1. By “big banks,” the writer (who I never heard of) should know the story, and it centers around MasterCard and Pershing Square Capital owner Bill Ackman. The article in Institutional Investor summarized it pretty well, try there. Then we can proceed.

2. I see another comment above about money laundering and organized crime. If you don’t think these groups launder tons of cashish through OF and all the various “chat” services, you’re a fool. I won’t speak to the details, but anyone who claims to be “in the biz” should remember that OC has more or less run the porn business for decades since before most of the degenerates who read this site were born.

3. I actually stopped reading mostly around “lobbyists.” The lolz factor in pretending porn will ever have federal, let alone state lobbyists, is farcical to the point of absurdity. Anybody remember when porn “lobbying” consisted of Bill Margold and Kat Sunlove driving to Sacramentucky once a year to talk to the one or two state legislators who would hear them. And have it explained once again that any acknowledgement of the porn industry would be a political death sentence. And that porn was only legal in California after the Miller case. Porn as a business is still so decentralized and distrustful of its own (rightfully, I’d say) that lobbying would just be a bunch of aging has-beens going to ask Devin Nunes (or his mom) for some love. Who you gonna send? Alana Evans? Stormy Daniels? Maybe you can scare up Sharon Mitchell again.

4. Porn somehow manages to be a resilient business. It adapts and changes to the times. It adapted to Ed Meese and his commission. It adapted to the Betamax. It adapted to the internet. It adapted to the downfall of iBill. It’s kinda-sorta adapting to tube sites and piracy (hear the name Nate Glass any more?). Give it time.

Porn people yearned for life in the “mainstream” for years. Now you have it. As Kobe would say, time to put your big boy pants on.

5.

OnlyFans did successfully shame the banks, long enough for the New York Times and a couple of other old-school media outlets to come in like a knight in shining armor to write positive stories. But, the “deal” that OnlyFans secured in order to make this announcement couldn’t have been much, just enough to undo the previous stories. The rules that MasterCard have already announced haven’t gone anywhere (especially the onerous moderation & “brand damage” provisions), and such regulation is likely to expand to other companies. Note that these rules are very ambiguous: that’s how corporations work; leave enough wiggle room in order to do whatever they want later.

As a case study, look at millionaire Twitch streamers who have been banned by the platform…many of whom were never told why they were banned, because Amazon doesn’t have to–they own the platform. There’s a good saying from the Internet era: “If you don’t own the platform, you don’t own a business.” Now, these streamers are living on saved principal while they vainly grasp at lost ephemeral fame.

Ultimately, the financial industry hasn’t forgotten its exposure, to criminal & civil liability, rather than as moral arbiters, and will likely continue to choke OnlyFans quietly & slowly, one refused charge at a time, as MasterCard has already been doing for almost a year.