https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFvE-ze1U6g

Its worse than that. They are bending their knees to actually clinically insane feminists and activists.
Because according to collective shoutout all forms of s*x and p**n is violence against women, so now your library might vanish overnight depending on the flavour of the month social media drama.

Who knows.
Maybe tomorrow some feminazis shait activist organisation blackmails an isp or a mastercard huncho into a hate-boner over guns, or alcohol, or cigarettes, or bad jokes, or not enough representation, and tomorrow your library starts missing some games.

Isnt everyone glad that we are now prioritising the satisfaction of factually insane activists over the customers?

Well it is interesting, we are continually told "there is no freedom of speech" on Steam. And apparently, there is no Freedom of Speech for Mr Newell or Game Developers either.

He cannot sell what he wants to sell, without meaningful regulations.

And given government has failed to regulate, and given the even putrid nature of some of what's sold here, someone was bound to step in.

If it wasn't the Banks, it would have been the State of Texas, or others that would downright ban Steam before long, as they did with pornographic companies that could not assure age.

I would say the biggest worry, is just where this may go on, to other matters having nothing to do with adult content.

Because Mastercard and Visa probably stands for over 90% of their sales.
That is why Valve can't do much about it.

This is something the US Government has to do something about.

Huh ?
What are you yapping about lil bro

Originally posted by Zefar:

Because Mastercard and Visa probably stands for over 90% of their sales.
That is why Valve can't do much about it.

This is something the US Government has to do something about.

You know thats nonsense, right? There are different payment processors out there and there is direct transfer if nothing else.

But even if there was not, dropping on your knees in front of a bunch of insane activists is the quickest way to destroy your business.

Originally posted by Zefar:

Because Mastercard and Visa probably stands for over 90% of their sales.
That is why Valve can't do much about it.

This is something the US Government has to do something about.

Valve is big enough that they could have stood up to the payment processors in court. They are using they monopoly powers to dictate how other businesses are allowed to run. That is a clear as day anti-trust violation.

Smaller companies and smaller creators do not have the means to fight that case, even with it being clear as day. The payment processors could just keep stalling and win by bankrupting the other side through lawyer fees. Just look at how much Valve is worth; they had the means to fight back. They CHOSE to roll over instead.

Originally posted by Aerensiniac:

You know thats nonsense, right? There are different payment processors out there and there is direct transfer if nothing else.

But even if there was not, dropping on your knees in front of a bunch of insane activists is the quickest way to destroy your business.

Nonsense? Mastercard and Visa together probably account for 90% of Steams purchases.

While there are different payment methods they are most likely used by a much smaller amount of people.

Valve isn't giving in to activist. It's the creditcard companies that are pushing Valve around.

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Valve is big enough that they could have stood up to the payment processors in court. They are using they monopoly powers to dictate how other businesses are allowed to run. That is a clear as day anti-trust violation.

Smaller companies and smaller creators do not have the means to fight that case, even with it being clear as day. The payment processors could just keep stalling and win by bankrupting the other side through lawyer fees. Just look at how much Valve is worth; they had the means to fight back. They CHOSE to roll over instead.

Mastercard and Visa will just state that pornographic content hurts their brand value and they don't want anything to do with it.
So no Valve wouldn't be able to do much about it.

Originally posted by Zefar:

Originally posted by Aerensiniac:

You know thats nonsense, right? There are different payment processors out there and there is direct transfer if nothing else.

But even if there was not, dropping on your knees in front of a bunch of insane activists is the quickest way to destroy your business.

Nonsense? Mastercard and Visa together probably account for 90% of Steams purchases.

While there are different payment methods they are most likely used by a much smaller amount of people.

Valve isn't giving in to activist. It's the creditcard companies that are pushing Valve around.

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Valve is big enough that they could have stood up to the payment processors in court. They are using they monopoly powers to dictate how other businesses are allowed to run. That is a clear as day anti-trust violation.

Smaller companies and smaller creators do not have the means to fight that case, even with it being clear as day. The payment processors could just keep stalling and win by bankrupting the other side through lawyer fees. Just look at how much Valve is worth; they had the means to fight back. They CHOSE to roll over instead.

Mastercard and Visa will just state that pornographic content hurts their brand value and they don't want anything to do with it.
So no Valve wouldn't be able to do much about it.

Payment processors using their monopoly to dictate what other companies can do is an anti-truest violation. Payment processors should be neutral in regards to all legal transactions. They should not be trying to act like unelected, de facto, international government regulators.

Originally posted by Zefar:

Mastercard and Visa will just state that pornographic content hurts their brand value and they don't want anything to do with it.
So no Valve wouldn't be able to do much about it.

It's funny how that exact same counter-argument was used against the Stop Killing Games initiative too. I wonder how frequently the "brand" excuse gets pushed forward in practice

When payment processor companies grow as big and prominent as MasterCard and Visa have, and unless we're off the far end of the troublesome questionable content spectrum, I struggle to fathom why the question would ever fall to "Why are you associated with these pornographic sites? Shame on you!" rather than "Why can I not use card services from you guys to pay here? You exist as an option literally everywhere else!".

I guess what I'm trying to say is, at some point your company is bound to get big enough that poor brand association simply doesn't matter anymore.

Originally posted by Aerensiniac:

Originally posted by Zefar:

Because Mastercard and Visa probably stands for over 90% of their sales.
That is why Valve can't do much about it.

This is something the US Government has to do something about.

You know thats nonsense, right? There are different payment processors out there and there is direct transfer if nothing else.

But even if there was not, dropping on your knees in front of a bunch of insane activists is the quickest way to destroy your business.

No, it's not nonsense. Visa and Mastercard also run many debit cards for banks and such in loads of countries, for example.

You overestimate the amount of alternatives people can freach out to.

lmao, I wonder. 🤔

Maybe because that's literally how Steam makes it's money and you don't ♥♥♥♥ with the money.

Steam should never have allowed porn on their platform in the first place.

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

Steam should never have allowed porn on their platform in the first place.

Even if you believe that, it should not be up to a 3rd party to act as the morality secret police.

I have a suggestion steam is already making a OS why not make their own credit card. I mean they have the infrastructure for it already. They could cut out the middle man that way and clear this processing thing out of the way.

Originally posted by Sgt. SealCluber:

Steam needs to kick Master Card, VISA, and the like to the curb and make their own payment processing that doesn't censor businesses doing LEGAL transactions!! (doing this should be illegal)

while I agree that payment processors have no legal authority to do such things, they CAN choose their customers like every other business. Still, if anything, being important infrastructure providers they should actually NOT be allowed to choose their customers.

Regardless of this, Steam can't ignore them. People need to be able to pay them, and Steam has no way to create their own systems.

Originally posted by locothehood:

I have a suggestion steam is already making a OS why not make their own credit card. I mean they have the infrastructure for it already. They could cut out the middle man that way and clear this processing thing out of the way.

You are aware that all those "our own credit card" things are really just re-branded Mastercard or Visa?

I know a lot of people are blaming feminists for this, but this is a result of the Patriot Act. The bill is absolute hot garbage and when it first rolled out people were being arrested just for being critical of it. Furthermore, technically speaking, homeless people can't actually identify themselves without a permanent address despite having multiple addresses. I ran into issues with it when I was in the military where I couldn't open a bank account or access my own TSP payments without an address. Stuff gets crazy, but I got a personal beef with this law.