[sdrinf]

This absolutely works... until, and when network effects kick in.

Payment processors have major network effects in that infra setup is expensive, banks need to be onboarded one-by-one, and whichever network has the most consumers, businesses will gravitate towards it. Iterate this over 20 years, and this always results in natural monopolies / duopolies. This creates a natural chokepoint/linchpin over which millions of people's mutually exclusive needs are getting banged at; including consumers at large, govs at large, and special-interest groups at large.

Absent crystal clear legislation -and porn is anything, but- this will always be arbitrary, and leave one side in the dust.

[infecto]

I suspect if there was clear rules for the government this would be cut and dry. The fact of the matter is it’s not and that’s why companies like Visa may restrict certain things. There is chargeback risk, risk from the underwriting bank, risk from a state government and risk from the federal government. This is not some free speech problem but rather an issue where a company is having to balance issues from many different parties and weigh the risk.

[const_cast]

Great, then what we should do is just nationalize these companies like we should've done 30 years ago. Now it is a free speech problem, and we can solve it.

We'll all probably save a little bit of money too when we don't have to forfeit a portion of every transaction ever to someone's profit margins.