Those are valid facts, but this is missing an underlying point: HN’s community is not concerned about this form of discrimination, so each time it crosses the front page, we see lots of threads about deregulation but few about the spectre of ethics raised by these acts. Ethics aren’t typically in-scope for HN unless the party harmed is either a for-profit corporation or a tech worker; since HN doesn’t as a community tend to openly self-identify with the fields of sex work, the ethical issues here are effectively out of scope here. One can imagine a different HN that gave the ethical threats to Others as much airtime as it gives to ethical threats to Self. I remain hopeful.
If only all moral objections had such plausible-deniability ready to promote disregarding them, we’d never have to teach or debate morality and ethical practices in tech at all! Fortunately, the core debate — should payment processors be required to provide service so long as the operator is cooperative with escrow and other such ‘avoid money going out the door fraudulently’ restrictions on high-chargeback enterprises? — remains a ‘brass ring’ desirable outcome of techno-libertarians and so the issue continues be fought about. (Even if it’s only indirectly a morality debate over sex products.)
This isn't responsive to anything I've written. It's not in any sense a moral debate over sex products. It's a practical debate over how expensive it is to underwrite transactions in these markets. The people involved in making those payments work are extending credit.
