What was the mechanism causing Visa and Mastercard to halt payments? Is this a case of explicitly public lobbying (or fear thereof) or internal company moral stuff?
Huge missed opportunity for the internal plural in that line about the attorneys general and craigslist. Otherwise good post.
While your argument was about *non*-governmental actors serving the role of regulators, this feels quite similar to the Matt Levine "everything is securities fraud" point about the SEC, which is a government regulator, acting as regulators for a whole host of not-really-financial wrongdoings because it's easier to brand pollution as securities fraud than it is to actually get Congress and the EPA to regulate it.
Also probably related: employees/customers of tech companies demanding those companies don't accept ICE as a customer.
The main point is well-taken, although while the story about pre-revolutionary France was very interesting I am not convinced of the analogy - these payment services have too much control, but they are offering some version of a non-rent-seeking service, and in general their incentives to serve most sites are approximately aligned with the sites.
I imagine both Visa and Mastercard would enjoy if this situation was taken out of their hands to a degree in the sense that they could become (nearly?) obligated to offer services to anyone who wasn't barred by the government, but I suspect I haven't thought this through enough. In theory, this would be better for Pornhub and their customers (maybe) too.
Where are Discover in all this, wont_somebody_think_of_the_children.jpg etc??
Interesting piece. The Pornhub situation itself didn't bother me much and it does sound like a lot of shady stuff was happening there, like not respecting the owners of the content, but I hadn't considered where else it could go. Potential slippery slope to consider. Corporations are getting pressured to get involved in various social causes so could this be a next step.
What was the mechanism causing Visa and Mastercard to halt payments? Is this a case of explicitly public lobbying (or fear thereof) or internal company moral stuff?
Huge missed opportunity for the internal plural in that line about the attorneys general and craigslist. Otherwise good post.
While your argument was about *non*-governmental actors serving the role of regulators, this feels quite similar to the Matt Levine "everything is securities fraud" point about the SEC, which is a government regulator, acting as regulators for a whole host of not-really-financial wrongdoings because it's easier to brand pollution as securities fraud than it is to actually get Congress and the EPA to regulate it.
Also probably related: employees/customers of tech companies demanding those companies don't accept ICE as a customer.
The main point is well-taken, although while the story about pre-revolutionary France was very interesting I am not convinced of the analogy - these payment services have too much control, but they are offering some version of a non-rent-seeking service, and in general their incentives to serve most sites are approximately aligned with the sites.
I imagine both Visa and Mastercard would enjoy if this situation was taken out of their hands to a degree in the sense that they could become (nearly?) obligated to offer services to anyone who wasn't barred by the government, but I suspect I haven't thought this through enough. In theory, this would be better for Pornhub and their customers (maybe) too.
Where are Discover in all this, wont_somebody_think_of_the_children.jpg etc??
Interesting piece. The Pornhub situation itself didn't bother me much and it does sound like a lot of shady stuff was happening there, like not respecting the owners of the content, but I hadn't considered where else it could go. Potential slippery slope to consider. Corporations are getting pressured to get involved in various social causes so could this be a next step.
Could your concern also apply to TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax?