[sdrinf]

This absolutely works... until, and when network effects kick in.

Payment processors have major network effects in that infra setup is expensive, banks need to be onboarded one-by-one, and whichever network has the most consumers, businesses will gravitate towards it. Iterate this over 20 years, and this always results in natural monopolies / duopolies. This creates a natural chokepoint/linchpin over which millions of people's mutually exclusive needs are getting banged at; including consumers at large, govs at large, and special-interest groups at large.

Absent crystal clear legislation -and porn is anything, but- this will always be arbitrary, and leave one side in the dust.

[infecto]

I suspect if there was clear rules for the government this would be cut and dry. The fact of the matter is it’s not and that’s why companies like Visa may restrict certain things. There is chargeback risk, risk from the underwriting bank, risk from a state government and risk from the federal government. This is not some free speech problem but rather an issue where a company is having to balance issues from many different parties and weigh the risk.

[const_cast]

Great, then what we should do is just nationalize these companies like we should've done 30 years ago. Now it is a free speech problem, and we can solve it.

We'll all probably save a little bit of money too when we don't have to forfeit a portion of every transaction ever to someone's profit margins.

[infecto]

Thanks for invalidating any point you may have had that was valid. Why do conversations degrade into such rubbish so quickly?

[const_cast]

It's not rubbish, it's a real solution.

The only reason this isn't a free speech problem is because it's monopolized in the private sector. Well, if it's already centrally planned and controlled, then we can just put it in the public sector.

Now, we have some guarantee of rights. We can even use our voting powers to influence the payment processor. Because, right now, we essentially have this same exact scenario - except, it's opaque, we can't vote, and they're allowed to completely trample over the US constitution, because it doesn't apply to them.

What's the actual drawback here? I mean, it's not like things can get more consolidated. I understand not wanting to disturb a market, but there's no market to disturb.

We can also go the other direction and split Visa up. But that's bad in different ways.

I don't want 50 payment processors, you don't want that, and certainly Visa doesn't want that. So who wins? Nobody, it's all losers. If you think it's expensive now, just wait until you're paying for the integration and complexity costs of all those payment processors.

IMO, payment processors are public infrastructure. That's an opinion of course, but it's really hard to argue otherwise. It is to the benefit of everyone that we have good payment processors. We already pay for Visa via taxes - that's what that 2% charge on all transactions is.

Given that, we should treat it like a public asset.

[infecto]

It’s not. It’s a fairy tale solution that sounds good to you but has no shot in the real world. I like discussing real solutions even if I don’t agree with them.

This is simply an underwriting risk problem. Get the government to draw boundaries of what’s ok or not and it’s less of a problem.

[const_cast]

Okay. But this isn't an argument.

They're already acting as a public good - so why can't we just make them a public good? That's not a rhetorical question.

We're already paying taxes for this public good. So why can't we pay actual taxes for this public good? Again, not rhetorical.

> Get the government to draw boundaries of what’s ok or not and it’s less of a problem.

Yes, we can do this. But we have already done this. It's our common laws and the US constitution.

If we want free speech, we don't need to go out here and write a super special law to target Visa. If they were just part of the public sector that would already apply to them - no new laws required.

You can't just say something is a fairy-tale because you're ideologically opposed to it. We already run many, many public services and do it successfully. It's not a fairy-tale, it's real life and we've been doing it for hundreds of years. Yes, even in the US.

Not to mention, we'd get a lot of extra benefits for free. Don't want your payment history leaked? Great, now the police require a search warrant to invade your privacy. Don't want to be debanked? Great, now we have more stringent discrimination protections. Want to pay less? Great, we don't have to turn a profit anymore.