[Chernobog]

I think card companies and the related businesses have too much power. I am a board member of a BDSM club operated by a volunteer organization (we are legally a non-profit). We want to implement card payment on our website for membership and event tickets, but when applying for the service that would be the best option in our country, their payment processor rejects the application citing that they don't allow things like strip clubs, sexually oriented massage parlors, escort agencies or "any sexually-related clubs or services". I get that a BDSM club would easily get caught by this wording, but it's a social arena where our members can hook up and play, and we don't sell any sexual services.

Adding insult to injury, the company behind the service loudly markets that they support Pride every year. The payment processor has pictures on their Facebook of employees attending the Pride parade... We're not a commercial entity, our activities are legal and we also march under the same (rainbow) flag.

Oh, and there is no reasonable appeals process. We initially applied for a different product a while back and got rejected since they had run our web page through Google Translate and determined that we were involved with "public group sex". Asking the service to get is in touch with the payment processor to clear up the misunderstanding was not possible, they just said there was no way to appeal and our best bet would be to contact them ourselves through their website.

/rant.

[invalidname]

That sucks. I blame Steve Jobs.

This was all going in the right direction of freedom of speech == sexual freedom == censorship free internet.

Then Steve tried to market the appstore as a walled garden and wanted to keep 30% of the revenue so he branded everything as "safe" including no-porn. I don't think this was his intention but it snowballed into this.

I hate crypto with a vengeance but when I hear stories like this I totally get why people are so much into it.