cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/23396300
show transcript
nickyflowers posts:it would be cool if websites let you be an adult on them. the advertisers and payment processors need everything to be Family Friendly though and their definitions of family and friendly are absolutely fucked. but since they're in charge of the Internet now, no one is allowed to be an adult. tiktokers say things like "unalive" and "seggs" because they know death and sex are too adult for online. online is for idiot babies only now because they're easier to market to
nickyflowers replies:
oh im sorry you're a trans adult? super ban. you are super banned for life. you have upset Visa's feelings. Mastercard is throwing up in the corner. how could you do this to Google Ads?
You were saying they were motivated by advertisers. That these websites can exist if only they chose not to use ads.
But hosting a website of any decent size takes money. So to pay for it you need ads OR payments from your users. Either a subscription or donation.
So if the websites, like you suggest, avoid advertisers to get away from advertiser sensibilities, they're still subject to payment processors. Which have many of the same kind of hang ups.
Patreon has had several crackdowns on content solely because of payment processors getting upset. Patreon doesn't care. The patreon creators are happy and their fans are happy. Everyone involved in the commerce was happy with the business. But PayPal was unhappy and the fans couldn't send money to the people they were supporting without that middle man. So a company almost entirely unrelated gets to dictate what can and can't be hosted on Patreon. And this has happened multiple times on multiple sites.
Primarily right now it happens to NSFW content, but there's zero protections from PayPal and visa doing the same for LGBT content, content critical of China, etc. They're a private company so all our rights and protections don't apply.
Theoretically there's an alternative. You could always make your own banking system and your own Internet (good old 'free market' at work) just so you can pay for your website hosting costs. Since that's technically an option, then they aren't legally interfering. It's just business and they can choose not to do business with you if they want. Just as easy as building your own power grid and water system. (Though even if you did try to make your own, they'd heavily interfere to stop you).
So yes, avoiding ads will free you from their control, but it will also limit you to only the size of website that can be hosted for free. Anything of a size that would need funding is subject to these company's morality rules. Which also makes these communities small, isolated and easily dismantled if they prove to be a problem.