Relax. Close your eyes. Clear your mind of all distractions. Breathe deeply. In. Out. In. Out.
Now, imagine the future of online billing for the adult webmaster.
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"There will be alternative payment methods in the future. I see great hope for SMS billing. I also see that there will be more alternatives to PayPal. " |
What choices will we have? Will we even have choices? Will there still be IPSPs? Will billing via phone payment become the standard? Will VISA raise their fees? All great questions. All totally unknowable. Just the same, it’s fun to make shit up. So here goes.
I foresee two possible futures. One good. One not so good. Which one should I give you first? Let me consult my crystal ball...
In the future we will be shit out of luck. VISA will put the final kibosh on all processing for sexually based services over the Internet. Don’t worry. They’ll give us a nice plausible reason risk. VISA will tell us that processing for the adult Internet is just too risky. They’ll claim that our industry is fraught with fraud and that since online porn comprises less than five percent of their overall profits, they’re going to cut us loose.
I know what you’re saying. I am psychic after all. You’re saying:
"Less than five percent? But Forbes Magazine says that porn is a multi-billion dollar industry!"
Well, that will teach you to listen to Forbes. The truth is that nobody really knows how much income the porn industry generates. The fact is most folks involved in the dirty dirty sex business don’t go around
declaring how much money they take in. The reality is that regardless of how much money Internet porn makes, that total is merely a fraction of the zillions of dollars that VISA culls from virtually everything
else that is sold in the world. The cold certainty is that VISA doesn’t need us. We need them.
Will people still be able to buy access to paysites and other adult services online? Yes. Will a person with little or no money be able to acquire processing for his/her adult paysite or service? Probably not.
Expect any and all online payment providers to bump their fees up to the stratosphere, just because they can. Expect an onslaught of alternative payment solutions. Expect another onslaught of failed
alternative payment solutions. Expect online payment processing to become a solution only for those with thousands of dollars.
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Here’s fun headline from the best possible future:
"VISA Ordered to Verify Age in accordance with Child Online Protection Act"
Remember COPA? Guess what? It never died. In the future, the US Department of Justice finally wins its case to enforce the law after a third hearing before the US Supreme Court. One stipulation of that law
is that all access to adult content on the web must be protected by age verification. Web surfers will no longer be able to access xxx imagery without proving they are over the age of 18.
In a settlement agreement with the DOJ, VISA agreed to allow their credit card services to verify user age. This settlement is part of VISA’s ongoing negotiations related to a separate Anti-Trust case
against the credit card provider - waged by the Department Of Justice, Discover and American Express. This move by VISA is in direct contrast to their former stance that they were "not in the age verification business".
There will be alternative payment methods in the future. I see great hope for SMS billing. I also see that there will be more alternatives to PayPal. Better yet, I hope that PayPal will also
be forced to stop discriminating against adult online services.
Now wake up. Open your eyes. This is not the future. This is now. At the moment, you still have a chance to take credit card payments over the Internet, as long as you follow the rules set down by VISA and your Internet Payment Service Provider. You can also take payments through Dialer programs, SMS billers and online checks. You can even take monies though adult epayment providers similar to PayPal.
Whatever happens in the future will be a direct result of the actions you take today.