Adult industry BANS VISA
 

:eek7

Just speculating, hehe :)

But, speaking theoretically, are we as defenseless as to just give head and swallow?

Suppose for a second the vast majority of adult sites stopped to accept VISA. Somebody said porn is about 2% of their volumes, a mere scratch on their balance sheet as it seems. But we're not selling toothbrushes either, so nobody won't give a damn what we're accepting or not. We all know the demand for online porn is there, VISA could say all they want but it's not going anywhere. People NEED us, that's why we're still here despite all the problems.

Now one day Joe Surfer wakes up and realizes he could not access his favorite paysite anymore, just because we don't accept his VISA. There are a couple of links conveniently posted telling terrible stories how VISA is the evil of the world seeking nothing but to get deeper in people's pockets, and how MC is the knight in shining armor saving poor little guy (that's bullshit of course, they're same shit as VISA, but that's not important). What would he do? Go get MC, right. Partially because of the horror stories about VISA, but mainly just because he needs our stuff (and these horror stories would be more for his kins so he could say "look hon what they say about VISA, I think it's time to get our MC").

Result? Plain and simple. Small but proud adult industry gets it's miserable $30 signup, and MC gets the rest of the pie - $300, 3K, 300K, whatever the guy has. So my prediction is that if adult industry will claim war on VISA it will cause "domino effect", and VISA will loose lot more than 2% of the market. 20-30% perhaps. MC as their direct competitors will surely embrace this tendency, start to look more and more favorably at our industry as under normal circumstances they could not even hope to get such a large share of the market from VISA. Sooner or later VISA will HAVE to through the white sponge.

War with VISA will be costly of course... And, yes, I understand, not in this world not on this planet where webmasters would not agree what GFY colors are better. But still... Whatta you guys think? Do we stand a chance warring VISA, or is there some fatal mistake in what I'm saying?

Idea looks tempting, provided that we have at least a small chance for success. Once we tested this weapon we may keep it in the barn to start shooting at however of the big 2 is toubling us.

I believe that one day the net will be filled with porn/political sites. A hybrid of daily news & porn. The large porn site's will be a actual political influence in tomorrows world.

So yes to fuck with the porn industry now, will seal a political groups demise in the future.

And you can bank on that

". Somebody said porn is about 2% of their volumes"

lol

its way less than 1%

get real,they won't even notice it :1orglaugh

Are you trying to tell me a stock holder wouldn't be upset about a 1% loss on a 10million dollar investment?

Nautilus,

Do you also believe in unicorns and leprechauns?

I think the economy in general needs the adult stuff. Sites go out of business alot of people suffer. Hosts, computer hardware and software companies, bandwidth providers, and less people paying taxes.



I think the changes in the somewhat near future will be a heavier emphasis on online checks, new billing methods, and new billing techniques such as no trial membership and a more fair monthly price instead of suckering people into 40 bucks a month.


How bout organizing a few hundred webmasters to protest at visa headquarters.

Then start a mass campaign to boycott visa. Get as much publicity as possible. News travels quick in this day and age.

your assuming that the "1%" loss is 100% profit.
Visa, Mastercard and American Express have made it clear for
several years now that they lose money with fraud from porn
as well as subject themselves to massive legal liability for making
it possible for people to pay for illegal content like child porn.

the bottom line is that visa has less to lose than we do as an industry if they stop processing all together for porn.

A boycott of VISA? Get real. the Adult industry would never get organized enough to do somethnig like that. Just like a boycott against free porn it won't happen, someone is always ready to make an extra buck by undercutting the competition.

People view adult webmasters as greedy assholes, which actually describes most of them. A protest would be laughed at.

When you put it like that... Sure I'd sooner believe in unicorns and leprechauns than in webmasters' organized resistance to VISA :smokin

And yet... My proposal was to discuss if we have more of potential influence than we currently think we have.

I dont think you can get that to happen. What this should teach us is we need a organization. We have no real solidarity and that makes us very very weak. As a group we control enough money that we can be pretty powerful but as little units we are nothing. Now a days we are a society of sheep, you go to a movie pay $7-9 dollars and they show you car commercials. Now if the first time they tired that if the whole theatre walked out you would see no commercials. We accept the way things are too easily. Why do the moral majority get their agenda pushed thru because they are one unit instead of individuals so they have power. If we had an org 20,000 sites strong and we told the big three who ever charges us is out of business. and they know we can make that happen,they would back down or negotiate with us. Then we would have the power. One or two pissed nerds they laugh at. All these big webmasters that say stop crying and pay it , its not the $750 thats the problem its having Visa decide whats sites get to be on the web and who doent get to be. If you are legal and following the law and run your biz honestly, what gives them the right to do this. We do because we are small individuals units.

i'm trying to tell you that except the pornographers, the rest of the world gives a shit, while the majority of the pornographers think they are the most vital part of the society. There are zillion upset stockholders and they'll always be...so what?

We all saw how VISA treats the 3rd part billing co. They already said to us that they can do whatever they want,plain and simple.

Additionaly, the "bad" people of the industry are responsible of the fear the consumer has to use his CC online. We like it or not it's the truth, but since it makes us money we don't mind.

Do you think that "domino effect" is not going to happen? In my opinion that's quite possible. Customers could start jumping the ship for one small reason, and bring the rest of the business with them (spendings, savings, loans etc). It's unlikely we stand a chance warring on our own, but... we may get a bit of help from VISA's competitors (i.e. MC). They may very well decide to backup our crusade to "help" VISA to get rid from some of their customers.

I think you are way low on this percentage. If you consider all the related businesses not just the adult sites. I;m talking about Content, Hosting, models, graphic designers, Isp's, sex toys companies, etc...this list is endless, ther are so many businesses that are indirectly going to be affected, and that make up the % of Visa users.

Surely that's the core of the problem. It's not up to VISA to decide if I'm doing something wrong. If I'm accused I'm ready to face jury or attorney general or whoever the fuck else and defend myself, as long as this is the legal battle.
But I do not care to put my fate if the hands of some bored VISA clerk who just happened to dislike the color scheme I'm using on the tour pages 'cause it reminds him shit...

nautlus,
stop reading fantasy books, I already have the ultimate plan setup and ready to run.

Check this out,


Everybody who is an adult webmaster organize pickets and signs, and every night after a day of webmastering, we each go to restraurants, malls, anyplace where they accept visa.

And when somebody pulls out a visa card and purchases something, you yell "LOOK FOO, DON'T MAKE ME HAVE TO KICK YOUR ASS FOR USING VISA, PUNK ASS"

If all of us do this, I think we can attain the Chinese Checkers effect you are looking for.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE *fist* <-- love that shit :)

Good idea Trey

No I won't :Graucho
Just got the latest of the "Lost Regiment" series from amazon.com, and I'm going to have a night off :)



Are you serious?

Way to go tony404!

I CANNOT believe we are powerless!

Maybe we can not boycot VISA, but surely we can put pressure on the 3 stooges, after all, they are the target of all of this, and we DO MEAN BUSINESS for those 3 stooges!!!

Let's brainstorm how can we put pressure on them!

fuck visa

:glugglug

Hm... Maybe using more than 3 stooges is the way to go? I think we're giving them too much business, artificially eliminating competition while we're interested to keep it as fierce as possible. 3 mammoths grow bigger and bigger and recent events clearly showed they think THEY control us, and not the other way around. Switching processors is not something unheard of here, and still for the most part that's the same good old circle jerk Ibill->CCBill->Epoch. People think they jump ships while in fact they're not going anywhere.

I think we should PURPOSEDELY give more business to lesser guys, even if just to keep the big players in touch with reality.

Unions,action committees,organizations and Solidarity isnt gonna fix this ..good old hard work and bein smarter then the next guy will.Think fast on your feet put your nose to the grindstone,figure out a plan to be one of the last ones standing and enjoy your profits.

It is now official. DrewlKoke approves. :winkwink:

Yes you can make it happen.

Fact:
- People want and need porn on the internet
- People will find a way to get porn
- If VISA is not accepted another means of payment is used
- People want porn annonymous

now the bad part
- Webmasters don't care if another Webmaster survives or makes money.


Thats why it would not work. It would not work because of YOU!!!!! not because VISA is to big or the government is almighty its just YOU!!!

Most of the people here don'T remember the beginning and I can always tell by a post who was in the industry in 95-98 . I remember the times where people did link exchanges and not counting the hits and start crying if he send out a hit more than he received and the list will go on and on. It was an industry with people who wanted to do porn not just make a quick buck. Back then it would have worked but today ......

if we only had unity ....

my friend Mike had a great idea and it would work if we had a big organisation.

Take Card Blache and established CC company but not used at all with about 500000 users for now.

Start buying stock as individuals (not bound by and stock regulations) once you get a majority you throw out their board of directors and the stock will go down and you buy the rest.
Now you start accepting it on adult sites exclusively. 'What you don't have a card get approvement here in 2 minutes' links will be placed on the sites. You will have 2 million customers in a heartbeat. Then you go to Walmarkt and tell them 'Do you want to deny our 2 Million customers?' and you bet Walmarkt would jump on it.
Then you go to K-Mart and say we have 2 million customers and do you want them to buy at Walmarkt?
and so on.
You would make your own adult billing cheaper than everyone due to you owning the card and would be totally independent by other CC processors.
You will make a shitload of money once the stock reacts on the earnings (bear in mind we speak billions of the adult industry).
Sure Card Blanch must be renamed because the name sucks and you invest something into security messures and actually care why the hell someone recharges etc.


I know it would never work but in theory it sure as hell would work.