It's because NSFW content has higher risks of chargeback and fraud (there's a reason their payment processors charge 20%+). Besides, companies don't want to be on the bad side of outrage; it only takes one mistake of processing a payment for child pornography and your name will be plastered everywhere as a child porn enabler.
Do you really think the execs at Visa and Mastercard are puritans and not profiteering capitalists that will process payments for NSFW content if they were able to?
Everything to do with one politician essentially getting their way by targeting a payment processor with legal shit concerning potential enablement of CP/CT. Nobody wants that kind of attention.
The whole US society seems more puritan while more capitalist at the same time, seen from this side of the pond. It’s a paradox I can’t really explain, any clues?
US society isn’t some anti-sex dystopia. Its average compared to the rest of the world, It’s just Europe that is super pro-nudity etc and projects. Like everything else they think they are objectively right in their beliefs and systems.
Not allowing sex apps on AppStores and banks and credit cards refusing to process sex-related transactions seems pretty anti-sex to me.
Also getting all bent out of shape at a the image of a nipple, breast or pubic hair while not batting an eye at a person dying in evening TV movies seem a bit unbalanced.
> Plenty of greedy people in non-capitalist systems.
Totally agreed. But I am not placing any moral value on either greed or capitalism. I would think, however, that capitalists would not ignore such an obvious profit center as the sex industry. Thus my bafflement.
What you missing is that by chosing this obvious profit center they risk a much larger profit center because the backlash. It's not a moral thing, it's a calculated choice. That's why who takes this risks also charges a much higher fee to make up for the opprtunity cost in other areas.
> But I am not placing any moral value on either greed or capitalism
That is a missed opportunity
* Capitalism: A system where who owns resources matters more tan who needs them is a morally bankrupt system. A system where starvation and homelessness is an acceptable outcome
* Greed. Greed is bad for everybody. Concentrates scarce resources where they are not needed, that too is moral bankruptcy
Funny enough my country was starving under communism but we are living in plenty under capitalism. Since I lived under the alternative and I have seen its evilness, I will take capitalism any day - the very system that allowed and incentivized us to create those resources you are eyeing in the first place.
As for greed, I have yet to meet a person more greedy than the ones claiming to know where to direct those scarce resources they did not create, if only we’d give them the power to do so. Such high morals too, unlike those "morally bankrupt" capitalists who greedily built businesses, jobs, countless goods and services to only enslave us and enrich themselves, obviously.
I'm glad you chimed in with this. This is the point: capitalism knows self-interest exists, and creates a system to harness it. Communism and similar pretend greed doesn't exist, and creates overly powerful central bodies to make everything fair.
> I would think, however, that capitalists would not ignore such an obvious profit center as the sex industry
Because you're conflating capitalism and greed. Capitalism doesn't mean "do anything for money". It means "as much as possible, people get to decide among themselves how to allocate their money and time". Some of them will invest in anything, just as people in non-capitalist countries. Most will only invest in certain things.
But look at how investment in weed, which was once considered "drugs == bad", flourished after legalization, with ETFs and such. Lots of sex work, including porn, is legal afaik. However banks and other civilian gate holders (Apple AppStore, etc) keep stifling investment in it.
> Do you really think the execs at Visa and Mastercard are puritans and not profiteering capitalists that will process payments for NSFW content if they were able to?
Pornhub was blocked by Visa and Mastercard after an op-ed in NYT generated a lot of outrage
Do you really think the execs at Visa and Mastercard are puritans and not profiteering capitalists that will process payments for NSFW content if they were able to?