Submitted 1 day ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
If 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.
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).
There is a EU-wide payment option.
Cries in American
The banking sector is very competitive in the UK compared to pretty much any other country, so dodgy behaviour from banks/payment processors wasn’t very frequent.
More recently, however, just like the EU, the UK is working on their own system right now. The EU doesn’t have a unified payment processing system either, just a patchwork of different ones.
I lived in the UK and worked in the Finance Industry there, as well as in a couple of other countries in Europe, and the idea that the UK banking sector is “very competitive […] compared to pretty much any other country” or there not being frequent dodgy behaviours from banks/payment processors is hilariously.
Just look at how a physical payment with one’s debit card (which goes directly to the bank account) can trigger oversized “uncovered overdraft fees” rather than just deny the payment if there are not enough funds like in countries like Portugal and The Netherlands: I literally dumped the first bank I had in the UK when I moved there from The Netherlands exactly because they charged me £30 overdraft fees rather on a payment ON A DEBIT CARD because the because my current acound had £5 less than the amount I was trying to pay (plenty of money on the savings account though) rather than it being rejected as I had been told it would happen when I first got that account and enquired about it.
UK banking is riddles with insane fees for every little possible thing imaginable, from presential payments where the account doesn’t have enough funds (where instead of the payment being denied they charge you money instead) to things like getting a paper bank statement and they’re invariably insanelly more that the actual cost for the bank of it.
Even in my homeland of Portugal, where banking is pretty much a cartel where all the big institutions regularly buy politicians from both main parties, banking is nowhere as slimy and abusive as in Britain. I get the impression you never had a bank account anywhere else if you think banking in the UK is “very competitive” and that the frequency of “dodgy behaviours” is low there, because comparativelly with where I lived and banked elsewhere in Europe, retail banking in the UK is a totally disgraceful leech-filled swamp.
As for the rest, Europe doesn’t have a unified payment processing system but pretty much each country in it has one, whilst in the UK there is no such thing at all and instead mainly Visa is used. As for they’re “working on it”, in my personal experience in Britain it means nothing at all because all the cunts in leadership positions in both Government and Finance over there are liars who regularly get away with it: it ain’t happenning until it actually happens.
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
!lewdgames@lemmynsfw.com
!rule34_stories_and_games@lemmynsfw.com
!porny_games@lemmynsfw.com
!adultgames@lemmy.world
!porny_games@lemmy.world
Made 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
I’m pretty sure I saw one, but maybe it was just general anime thirst trapping. There’s a lot of niche abandoned communities.
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!
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.
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.
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 statements thrown back at their faces.
MasterCard is paying their PR well.
theverge.com/…/vice-media-layoffs-bankruptcy-shan…
they havn’t been trustworthy since 2023
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.
Classic streisand effect
This is less Streisand and more… Just continuing to do the same things you lie you didn’t do
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
AmEx & Discover. I don’t know if steam takes them, though.
Steam has always accepted them
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 are better.
Isn’t Stripe one of the growing alternatives?
Stripe bans even more stuff stripe.com/en-de/legal/restricted-businesses , recently they banned payments for online dating platforms in the US.
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.
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
Stuff like this is going to make people mostly pay in case and buy gift cards as needed.
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
Credit cards should be treated as utilities. They shouldn’t be able to restrict my legal purchases.
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% tax
did anyone mentioned that all these bans were all pushed by russel vought.
Fits the definition of the wealthy “moving their will throughout the world”
I remember during world’s a couple of years ago, the stream chat was shouting “TY MASTERCARD” everytime their ads came up
God, imagine tanking a fucking corporation lmao
Bunch of losers
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?
Ah ah ah boost that shit.
I wonder what incentive these companies have to force censorship… hmmmm.
Pretty pathetic that corporations are even as smart as the ferengi.
eru777@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
You can’t control what we jack off to, Mastercard.