A couple years ago a bunch of credit card companies suddenly decided they wanted to dictate how people are allowed to spend their money. They issued warnings to game stores to delist all nsfw games or else. The credit card companies have an amazing racket going on and I struggle to believe they suddenly care about some morality over profit. Generally all they care about is that people spend as much money as possible. I also seem to recall them being notably silent on the much larger revenue streams coming from adult videos. So what was their actual purpose in these seemingly random strikes?
Power. That’s what it always comes down to - money is an indirect form of power, so while you can usually “follow the money”, actors will sometimes chase direct power even at the cost of financial gain
Basically, some groups petitioned the credit card processors to block these sales. The credit card operators used this opportunity as a test - can they leverage their position for direct power, or will the state (or widespread public outcry) stop them?
They were risking basically nothing… They didn’t plan this, they took the opportunity created by special interest groups to test the waters
If it worked out, they could have turned it into massive “innovation”… Think of how much data on people’s behaviors is worth, then picture how much they could charge to control spending habits. It would be a whole new avenue for profit
Since they did receive real resistance, they quietly backed off before the issue could be settled. They’ll try something similar again sooner or later, mark my words