Is anyone else worried about the impact this has on the Industry? First Mastercard and now Visa are playing the role of the “morals police.” I know some of us don’t have sympathy for MindGeek due to some of their of business practices in the past, but this sets up a dangerous precedent for the whole industry. If Visa can come out and say “At this early stage in the case, courts must accept as true all allegations made in a lawsuit.”
“Must accept as true?!” What ever happened to “Innocent until proven guilty?”
Where is the FSC on this issue? If the adult industry continues to take these things lying down, the religous right won’t stop until they shut down processing for every single one of us.
It’s definitely not a good sign. CC companies are going way too far.
2022 midterm elections are coming. A fiasco for DEM is predictable, given that the economy slowdown and inflation. High tech companies had layoffs recently. A lot of high tech employees are truly paying members for gay porn.
If Trump comes back in 2024, things will get even worse. DeSantis is as bad as Trump, if DeSantis will be candidate of GOP for 2024.
US, and the global circumstances are turning towards the right wing.
We tried to use Crypto for processing, using CoinPayments.net. Not many people used it. Over 6 months we made the equivalent of about $500.00 (since they didn’t allow recurring we could only sell one time memberships), and then the processor we used closed overnight to all US companies. It was also an absolute nightmare trying to get our money out of there. I’m not sure if there is another company that is better, but our experience was really terrible and certainly makes me reluctant to try taking crypto payments again.
Maybe better to host the crypto script yourself and have a actual crypto wallets to hold the earnings, I absolutely dread to think how you put crypto into a companies accounting books though especially with how volatile it is and no mainstream accounting software supporting this sector yet. I suppose you could account for it on cash out if you were not to hold it for any length of time.
Rebills is tricky though not sure if its even possible to “bill” a wallet without the customer sending the funds themselves personally.
Again, demand drives innovation. If CC corps pull out of porn, IMO we would quite quickly see a mainstreaming of crypto (for better or for worse).
Just one article of many about how our industry’s demand has shaped the internet and beyond, going back to the VHS / BETA video cassette rivalry. One could even argue that porn was behind the genesis of 8mm film (16mm split in two for cheaper distribution).
I never understood why porn being as big as it is never just banded together to create their own credit card company, or bought out another established card company like Diners Club or Discover.
I’m using Blockonomics for crypto and they don’t care if it is “adult” or not. But I do the members account setup manually, I don’t know if it’s possible to have it automated like with usual billings like CCBill.
And very few members use cryptos.
And also it’s a bit difficult to spend cryptos.
Only for webserver and domains.
But when it comes to buying “normal things of normal life” (like food or paying the rent of the apartment, or computer things), no cryptos are accepted in the “real world”…
I doubt crypto “currencies” will EVER be usable in the “real world”. Currency has value because it is easily and readily exchanged and holds a relatively stable value over time. If you have $10 today, it will still be worth about $10 next week, and next month. Some people are losing their shit because several G7 countries’ inflation is in the high single digits – meaning that $10 could be worth $9 in a year compared to today. Crypto values can significantly change values within HOURS. Stable currencies don’t do that.
For a person who does not have extra money left over at the end of the month, being paid in a stable currency is a necessity. If rent and groceries need to be paid out of a current paycheck, it’s not worth risking a significant value decline between payday and rent day to be paid in anything BUT a stable currency. Crypto values are far too risky for everyday transactions by everyday people, and those people are your customers.
The risk that easy credit card processing could vanish has always been part of running online adult businesses but crypto is not a viable solution.
Porn is not that big. The numbers seem big to us, but in the grand scheme of things, porn business is less than a rounding error. All porn businesses could be shut down and the effects not felt by anyone not directly affected.
