Wed probably be in a similar place, but the advantage of a private entity being that it can bridge the already existing digital payments, so if a store big enough like steam had the option to, they could integrate with that country’s digital payments directly.
Comment on Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 2 days agowhere do we think we would be at at this point if electronic payments were handled by government entities? Not trying to defend Visa or Mastercard, just genuinely curious what others think.
WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 days ago
We’d be in the same place. It’s not any better or worse for a private versus a public entity to do harm.
Also, the government is already part of this. If the DOJ told Visa, “hey, stop fucking around with that, you don’t need to be trying to control legal agreements between parties, that’s our purview”, they’d drop this behavior in an instant. They are doing this in large part because they believe it is in line with the government’s ideology.
WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
True to some degree if you’re an American, but this is Visa setting internal policy for American politics, and that reflecting globally.
Not every country has the same laws or politics that the US does.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Every company is headquartered somewhere, or has some market that it cannot afford to withdraw from, and that makes them all ultimately subject to said governments. No business decision is made free from pressure when it comes to governments.
WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Again, the issue is this is an American company setting American content policy internationally.
Storefronts and brands can set up local branches and sell through those using the local digital payment provider without getting in trouble with their headquarter’d country. They can’t do that with a private entity that’s decided to set their global content policy to align with America’s.