[gonzo41]

Two thoughts about all this pop up. You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names? And I'm surprised Stripe wouldn't build an off brand company to handle this part of the market. Seems like it's just giving up on a lot of money for 'reasons'

Though similar problems exist in business for things like weed companies. Banks don't want to touch em.

[onion2k]

Seems like it's just giving up on a lot of money for 'reasons'.

There's no way to ascertain how much profit a payment provider makes based on the transaction cost. That 30% fee might be necessary in order to make a profit after covering all the expenses incurred by dealing with vast amounts of fraudulent transactions, chargebacks, lawyers, etc. Maybe Stripe aren't giving up a lot of money; maybe providing payment services to the adult entertainment industry is just really expensive per transaction.

[mrweasel]

As is pointed out in the article, the issue is the chargebacks. If you have to many, the credit card processing company (I don't know who Stripe uses) will close your account. Both MasterCard and VISA will also shut you down if you have to many charge backs, or to much fraud.

Stripe would have to setup an entirely separate legal entity to do this. Otherwise they would risk not being able to process ANY card transaction, because the porn sites have to many chargebacks. It would potentially be a risk to their primary business.

I think Stripe is "giving up" on the money for the same reason many others are: It's simply not worth the hassle. If you have a nice income doing payments for non-adult sites, why bother?

[latchkey]

I don't think it is Stripe that is the issue, it is up the chain. Mastercard, Visa, Amex, etc... also remember that we wanted to be able to take cards from all over the world, so that was another limiting factor in who we dealt with.

We had to do all of our own bare metal hosting cause at the time cloud companies wouldn't touch us.

What we ended up developing was our own micro currency 'kinks', which enabled a lot of other possibilities for us, like pay-per-minute video. Charge one larger purchase for something tangible and it helped prevent chargebacks.

We were also one of the first companies to do near realtime, live streaming 1080p HD video. I remember having to search around for an HD mixer cause nothing existed yet.

[code_duck]

The problems with legal cannabis companies accessing credit card systems have nothing to do with banks worrying about public perception or societal issues. It is entirely because it is federally illegal, and banks are federally regulated.

[kennydude]

If you contact them about err... things that may be close to the line, they do have links with companies who are willing to take on a higher risk business

[krapp]

>You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names?

If they're doing legal business, why should they?

[wodenokoto]

For the same reason porn magazine aren't delivered in see-through plastic like other magazines and instead are delivered in white envelopes.

[mrweasel]

I don't know where you live, but porn magazines are in see-through plastic, just like other magazines. They're just on the top shelf, that's all.

[wodenokoto]

Not when you subscribe to them and they arrive in your mailbox!

[teekert]

I think margins are going down and there are plenty of stories of women being completely stuck in a world they don't want to be in, some of them actually struggling with mental issues. Sure, some probably like it but I can understand that companies prefer not to be associated with a world that seemingly contains a lot of misery. There are plenty of documentaries about the industry, they don't paint a rosy picture.

[lagadu]

> I can understand that companies prefer not to be associated with a world that seemingly contains a lot of misery.

They're already in the pharma and health business.

[teekert]

I understand the down voting and I also understand your response. But wouldn't it be nice if there were fair-trade porn sites? Where we know people are treated an paid well? It's insane that there is so much for free while there is so much work involved.

[lagadu]

I completely agree, I recall running into a couple here and there but the only one I know from memory that attempts that is kink.com (or so they say).

[krapp]

Fair enough, but porn companies billing under another name wouldn't change any of that.

[maxerickson]

Uh, for business reasons?

That is, to simplify the process of doing business.

(I don't understand what other meaning you'd get from the other post)