[YurgenJurgensen]

You think that a payment processor having arbitrary power to shut down any business they want anywhere in the world for any reason is a good thing because this time you agree with the reason?

Book burners don’t have any morals, they just want to burn books, and they’ll come for yours sooner or later.

[jact]

They don’t have arbitrary power - power is never exercised unilaterally. I can’t imagine they would succeed for very long at say, shutting down all the grocery stores in the world. They wouldn’t even dare try from the hell they would have to pay.

And the payment processors aren’t “book burners.” They’re acting to restrict an unsavory market that potentially hurts their business. They have no agenda or incentive to promote censorship as such.

[YurgenJurgensen]

The fact that you had to jump to such an extreme misinterpretation of my point to attempt to refute it shows just how right I am. I said ‘any business’, not ‘any number of businesses simultaneously’. Your counterpoint is as ridiculous as saying a man with a loaded gun in a crowded bar isn’t dangerous because he has fewer bullets in his magazine than there are people in the bar. Economic warfare always operates on defeat in detail.

Okay, since you stated it as a fact: Citation needed. Show me Visa’s statement to the effect that they have no agenda, because all of their actions suggest otherwise.

[gs17]

> And the payment processors aren’t “book burners.” They’re acting to restrict an unsavory market that potentially hurts their business.

They're not book burners... they're just trying to eliminate certain media they find objectionable? They would consider it unacceptable for Steam to, for example, make these items only purchasable through crypto/bank transfer.

[jact]

Some media really is objectionable.

[gs17]

Then Visa/MasterCard wouldn't need to be the ones to force it.