How would a payment processor enforce what content a website provides access to? How would it profit them to get that involved in the details?
When you try to make a corporate entity police anything, they will choose the lowest effort, lowest risk, and lowest cost route that will still make them the greatest profit. The overhead involved in actually examining and assessing the workings of an individual website to determine if its gatekeeping system is satisfactory to their shareholders whims would be quite a lot of effort for very little reward.
It's not like they'd have to try very hard for this site. Go to the front page and it is extremely likely you'll see something pornographic on there. We don't even have the token "Are you 18 or older?" popups you would find on pretty much any other site containing adult content. Those things alone would be enough to convince them that we are a porn site, even though there more to the site than that.
How would a payment processor enforce what content a website provides access to? How would it profit them to get that involved in the details?
99% of payment processors out there depend on Mastercard and Visa, which explicitly ban pornographic content in their ToS because they're scared of law enforcement getting involved when IRL porn sites don't properly vet their content for underage people. Shopify, Stripe, Paypal, etc, all depend on those two networks. Those who don't are lying and using a system of proxy companies to hide their connection so they can't be easily reported.
I just find it hard to actively contribute without uploading. It seems people manage to correct/add instantly to the point where you really have to dig for miniscule mistakes or look overs.
I just find it hard to actively contribute without uploading. It seems people manage to correct/add instantly to the point where you really have to dig for miniscule mistakes or look overs.
If you can't find something to edit, then try going through tagme status:active.
I think I'll also stick to tagging since uploading is a pain in the butt to deal with since you need to rely on approvers taste. Not saying all of them are bad but still. Still wish there was a way to pay for gold and get it over with.
Maybe he doesn't want to bring gold upgrades back on purpose despite it being possible, because Danbooru needs manpower more than it needs money. This way, more people are incentivized to contribute and reach Builder status.
I'm actually inclined to think the same. While Visa/Mastercard have gone on porn-hostile crusades before, I doubt they're that dedicated to such a "cause". If they do go on an anti-porn "crusade" (like in 2022), they generally tend to be in very short bursts that go away as quick as they come. You still see plenty of sites/services selling adult/hentai content (Mangagamer, JAST USA, DLSite/ForBooks, Pixiv/Booth, Steam) and allowing Visa/MC just fine. I find it difficult to believe that these adult companies can easily evade scrutiny by just hiding behind proxy firms to conceal their transactions--If Visa/MC were that dedicated to rooting out porn, they could've just sued the shit out of the "offending" companies on copyright grounds for displaying their credit card logos in their checkout pages.
On the other hand, I don't think Danbooru ever really made Gold accounts their primary source of income; nice to have, but not necessary. Why else would Danbooru manage to live on for over three years without taking in any payments or donations from its userbase?
On the other hand, I don't think Danbooru ever really made Gold accounts their primary source of income; nice to have, but not necessary. Why else would Danbooru manage to live on for over three years without taking in any donations from its userbase?
How could Gold/Platinum purchases not have been Danbooru's primary source of income? What other income do you think they have? The site doesn't run ads, doesn't have a Patreon or other donation source that I'm aware of. Just how did you think they were paying for the site if not with the only known income source they had?
It's survived this long because evazion saved all the excess funds. Account upgrades outpaced the site's costs, but it was how the site was being paid for. I think he might be paying out of pocket at this point, though.
How could Gold/Platinum purchases not have been Danbooru's primary source of income? What other income do you think they have? The site doesn't run ads, doesn't have a Patreon or other donation source that I'm aware of. Just how did you think they were paying for the site if not with the only known income source they had?
It's survived this long because evazion saved all the excess funds. Account upgrades outpaced the site's costs, but it was how the site was being paid for. I think he might be paying out of pocket at this point, though.
You seem to be under the impression that Danbooru needs its own source of revenue to keep it alive. For all we know, evazion could be wealthy and paying for the site's costs out-of-pocket with money made from an outside job/business. The reason why I'm not convinced the gold/platinum user purchases were a primary source of income is because they were one-time purchases; in order for such a business model to succeed, the site would have to continuously get new users--Eventually it would have to change to a subscription-style model, as the addition of new users (and traffic) could overwhelm the site's infrastructure, requiring upgrades whose maintenance costs could dwarf any revenue made from acquiring new users.
You seem to be under the impression that Danbooru needs its own source of revenue to keep it alive. For all we know, evazion could be wealthy and paying for the site's costs out-of-pocket with money made from an outside job/business.
Maybe you should read the last sentence of the quote you're replaying to again.
blindVigil said:
I think he might be paying out of pocket at this point, though.
You seem to be under the impression that Danbooru needs its own source of revenue to keep it alive. For all we know, evazion could be wealthy and paying for the site's costs out-of-pocket with money made from an outside job/business. The reason why I'm not convinced the gold/platinum user purchases were a primary source of income is because they were one-time purchases; in order for such a business model to succeed, the site would have to continuously get new users--Eventually it would have to change to a subscription-style model, as the addition of new users (and traffic) could overwhelm the site's infrastructure, requiring upgrades whose maintenance costs could dwarf any revenue made from acquiring new users.
You're saying a lot of things that sound smart, but it's easy to sound smart when you speak as broadly as possible. None of what you said is applicable here, however, because we know that evazion was keeping the site running for at least the first year after the processor loss using reserve funds, because Gold upgrades earned more than the site cost to run. There are no other public sources of income, like merch or ads, and if Gold upgrades earned more than necessary to run the site, then there's no reason to assume there was some secret income source. Why would someone pay out of pocket for something that's already paying for itself?
"Eventually it would have to change to a subscription-style model" sure, maybe. But that's not relevant, because that's not what happened. The site was doing just fine until processors dropped us. If evazion is paying for the site now, it's because Danbooru isn't making money on its own, and we already know why that is.
They've been taking mine. I just made a Booth purchase the other day, and I made a Pixiv request submission two weeks ago. Did you set your country to Japan in the settings?
blindVigil said: Why would someone pay out of pocket for something that's already paying for itself?
"Eventually it would have to change to a subscription-style model" sure, maybe. But that's not relevant, because that's not what happened. The site was doing just fine until processors dropped us. If evazion is paying for the site now, it's because Danbooru isn't making money on its own, and we already know why that is.
You're making a lot of assumptions. We never see Danbooru's financial figures, so there's no way to reliably tell if Danbooru was ever "paying for itself", even before the payment processor issues became a thing. It's possible he was paying out of pocket since the very beginning.
1292 pages of gold users * 20 users per page * $20 per upgrade gives us about $516,000. this napkin math ignores a bunch of things like sales and taxes of course, but i think it's pretty safe to say that the site did in fact pay for itself, at least for a while, with some considerable leftovers.
1292 pages of gold users * 20 users per page * $20 per upgrade gives us about $516,000. this napkin math ignores a bunch of things like sales and taxes of course, but i think it's pretty safe to say that the site did in fact pay for itself, at least for a while, with some considerable leftovers.
Even if we consider those facts you mentioned (Taxes, sales, etc.) I am completely sure the site made at least $400K, which is still a quite large amount of money. Of course, I am being kind of pessimistic here because I am assuming a $116K loss; however, the idea the site made enough money to keep itself up for these last years is quite insane if you ask me.
...You still see plenty of sites/services selling adult/hentai content (Mangagamer, JAST USA, DLSite/ForBooks, Pixiv/Booth, Steam) and allowing Visa/MC just fine...
Just wanted to note but DLSite had to hide loli works from users without a Japanese IP and even with a VPN you still can't just use your normal card you need to use JCB which is a Japan exclusive card. https://cs.dlsite.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500002888202-What-payment-methods-do-you-accept Steam also blocks loli works from being sold on there and has a much harsher idea on what consists as loli then Danbooru does. If Danbooru wanted to get in payment processor's good graces then pretty much everything in school_uniform is:nsfw would need to be hidden.
You're making a lot of assumptions. We never see Danbooru's financial figures, so there's no way to reliably tell if Danbooru was ever "paying for itself", even before the payment processor issues became a thing. It's possible he was paying out of pocket since the very beginning.
☝️🤓 Technically speaking, even if the site was being paid out-of-pocket back then, it is extremely unlikely evazion was the one paying for it. He's been the site owner for only five and a half years (topic #16472), and Gold has been around for at least a decade before albert transferred ownership.
You're making a lot of assumptions. We never see Danbooru's financial figures, so there's no way to reliably tell if Danbooru was ever "paying for itself", even before the payment processor issues became a thing. It's possible he was paying out of pocket since the very beginning.
No, you're making assumptions. It was confirmed by a veteran user right around the start of this whole situation that evazion was using reserve funds. The only way he could be doing that is if the site was indeed paying for itself and then some. The only assumption I'm making is that evazion, or another admin, stated this on the discord, which explains why a Contributor would be able to make that claim without being corrected by anyone.
Kaleidoscoped said:
1292 pages of gold users * 20 users per page * $20 per upgrade gives us about $516,000. this napkin math ignores a bunch of things like sales and taxes of course, but i think it's pretty safe to say that the site did in fact pay for itself, at least for a while, with some considerable leftovers.
Don't forget Platinum. That's another $20 up until it was delisted as an upgrade option. That's around $115,000, minus a few hundred dollars to account for the recent raffles.
wispydreamer said:
Just wanted to note but DLSite had to hide loli works from users without a Japanese IP and even with a VPN you still can't just use your normal card you need to use JCB which is a Japan exclusive card. https://cs.dlsite.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500002888202-What-payment-methods-do-you-accept Steam also blocks loli works from being sold on there and has a much harsher idea on what consists as loli then Danbooru does. If Danbooru wanted to get in payment processor's good graces then pretty much everything in school_uniform is:nsfw would need to be hidden.
DLSite also changed several of its NSFW tags to silly names to hide them. Pixiv blocks loli/shota from users from certain countries (though this one is easy to circumvent). Fanbox no longer allows the sale of loli/shota. All because of Visa/MC.
Anyone claiming there isn't massive payment processor overreach is either very uninformed or being disingenuous.
DLSite also changed several of its NSFW tags to silly names to hide them. Pixiv blocks loli/shota from users from certain countries (though this one is easy to circumvent). Fanbox no longer allows the sale of loli/shota. All because of Visa/MC.
Anyone claiming there isn't massive payment processor overreach is either very uninformed or being disingenuous.
Melonbooks also straight up stopped supporting Visa/MC for web store payments (though if you use their in-store payment option you can still use those cards, which is weird).
