danteI am truly begging people to realize that itch is not the enemy here, itch is a threatened entity that for extremely obvious legal reasons cannot speak on the record about what is going on. given itch's general track record i am going to give them the benefit of the doubt here that they're trying their best to thread this needle
The fact that they have to thread this needle at all is shameful, but it's happening for reasons entirely out of their control. Mastercard & various payment processors are, like all capitalists, easily swayed by fascists
I think it's possible that with enough public pressure these sort of regressive/fascist anti-sex viewpoints could be turned around, but given how little moneyed capitalists give a shit about the public's opinion I think it would have to be truly overwhelming in response. I am optimistic that people *could* do that. I am unsure if they *will* do that. It's possible that when this starts affecting straight porn it'll hit that mark.
We need Leftist Payment Processors but that concept feels so hypocritical as to be laughable. I don't know how you stop this without legislative crackdown, and the current administration of the United States is basically anarchocapitalist in their economic goals and fascist in their moral goals, so not sure how that's gonna pan out. State-level could solve it, maybe.
There are a lot of illegal or quasi-legal solves here but all of them would reduce the actual *benefit* of nsfw work being on places like Steam or Itch, which is reliability and discoverability. by its very nature, a more clandestine market would lose that benefit.
I do think the answer here, in many ways, is unfortunately the most difficult one: everyone needs to get more ungovernable now. If you have anti-porn friends you need to teach them to Shut The Fuck Up
I don't like individualist responses but I don't believe that the United States of America is a functioning democracy and thus it's hard to say "call your senators" about this. Your senators do not care about this. You need to figure out other solves to support the porn-makers and sex workers that you give a shit about, in whatever ways you can
Perfect Butterfly Angel@dante tbh I have a lot of reasons to have much, much less faith in itchio and I think they are uh, absolutely not someone I trust here
but you're absolutely right about this, we gotta start getting more ungovernable and teaching how to react to this shit in ways that push back
bruno@dante real talk if I had like... a couple million sitting around and a bunch of lawyers I'd be investigating setting up a startup bank in Brazil that makes it trivial for foreigners to open accounts without ever setting foot in the country. then you just let people wire in money to themselves through SWIFT and, finally, pay for things using Pix (Brazil's central-bank run universal payments system). Basically something along the lines of 'what if someone in Japan found a way to open up the kombini payment system to foreigners online'
@bruno someone else i know was actually talking about Brazil's system as a hypothetical solve. it really does seem a hell of a lot more graceful than the dumb shit we have in the US as it relates to payment processors
@dante another possible avenue is GNU Taler, which is a digital payments system (not a crypto) that just recently, after a decade of development, got regulatory authorization to actually operate in switzerland. maybe the solution is 'open a literal swiss bank account'
@dante I think other systems will emerge over time in other countries, especially as everyone becomes more leery of relying on US corporations for anything. The reality is that these centrally banked (or as in taler's case, independently but centrally run) digital payment systems are extremely convenient and, crucially, banks and retailers have a lot of reason to be in favor of them. I think in reality the credit card business is kind of only held together by monopolistic practices and once the dam breaks they'll go; visa and mastercard are actively bleeding market share like a stuck pig in Brazil.
3 tigers in a trench coat@dante
GNU Taler. Even though that STILL needs a bank.
Abd there's always cryptocurrency. Oh wait. The fascists took that over, as well.
@dante and SEPA.
SEPA can be made to work, despite sadly the higher conversion hurdle (more clicks)
But we also have SEPA Mandates and these are basically like stored credit card info.
SEPA can be made to work, despite sadly the higher conversion hurdle (more clicks)
But we also have SEPA Mandates and these are basically like stored credit card info.
@dante they basically mix and match the worst aspects of each that hurt us the most.
Like fascists tend to do.
Like fascists tend to do.
🌈 Espii 🏳️⚧️@dante it would be much easier not to blame itch if they weren't holding people's payouts hostage, however they are doing that. that is not acceptable in any capacity and is in fact illegal in multiple jurisdictions as the service terms were retroactively changed.
e.g. https://bsky.app/profile/daff.space/post/3luolkqglj22c
e.g. https://bsky.app/profile/daff.space/post/3luolkqglj22c
@espyeen under current rules from payment processors, if itch were to disburse those payments they would be liable for the entire site to be demonetized. What do you expect them to do lmao. It's not itch's fault
Antiroo 🔞@Antiroo it's debatable that itch makes that much money at all but even if they did make "a lot for an indie games marketplace" that is nearly infinitesimally small compared to what MasterCard processes. I do not think itch.io has sway on MasterCard. Not to the degree that they could hold that over them.
@dante
Imagine if no one cooperated with mastercard's dumb demands, they would go the way of Travelers checks and American Express.
If you couldn't buy games, couldn't shop online, couldn't buy art, couldn't support streamers or subscribe to services, you think anyone would use mastercard?
Imagine if no one cooperated with mastercard's dumb demands, they would go the way of Travelers checks and American Express.
If you couldn't buy games, couldn't shop online, couldn't buy art, couldn't support streamers or subscribe to services, you think anyone would use mastercard?
JP@dante kinda want to ask anyone who's treating itch like the villain here what the hell *they* would do if their payment processor threatened to obliterate them as a commercial enterprise
@dante "i would take a bold stand against-" cool you'd be bankrupt and shut down within 5-7 days.
people acting like a payment processor is a mean guy you could flip off and shove out the door. a payment processor is a nonhuman entity that can instantaneously delete the building you're in. yes, let's work towards a society where they don't have that power. in the meantime let's not demand itch commit suicide.
people acting like a payment processor is a mean guy you could flip off and shove out the door. a payment processor is a nonhuman entity that can instantaneously delete the building you're in. yes, let's work towards a society where they don't have that power. in the meantime let's not demand itch commit suicide.
piku 
minor!@jplebreton @dante i think[hope] that those who are currently treating itch badly are still catching up on info