this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
346 points (97.8% liked)

Games

40726 readers
776 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Kind of cuts both ways though, doesn't it? The reverse of this argument is saying that the payment processors must work with Valve no matter what they host. Agree it disagree with them, but don't the payment processors get a say in what they do or do not want to process?

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 28 points 3 days ago

No, they should have zero say because they have weaseled themselves into a position that is the equivalent of a utility or whatever ISP are classified as. Their only involvement is whether they complete transactions between parties in a legal way.

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean, when your service is fundamental enough to the economy, and centralized enough to make just going to an alternative a major hassle, if an alternative without a similar policy even exists, then why should they get that say? The power to effectively ban the sale of certain types of thing, or force media platforms to censor certain types of content, is the sort of power we generally reserve for governments, not private entities that can do whatever they want. Honestly they're important enough these days that they should basically be treated like some sort of public utility in my view.

[–] SleveMcDichael@programming.dev 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Agree it disagree with them, but don’t the payment processors get a say in what they do or do not want to process?

Absolutely not. Power companies don't get a say in what the power they supply their users with is used for, same for water companies and even ISPs. If they really, really want to enforce rules on what they will and will not process payments for, they can accept legal responsibility when they process a payment on a gun someone uses to shoot up a school or what have you. But they cant have it both ways.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

In the US at least, they actually do, in many cases. If you are in a drought region, your water utilities can be shut off if you're wasting it all on watering a lawn or filling a swimming pool, for example. ISPs cut people off all the time for torrenting, sometimes even if it's not pirated content (though it was ruled not long ago that ISPs aren't utilities anyways).

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Power and water are public utilities (as is internet, in some parts of the world but not all). Payment processing is not. If you want to argue that it should be, we'd likely agree.

[–] SleveMcDichael@programming.dev 18 points 2 days ago

They may not be de jure be public utilities but they are de facto public utilities. It is essentially impossible to live in society without them, and outside their collusionist cabal there are no real alternatives.

[–] GalacticHero@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Sure, but there are so few payment processors that even a single one refusing to do business with you can be a real problem for a business. Even Valve, a big and influential company, has little choice but to capitulate to PayPal. Visa and Mastercard have even more power.

There are too many problems with crypto for it to be a viable alternative, but there’s no good way for me to pay a business (when cash isn’t an option) that doesn’t require the involvement of a third party. Limited competition means those third parties have too much power. I don’t know what it is, but there has to be a solution for that.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Lol what? They're being forced to do business with Valve?

Yeah, nah... They could just not process payments for them anymore. Problem solved.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They're saying that is the reverse argument, not the state of things today. As in, the only solution to the above would be to force payment processors to do business with anyone and everyone.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

But that's the entire crux of this situation. They are threatening to do that, and people are upset about that.