I’m in Europe and following the news of the MasterCard and Visa censorship I activelly went looking for how else could I pay for things online without using their networks, and as it turns out there are plenty of solutions supported by both Steam and GOG which I was just ignoring before because they just looked as lots of “weirdly named” unrecognized payment options.
I’m now using those in my purchases and so far they actually look more convenient than the Visa/MasterCard (for example, with iDEA which is Dutch, I can literally pay from my mobile phone banking app by just taking a picture of a QR-Code on my screen). The problem in Europe is just there being lots of local solutions and no EU-wide one yet, though I’m lucky because I have bank accounts in different countries (having lived in several countries in Europe) so I have access to many options.
Keep in mind that outside Britain, the rest of Europe have long had their own debit card withdrawal and payment networks and not relied on Visa/MasterCard (to me Britain was, frankly, weird in that it relies on mainly VISA Debit and had no local payment solution, probably explained by lack of political will in the UK for that: most such payment networks in Europe were born out of political pressure on banks to come up with a standard and sometimes were even started as state-owned companies) so a lot of these local online payment options are extensions of those existing networks, which is probably why trying come up with an single integrated cross-border payment processor has been slow going.
That said, thanks to it having been mandated at the EU level, bank transfers are nowadays fully cross-border integrated and you can transfer money between accounts anywhere in EU with the same ease and for the same cost you can for local accounts (the banks really resisted that, by the way, as it took away most of their “international transfers” profits) so we’re probably not far from a single EU-wide payment processor (or at least EU-wide account support on existing solutions).
did anyone mentioned that all these bans were all pushed by russel vought.
What about everyone buy a share of thier stock. Then sue thier board for ignoring thier fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Turning down business is bad for revenue… and the games that got removed probably made decent money all together.
Make sure its not Class B
Why do payment processors have the ability to control morality in our world? Easily the definition of a monopoly. Absolutely insane.
Because we, collectively as a society, gave them that power.
Clearly, that was a mistake.
Stuff like this is going to make people mostly pay in cash and buy gift cards as needed. I already started buying most of my things in person anyway just to avoid paying for shipping. I’m seriously considering only buying steam games with gift cards I buy at the store and avoiding using my card as much as possible.
Credit cards should be illegal they are tools of Molloch and everyone loses at least a little from their usage. Credit card payment charges should be itemized on the bill of any purchase and also rewards should be considered taxable income over 1000$/year
they are tools of Molloch
dafuq
Credit card payment charges should be itemized on the bill of any purchase and also rewards should be considered taxable income over 1000$/year
I feel like we came to the same conclusions for very different reasons…
You do understand that since vendors are not allowed
on risk of credit excommunication, pass the transaction fee to the vendor
It forces the vendor to put that fee in the base price.
Everyone pays the transaction fee
But what if you pay debit ?
you don’t even get cashback rewards
but you STILL pay that increased price,
On everything you buy
everyone without a credit card still pays a 3% taxCredit cards are profoundly immoral
If it was about money, MasterVisa would have already given up. There are people who claim that MasterVisa bent the knee to Collective Shout for the sake of money, yet when a much bigger demographic speaks, MasterVisa tries to ignore it.
This is about the power to shape society.
The fact that multi-millionaires are doing to most heinous shit with their money and getting a way with it, meanwhile me, a wage slave, has a payment processor telling me what I’m allowed to do with my money, society is built on tiers.
Gamers who care about this are a much smaller group than American regressive religious zealots.
Australian religious zealots are the ones taking credit for the steam & itch.io censorship.
*TERFs
The hypothesis I’ve heard is that the zealots have deep enough ties to the Australian government to be pains in the ass for MasterCard and Visa. Though I can’t imagine Australia is a big enough demographic to really matter meaningfully, also if you are any type of international entity you should have Australia marked as fuck ass stupid place is the Idaho of the Anglosphere shitty government but with lots of decent folks about.
Uh. No.
Do you seriously think Australia is a big enough player for mastercard and visa to kowtow despite building pressure planetwide? We’re fucking small potatoes and we’ve always known it.
Payment processors own upper echelons are full of weird religious fundamentalists, and that’s where a lot of this is coming from. Don’t give collective shout any credit, very few people in Australia even knew who the fuck they were before they started claiming shit. They’re the online version of that weird proselytiser outside st paul’s.
(And if you think Conroy is a tie, lemme describe in detail how much people want to barbecue that idiot…)
Fair enough, though them being stupid greedy bastards is also an element to the why in such a situation. Regardless Visa and MasterCard need to pushed out of the financial system and forcibly dissolved.
Straight up its like the shithole of western countries.
Although UK and USA are catching up
How well are Visa Debit or Mastercard Debit as an alternative for paying online?
That wouldn’t make any meaningful impact. They still get the processing fees from the vendor.
But they’re much on fees cheaper than non-debit MasterCard and Visas?
Ana Valens recently resigned from Vice following an article about the censorship of games. On social media, she shared communication between Mastercard and Riot Games.
Looks like Vice can’t be trusted as a reliable source of information if they’re willing to fire journalists after a little outside pressure is put on them.
This also goes to an entire new level. Before it was “only” censoring digital products and events. Now it is directly censoring media outlets.
This screams for an antitrust lawsuit, if a company has this kind of power.
Megacorp be megacorping.
We should always fight giants like this.
And think to not feed them indirectly.(Not to mention that such basic infrastructure should never be for-profit.)
https://www.theverge.com/24094310/vice-media-layoffs-bankruptcy-shane-smith
they havn’t been trustworthy since 2023
Could be great links to share over Riot Games streams.
- MasterCard has asked Riot to keep an eye out for negative sentiments on official Riot streams
- Riot has asked esports content creators working with official Riot properties to watch out for any negative sentiments toward MasterCard
- Moderators have been told to look out for any unusual activity around the MasterCard issue
No better publicity than getting their own efforts thrown back at their faces.
MasterCard is running an effective PR campaign against themselves. They can’t stop giving their critics all this gold.
Oh wow, it’s like everyone who said MasterCard was lying to protect their image from reality turned out to be correct. Only someone with a functioning brain could have seen this coming.
IMO MasterCard leadership already agreed with the nazis and were just looking for an excuse to act.
I do believe MasterCard and Visa owners and execs are card holding Nazis.
Man wtf can we DO about this shit? I’m planning on calling and shit but damn they don’t give a fuck.
Is it too late??
Do you have to have assloads of money to file a class action suit? Like would steam or GOG or itch be down to be a part of it or is that just a pipe dream.
I am not promoting it, but I will say that this is the exact reason shit like cryptocurrency exists. Stupid overreaching shit like this.
Keep calling. Tell your friends. It’s already gotten MasterCard’s attention enough to make a statement.
Call your credit union and demand amex and discover alternatives.
Call visa and MasterCard and waste their time.
If you use a bank you are likely fucked.
I’m super pro crypto but it isn’t a magic bullet. The companies being restricted are victims of a monopoly who will retaliate if they try alternatives. It’s the same reason NFTs haven’t killed Ticketmaster.
Is it possible for us the people to do it then? How do you organize something like a class action lawsuit against a big player like that?
They JUST finished paying out the 5.5 Billion in a class action lawsuit they’ve already lost before so we can for sure do it again, right?
Crypto is now a fucking wall street product.
NFTs are highly regarded.
The reason you can’t kill Ticketmaster is because Everyone who stands to make money benefits from Ticketmaster and the only ones to benefit from an alternative is customers.
NFTs are highly regarded.
I’m going to take the day to reflect on how 100.0% out of touch I must be. I’ve been using crypto for more years than I’ll admit, been reading tech news, and talking about it with other real engineers at work. Never once did I hear anything about anyone ever regarding NFTs highly.
That’s because NFTs were a scam that has long since dried up.
Let’s just say it’s a way to avoid word filters.
Though I should have said, they are fucking regarded
MasterCard lied? No they would never
Anyway, thanks MasterCard for introducing me to porn games a few weeks ago
There was an entire subreddit devoted to porn games but it’s not made it over to Lemmy.
Maybe once I get laid off I’ll start a community
since you’re compiling a list, lemme add a forum https://f95zone.to/
Make it. I will be there.
Also, Please play “Ripples” even if you don’t like Lewd Game. It’s story is so good that the Lewd Scene just feels like reward
Edit: Forgot to say but it’s completely free
Did you mean “make it”? If you made it already, link the community!
Ahh sorry typo. Can you suggest any instance for the LewdGame?
If I make one it will likely be on lemmynsfw.com. I doubt that there is an instance specifically for porn games though.
I’m pretty sure I saw one, but maybe it was just general anime thirst trapping. There’s a lot of niche abandoned communities.
I don’t log into my Lemmynsfw account much these days. But I know that a lot of “copy” subreddits were made in the days after the API shutoff. So it very well could be a community already but I’m too lazy to look.
You need to censor those messages accusing us of censorship!
Also, If someone was secretly negotiating on their behalf they would be asking the FBI to help arrest the impersonator, and they would probably want the publics help too!
Man I just wish there were better alternatives to MasterCard and Visa.
It really boggles the mind why we have to go through private corporations to use our monetary system in the digital realm
If we had to use private corporations then there needs to be enough competition to prevent what is happening now.
FedNow became a thing just two years ago. With transaction fees of just $0.043/transaction, it’s cheaper than every other payment processor out there. Hopefully it can gain adoption and push out Visa/Mastercard.
What prevents them from getting bigger and doing the same thing. This cycle of sadomasochism needs to stop at the root cause.
Interesting. Good to have a less rent-seeking option, not sure I love the idea of the Fed just (assumedly) having access to all my transactions, though.
You don’t have to. You can use cash, checks, crypto, gift cards, and more. It’s only credit cards (and probably almost all debit cards) that go through them.
I’ve been to places that don’t take check or cash anymore though.
As much as everyone here hates it literally the only way to ever do that is cryptocurrency unless you receive precious metals in the mail.
Steam already tried it, but it was too volatile so they stopped accepting it.
They stopped using Bitcoin when the idiots in control of development/online communities kicked out/banned all the dissenters and scammed everyone into thinking we couldn’t raise the blocksize beyond 1mb, which caused massive congestion and delayed transactions, which resulted in complicated failed payments/refund problems. Their ‘leader’ cheered when transaction fees skyrocketed.
Steam was 100% right to stop accepting it given the problems the congestion caused. Steam wasn’t the only one to stop accepting it after that manufactured clusterfuck. Mainstream consumer adoption which was starting to happen died at that point.
You can just use something like Ethereum instead now and avoid that entirely, and you can avoid the volatility by accepting something like USDC
They tried bitcoin. And also fraud was a concern too.
With Monero, fees are minimal and there’s no possible way to prove fraud thus if you KYCd youd be breaking no laws and it would work quite well. The volatility is still a factor though for sure.
Stablecoins exist but ETH also has large fees at certain times like btc so and other chains like Polygon are trash and not as secure.
Volatility is a factor, but using a different crypto than Bitcoin is necessary to avoid high fees and stolen coins
Fees are no longer a problem on Ethereum if you use one of the sidechains. Sub penny.
They might till be higher on mainnet if some big event is happening, but are otherwise relatively low.
With how things are going, I’d be happy to support an EU-based alternative.
I read that this is actually coming. I forgot what it was called though. Fingers crossed.
GNU Taler?
Wero.
I have seen it mentioned quite a few times on websites. Can you actually pay normal shops using that?
I’m afraid it’s not expanded to many countries just yet :(
Maybe a few in Switzerland. I haven’t seen any news about it specifically.
We have our own system, Twint. Wero was based on it, but so far they’re not interchangeable.
I don’t think so to be honest, I have never seen it here :-( Maybe in a couple years
AmEx & Discover. I don’t know if steam takes them, though.
Steam has always accepted them
Does anyone take them anymore?
apparently Steam according to other commenters.
I can’t recall the last time I saw a place that doesn’t.
The problem of finding places that take amex or discover is not really a problem these days.
They still exist but it’s usually small mom and pop places for AmEx, in my experience. Just because they take a slightly bigger cut.
That’s good to hear, just haven’t noticed their logos for years while visa/mc logos seem to be everywhere.
A lot of places won’t take them because they both of those cards have higher fees.
They definitely take AmEx that’s typically what I use.
Discover? Not that much better but works fine for me. Good cashback too.
I wish they weren’t a duopoly. There isn’t really any other options even if they would be better, just because of the marketshare hold they have.
Isn’t Stripe one of the growing alternatives?
Stripe bans even more stuff https://stripe.com/en-de/legal/restricted-businesses , recently they banned payments for online dating platforms in the US.
Yeah, Stripe is the reason itch.io had to pull all paid NSFW games.
However, it isn’t exactly their fault, either:
We spoke with Stripe yesterday about their content policies. They confirmed that they will not be able to support adult content that fits the following definition: “content designed for sexual gratification.” Stripe asked us to pass along the following message to our users:
“Stripe is currently unable to support sexually explicit content due to restrictions placed on them by their banking partners, despite card networks generally supporting adult content (with the appropriate registrations). Stripe has indicated that they hope to be able to support adult content in the future.”
This is why it’s so hard to fight this, every company blames another one but never by name, I’m sure it’s by design
In the Itch.io incident, Stripe laid the blame for that on “banking partner” rules, claiming they were looking for ways to fix it.
Stripe is a payment processor. It has different payment methods it supports. Which are MasterCard and Visa. But it does also support(if you can use it and the merchant accepts it): Giro card, other card options, Revolut Pay and other options. Those avoid the MasterCard, Visa ecosystem.
Regardless, not everyone wants to use or uses Stripe. And it’s a bad thing for everyone to use Stripe just because of their interoperability because that then gives stripe too much power.
Plus, for a company like Valve, the fees of Stripe would severely affect their revenue.
Classic streisand effect
This is less Streisand and more… Just continuing to do the same things you lie you didn’t do
I remember during world’s a couple of years ago, the stream chat was shouting “TY MASTERCARD” everytime their ads came up
God, imagine thanking a fucking corporation lmao
Bunch of losers
Ah ah ah boost that shit.
