Nudity is art, pornography is not. And that's what we're talking about.
Last I saw, their TOS said anything that "glorifies or promotes" incest, etc. They don't care whether it's art or porn. There are a lot of different people making very different games that would like to use Patreon. What constitutes art vs porn is sometimes a fine line and differs among cultures. The US legal system has made case by case judgement calls. I would argue that regardless of the style of the sex scenes, games (not necessarily THIS game, but maybe) that consist of 90% dramatic/comedic story telling and only 10% sex scenes don't really count as "porn." Others might argue that it's not about the overall production, but about specific individual images/animations. Personally, I feel that labeling an entire work as porn just because it contains depictions of sex is itself overly judgmental and restrictive of art. Someone who is trying to tell a story about a relationship and chooses not to cut away or fade to black when the sex starts should not automatically be called a pornographer in my opinion.
Yeah, and SubscribeStar doesn't have the most common used payment method. In fact, they only seem to have credit cards, which limits them. That's not a bunch of options, that's exactly one.
My point was that a variety of options exist to choose from, not that one company, like Patreon, should have a bunch of different payment methods. That would just be messy and confusing.
Which of these conspiracies is it?
The two things you've referenced are opposing sides of a conflict, not contradictory concepts. Neither is a conspiracy.
Patreon has SAID that this is not their choice, and that it is something they have to do because of the credit card companies. The idea that the CC companies are doing it for the sake (or appearance) of moralism is not a wild-eyed conspiracy, it's just obvious. Otherwise, they would just be throwing money in a hole for no reason, and ... they're
credit card companies. Making money is their main objective.
The idea that moralists in general fight for laws that conform society to their personal beliefs is regularly in the news regarding a wide variety of topics, from gay rights, to trans rights, to abortion, as well as censorship and more. We all know that people have been subjected to psychological torture by their own families in an effort to "correct their immorality." This is not a conspiracy, it is simply America.
As for the people who would like to change these laws and are already living in secret, I know that that's true, because I've spoken to some of them, and it's been cited in mainstream media articles about ongoing legal cases. For example:
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Except when a parent with an incest fetish is grooming their underage child to set up a sexual relationship the moment they turn legal. That's messed up and, well, illegal.
They've made it obvious in many ways that they don't actually care about protecting children (which is technically a separate issue from incest anyway, but they always conflate them).
I'm not talking about underage people. I'm specifically talking about consenting adults. I agree that grooming children is wrong, but then that's not truly "consenting" anymore. It's manipulation and brainwashing. In these cases, the abuse has already been ongoing for years before the sex even happens.
I don't agree with Patreon's rules myself, but I know there isn't some big conspiracy behind it. They have to follow rules, just like everyone else.
Except they don't. In the same way that artists could choose not to work with Patreon, Patreon could choose not to work with payment companies that tell them how to run their business. As far as I know, none of this is a secret. Patreon has said that these rules are being passed down to them by the CC companies, and the CC companies are claiming they are doing it for the sake of morality. I don't know the exact definition of conspiracy, but I'm pretty sure it's not a conspiracy when you're doing it out in the open.
And since CC companies also process debit payments where no line of credit even exists, in some cases they are literally telling their own customers what they are and are not allowed to spend their own money on. I don't have the choice of going somewhere else. I can only buy things where they are sold, and I can only pay using the methods provided. It's not like I can make online purchases with cash in-person. As I see it, that is a violation of our right to own property. My money is my property. Its whole point of existing is to spend on things. As long as I'm not breaking any laws, I should be allowed to spend it however I want. If I can't spend it, then it's like I don't even own it.
