Let's be a little careful with how much politics we bleed into this thread, shall we? You are raising valid points, but let's be situationally aware enough that we don't let it devolve into the normal left/right bullshit.
Patreon specializes in very low cost ($1/month) subscriptions, which is expensive from a payment processor point of view. At that price it's very, very expensive to run the transactions through a back end processor, even at scale. That's why they tried to adjust their cuts/fees/etc a few months ago and everyone lost their shit... because you were now paying TicketMaster like handling fees to flip someone a buck online. They've gone back to the old pricing because of the massive pushback from subscribers and creators alike. And at that pricing, I don't think people realize just how thin their margins are. Most of their apparent cut is going to the backend processors. Porn stars generally charge something more for monthly access... even $5/month gets you out of that "expensive zone". That's the main reason why I mention Stripe as a potential replacement, because they are doing a great job of revolutionizing the micro-transaction space as a back end processor.
Sorry for bringing up left/ right politics on this subject. I mentioned it because the platform censorship is very clearly targeted at one side, which suggests an agenda on policing. If I, as a content provider, post a video saying that all men are useless and black transgender women should control the government, I guarantee I won’t be subject to censor. A particularly alarming fact surfaced on Rubin’s recent video. Evidently the platform banning were dictated by MasterCard. If the credit card companies are now acting as a proxy state and can issue edicts about which content is acceptable, that’s fucking terrifying.
Peterson had a good point, and that is: the only reason the credit card companies work is because they're trusted universally. They act as a proxy for cash, and take a set fee for the privilege. If instead of a banal impartiality, they're going to start monitoring (which the conspiracy theorist in me says they've been doing since their inception) and - more importantly - executing a plan to ensure that only "approved" content has access to funds, then there is no other word for that besides outrageous. This would mean that privately held companies have an almost complete lock on all the commerce, art and output of the society. It makes you want to build a cabin in the woods an own a gun.
They are, already, somewhat legislated to do exactly that when it comes to things like money laundering and other FinTrack stuff. While the call came from MasterCard, does anyone know for sure why they made that call? It seems to me that everyone is assuming social justice morality type shit, but I kinda doubt it... MC is in it to make money, period. I would not be surprised at all if there wasn't some sort of private order or legal reason for them to not process those funds... very similar to how cryptocurrency is being handled by the financial industry and government agencies. There is, after all, a "do not fly" list for people who you are not allowed to transact with that is published by various governments, and if you don't follow it, you can be in some serious shit.
This has been true for quite some time. In fact it's probably less of a problem today than at most points in history. The Dutch East India company literally had an armed fleet and could conquer nations. Mining towns would pay their workers in company scrip that only worked at the company store. US Steel controlled 2/3 of the steel market and Standard Oil controlled >90% of the oil market.
And Standard Oil was forcibly restructured and US Steel almost was. I don’t advocate that for the tech companies, but if they ever rise to the level of the VOC then maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
And the British East India Company was heavily damaged by Captain Jack Sparrow during a Caribbean Maelstrom.
I was just going to say that whenever one particular company grew too big they invariably instituted laws preventing it. That also addresses the whole "if you're embezzling money" thing with the credit card companies. If it's a demonstrably illegal action, and there is a court order, then by all means use the data as evidence against the person/company and then have a trial. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than mob rule. Which the internet has kind of become.
If anyone is interested this is a phone call between a youtuber (who I guess is a friend of Sargon's, or a business partner) and the woman who runs Patreon's department of trust and safety (which is basically the moderating department). The video is a reenactment instead of the actual conversation because the youtuber had promised her he wouldn't record it, so instead he had the whole thing transcribed. If you're going to do that you might as well just record it, but whatever - The main takeaways if you don't feel like listening to the whole thing: - She says she has only been at Patreon for a few months. That really surprised me. - She is incredibly evasive throughout. To the point where you wonder if she can even explain her own reasoning for the ban. - Following from that, she keeps bringing up paypal and the credit card companies as if that was the reason behind the ban and then immediately says she doesn't want to talk about that. This happens like 5 times. She never outright says that paypal or whoever forced Patreon's hand, but I guess that's where people are getting this idea from. - At several points it sounds like she knows how badly this could damage the company, and almost sounded like she wanted to reverse the ban and that the real purpose behind the phone call was to get the youtuber to convince Sargon to make some half assed public apology so Patreon would uh, lose less face... I guess? - I actually like that they handle things in a case by case basis and don't use bots or a simplistic codified set of rules. I mean, in principle I think that's good. Beyond that, I have no idea what the fuck they're thinking. The response from apolitical youtubers and so much of the community really is staggering. I find it quite encouraging that they're willing to take the risks to not put up with this shit. Why Patreon is so eager to risk losing all of these creators over a 'bad word' clearly used ironically is a mystery to me. Even more so after listening to the phone call transcript because the woman really didn't come across as a zero tolerance radical nut job.
That right there is the heart of the matter. If something doesn't make sense, it's almost always not true. Either that, or the parameters are not well understood. In this case you have to reverse engineer the situation so that the following makes sense: "Patreon is willing to lose their largest content creators (and therefore their biggest whales), alienate the non-Patreon community and cause a mass exodus of subscribers over a minor issue that is ultimately not true in the context they're trying to present it in." If someone can lay the groundwork so that this statement makes logical sense, then we'll have a very clear idea of what is actually going on.
While I'm not sure how likely it is, I hope the ultimate result of all this is that some of the content creators that aren't just rambling about only one topic eventually supplant the current mainstream media. I agree with Nett that on the business side of things this mostly will just sort itself out, but so much of the media is increasingly controlled by narrow minded thinkers and disingenuous cunt bags I honestly think it's slowly but surely making this country dumber by the day. It would be nice to see them go, or at least get taken down another couple pegs. Some of these content creators get as many views as companies like CNN do in their primetime now. It's kind of funny knowing that and then watching their constant reporting on this situation and parallel situations be so shamelessly full of shit. Gee, it really is odd that people are turning to other outlets instead of you, huh? If some of these guys/gals get more popular than them I wonder if they're still going to keep claiming they're a bunch of racist nazis. That's kind of what makes me want to give the idea that the credit card companies pressured them so much credence. Well that, and all the implications from the phone call. It's such an illogical decision, and I really don't get that frothing from the mouth SJW vibe from the company.
Right, so keep going up. Nett's right - the credit card companies want to make money, full stop. They would 100% launder money for the cartels (and likely do, in roundabout ways) if it wasn't made illegal. So why are the credit card companies (or banks, Paypal, whoever) pushing the smaller guys (Patreon) to censor certain content? What else is going on that makes this move profitable in their eyes? You can't argue public perception; the Sargon of Akaad thing was an obscure quote that someone had to really dig for. No one would have found it and it was too innocuous to blow up on its own. There's something else happening. Trying not to sound woo-woo or too Eddie Bravo here; the fundamental point, though, is that right now the chain of events doesn't make sense, which means there's an unknown.
I'm currently building out cryptocurrency exchanges for international banking... don't fool yourself, profit is not their singlular motivator. That's why I'm thinking there may be some sort of legal thing going on... kind of like a financial "do not fly" list (which we get in the crypto world... "here's a list of known evil bitcoin addresses... if you allow any transactions to be done to/from them, you will be shut down with all the power of the DOJ/SEC and other 3-letter agencies.) When it comes to Patreon, I tend to think that it's just a young, stupid company being run by individuals rather than committees, and they are struggling to make themselves profitable in the startup world. Part of that could be a "because I said so" decree from a CEO or major investor who has strong personal beliefs, and is blind or uncaring towards the repercussions of said decisions. Again, they've done "stupid" things in the past: https://www.thestar.com/business/20...e-after-uproar-from-creators-and-patrons.html Maybe it is as simple as them being stupid again, or it may run deeper to some governmental conspiracy thing... who the fuck knows. I've learned a long time ago though that when it comes to IT startups, it's usually just naive people making stupid, ego-driven calls.
Well, whatever their reasoning here they've been less coy about being pressured by financial institutions in the past.
Twitter’s MAU is in decline and their ad revenue has stagnated in the last four to five years. Patreon has several existing competitors and lives in a space with an inherently low barrier of entry and high susceptibility to partisan alternatives on both sides of the aisle. The respective valuations of these companies are highly sensitive to public perception. Knowing that, they play to the extreme middle. They don’t want to take sides. They want to be as side-less as possible. Controversy is the nemesis of profit and the sworn enemy of an eventual buyout. It’s cheaper and easier to ban firebrands than take a stand. These businesses do not care about speech that is free. Also, hey guys.
Wasn’t the suspicion that they had confused him with Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi? Robert Spencer certainly isn’t that.
I get that censoring speech is bad, but I don't think this is censorship. This looks like the free market at work. It's doesn't seem all that different from a white guy getting punched in the face by a black guy after the white guy screamed how much he hated black people, but used the n-word a bunch of times instead of black people. I can't understand how people can act shocked when they have to deal with the consequences of their words.