I donated to a site that was on everyone's bad list at the time. I had my bank flag my account after that. Not only that, but they texted my mother to inform her of the fraud alert/flag. Eventually, I called them and told them to quit it. It took a weekend to clear it all up. this has been going on since November/December 2010, actually.

chemmail• 5 years ago

If only we had another monetary system. That was more...cryptic.

h0nd• 5 years ago

I am glad this finally gets some mainstream attention. This unfair, arbitrary situation has been a thorn in my flesh for a while. Respectively, I have been avoiding using the cards of VISA and MasterCard. There are very little alternatives. Maybe crypto?

Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

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