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Dispatches from the War on Horny/Payment Processors: the other shoe has dropped for Pixiv.
A year and a half ago, Pixiv made signs that they'd be clamping down on content on some of their services to appease Visa and MasterCard. Today, Pixiv announces that US and UK users will face restrictions on content they can upload. (Specific details here.)
Currently remains to be seen how much this affects the Western artists who are on Pixiv, but it doesn't bode well. Some think this portends a coming era of digital pillarization, and while I won't rule out the possibility that things will get so walled off that VPNs become a necessity, it's hard to say how likely that actually is.
EDIT: This may be the rationale for the change.
This is the kind of problem that crypto currencies were meant to solve.
To elaborate:
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have sympathy for these websites/users, because the failure of traditional payment processors to handle this sort of thing was recognized and predicted before cryptocurrencies existed. When bitcoin/cryptocurrency was first released/invented it wasn't a bunch of people saying "oh look at this cool toy, we have no idea what its for, but it seems neat!" No, they were specifically saying "yay! we have solved this hard problem of digital payments that has been plaguing us for the last decade on the internet! These are the cool things we will now be able to do: [same list as above plus other things]."
For any kind of business that once needed cash to function: switch to crypto or die a slow death as payment processors leave you.
The problem with crypto is that it's used for a lot of fully illegal things, and so the government has cracked down on it quite a bit. It's also somewhat difficult for the average person to use, at least marginally more complicated than something like Paypal. Then there's the issue of risk, where plenty of people use crypto as a form of speculation so you can never be sure if the crypto held will have the same value as before unless you're using a stablecoin. Then there's the risk of exchanges just running off with your money like FTX did.
Most people beyond the small niche of ideological libertarians only use crypto when they're doing something sketchy or illegal, otherwise conventional banking is the easier option with far more guarantees for standard transactions.
I mostly agree that crypto is not very useable. I personally don't use it.
My post was originally just that first sentence, and as I tried to write anything after it I just kept expressing frustration at these companies and users of crypto that have wasted it.
Going through the problems:
I think the first problem is something that porn websites could solve. They are web companies, they know how to build useable things on the web. They have more resources than paypal and venmo had in their early days.
The second problem of stable value is solved (as you point out with stablecoins), but people just choose not to use it. Because speculation and gambling is more fun than a boring currency that just does its job of facilitating transactions. This could be better solved by the porn websites and other places that need crypto uniting behind a stable online currency.
I think the funds don't need to be quite so secure if you aren't using crypto as an investment vehicle or speculation device. Store your money in traditional banks / stocks / etc. And then just transact into crypto when it is specifically needed. And yet again porn websites are some of the places that are better suited for dealing with security issues. They still live in a wild west style internet, because they don't enjoy as many protections as traditional businesses. If some hacker messes with a bank website they could have the feds come after them. If that same hacker does the same thing to a porn website, they won't get in trouble at all.
Some governments, like China, have cracked down on crypto. I did have more worries about government crackdowns on crypto back in the early days. The US and western crackdowns on crypto have mostly been because of the problems of crypto. People getting their money stolen, or using it as speculation / asset bubbles. I don't think the Western government crackdowns would necessarily stop if those problems went away, but I think it would blunt a lot of the political momentum.
The sum of my frustration is that if you are one of those businesses selling "sketchy" things this whole crackdown by payment processors has been predictable and visible for at least a decade. And the solution and their salvation has also been available and sitting there for a decade. Its like they've just been sitting on a railroad track waiting around. Now that the crossing bars are down and the warning lights are flashing they start screaming "no please! don't run me over!" Get off the tracks you idiots!
Maybe its just the nature of people to not treat upcoming disasters as real until those disasters are already upon them. If so, then I'll also say that its in my nature to have no sympathy for them when their lack of preparation bites them in the ass.
You make good points. I usually balk whenever I see crypto as the only option for payment, but if these businesses actually invested in a bit of digital infrastructure to make stablecoin payments hassle-free then it'd probably be fine. And considering the other option is "go out of business", it seems kind of strange that they haven't done this yet.
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