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Re:Patreon lays off 13% of workforce by freeone3000 on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @01:18PM (#22947908)
Any platform that wants to can host all legal content. Nobody's preventing them, as an outside force - people are complaining, but the complaints have no force, other than people don't want to be there. Platforms with explicitly free-speech agendas (see: 4chan, voat, gab.ai, hatreon) have reputations as absolute cesspools of hatred and bigotry, and people who don't want to deal with that choose on their own not to go there.
Re:Patreon lays off 13% of workforce by vorpalhex on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @01:50PM (#22948254)
I'm not saying platforms should be forced to host all legal content. Well moderated communities (HN as an example) have a lot of value.

The issue is that right now those platforms can't really exist. Even if the platforms themselves had an incentive structure to do so, credit card processors would cut them off or heavily punish them in fees and rates.

Let's say you wanted to legally sell NSFW content. Perfectly legal, nothing morally objectionable. Well, you can't host it on several server providers immediately because their TOS/AUP restrict it. Some providers may allow it with significant restrictions.

Once you find a place to host, you still need to accept money. Paypal, Amazon, Google Pay, et al are right out. You can't use Stripe last I checked. You may be able to use Authorize.net or another middleman but you'll have to post a bond and pay a much higher rate. They may still cut you off.

And that's all for perfectly legal non-morally questionable content! That's for porn which 80%+ of the population indulges in.

> Nobody's preventing them, as an outside force

Except practically yes, they are.

Re:Patreon lays off 13% of workforce by freeone3000 on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @02:07PM (#22948436)
You can't have it both ways. If some site can choose not to host some content, then so can some server provider, some DNS provider, some colocation operator, some payment processor, and so on. It's the same deal.

And the above platforms DO exist, people CAN use them, and by God there's no shortage of porn on the internet.

(ccbill for NSFW billing, btw)