FetLife, the sexually-explicit social networking site where users share their kinks with each other, has been reduced to removing hundreds of fetish categories and, potentially, some associated user content because of threats from credit card payment processor(s) that the site's account(s) would be closed due to "Illegal or Immoral" activities.
Of course, cryptocurrencies are the perfect financial tool for people/groups/industries marginalized by society because, like cash, they don't require any third-party's permission for use. We've seen this same scenario played out when credit card payment processors shutoff WikiLeaks and, later, Backpages.com. Bitcoin was the only way either group could receive funds, and it arguably saved their organizations.
Sarah Lewis wrote a fantastic post breaking the news on this story. In the second half of the post, she highlights FetLife's earlier attempts, and failure, to incorporate Bitcoin as a payment method. Coinbase, the USA's largest Bitcoin exchange/bank, refused to do business with FetLife because of the social-network's sexually-explicit nature, and once Bitcoin use had finally been incorporated, it only accounted for 0.1% of their transactions.
Lewis writes, "This was nowhere near enough needed to reduce their dependency on credit card companies."
That's fair enough. People are constantly saying that cryptocurrencies will never reach mass adoption because there is no use case – traditional payment methods are just too reliable, too convenient. FetLife didn’t have a need for Bitcoin…right up until it did.
https://mascherari.press/financial-censorship-when-banks-d…/
https://www.cryptotech.solutions/1-25-17-fetlife-censored-by-payment-processor/
