
Programming in the Adult Entertainment Industry Is Broken - gf-nl
https://dev.to/jwoertink/programming-in-the-adult-entertainment-industry-is-broken-hgn
======
LarryL
The title of the article is misleading, it's not programming that is the real
issue, it's billing (the progamming issues are just a part in the article).

Since the Credit Card companies & banks create lots of problems as soon as sex
is involved (see FetLife's misadventures in HN previous articles for instance)
in addition to the big chargebacks issue, and given that customers lie a lot
(because they can), I think that the best solution for pornsites would be
something similar to prepaid cards used for Google Play, consoles networks and
the like.

You buy a card, this puts a limited amount on your
"PornPlayButDontSayItIsForThat" account, it's easy to control, anonymous,
limits risks even if the account is compromised or the porn site dodgy (hidden
automatic renevals & the like) since at most you'd lose that limited amount,
then you can buy porn without the issue of the SO (a big problem it seems) and
without any banks (or whatever) knowing about your -still badly perceived-
habits.

In fact, I'm surprised such a system (not specific to a porn site/network) is
not already widely available. Of course, it would not present itself as "the
Porn Prepaid Card" because of the stigma... Note that some sites/networks
accept gift cards already (I've checked), but it's not very practical (not
fine grained, you must use the whole card) and they don't accept ALL cards,
what do you do when you're living in France and they only accept American gift
cards? You can also buy "tokens" in many sites (especially Webcams) but they
still require a CC, so the problem is not solved. A more general "ePurse"
system would be better.

This is much more realistic -IMO- than using Bitcoins or the like (too
difficult to use and too volatile).

Of course, to REALLY solve the problem you'd "only" need people to stop seeing
sex (and porn) as bad, dirty, taboo, etc. But this won't happen anytime soon
:-(((

~~~
greyman
> Of course, to REALLY solve the problem you'd "only" need people to stop
> seeing sex (and porn) as bad, dirty, taboo, etc. But this won't happen
> anytime soon :-(((

It won't, since it is not universally true, that seeing porn is not bad. There
are thousands of personal accounts, or even a whole communities of people, who
are trying to get rid of porn watching due to damage it brought to their
lives.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I'd say that gambling does a lot worse damage and that is much more widespread
and "legitimate" (here in the UK at least). Online gambling sites are even
advertised on primetime TV!

Or for a better example of a perfectly above-board and healthy activity
enjoyed by huge numbers of people that can become addictive and "a problem" \-
how about gaming?

(I'm not trying to belittle your point or resort to "whataboutism" here, just
pointing out some examples from other industries).

The problem with porn is that it's sex and sex is dirty and bad and you should
feel ashamed for having anything to do with it. /s

~~~
bena
Here in the US, on every lottery and gambling advertisement, there is a small
notice or disclaimer for gambling addiction hotlines.

So yeah, like you, I'm not buying the entire "because some people are
addicted" angle either. We are sold addictive substances all the time.

------
oliwarner
_We 're_ what's broken. Our prudish approach to adult entertainment.

"Joe" would have a happier life if he and his wife were open about how much
money they were each spending on porn. They might learn something about each
other. Hiding it in layers of shell billing companies isn't just ridiculous at
the technical level described here, _it 's unhealthy_.

Also needs to be noted that —as others have said— card processing companies
need to get the hell out of the way and just deal with money at a _fair_ risk
level. Adult entertainment _is_ higher risk than a card-present or delivered
transaction, but absolutely no worse than your Netflix subscription.
Considerably less risky than the in-app junk that Adyen happily underwrites
("My toddler bought this without my permission, waaa").

~~~
moneylaundering
Your assertion regarding adult CNP risk is incorrect, they do in fact have
much higher levels of fraud and chargebacks. The card networks came down on
this category because of chargebacks, not because porn is bad.

I would also point out Adult CNP is far from the only category to get this
treatment, but they are one of the only high risk categories that have four
major banks more than happy to take their business. Travel sites, dating
sites, and other high risk CNP merchants don’t have the same benefit.

The techniques described in this article are exactly why issuers block
transactions. Merchants are trying to force transactions that are likely to be
charged back by engaging in increasingly elaborate, and likely illegal,
schemes.

If you’re operating a legitimate adult CNP site, there are plenty of options
available to you and the adult-focused processors will hold your hand through
rejecting sketchy charges even if it means lower up front revenues.

I have seen bad actors open up fake porn sites to obtain processing for their
illegal activities because adult processing for legitimate sites is that
available.

Edit:typos

~~~
stickfigure
This analysis is still missing something essential.

"Adult merchants are more likely to have chargebacks" is akin to saying
"Blacks are more likely to commit violent crimes". In terms of overall
statistics, it's factually true, but there's still something reprehensible
about judging individuals this way.

When I was at kink.com (10 years ago), our chargeback rate was tiny - lower
than most online businesses, and nowhere near yellow flag territory. Yet
despite our long history of good citizenship, we were still lumped into the
high-risk category. Visa rules only allow banks to process a certain
percentage of their volume as "high-risk", so getting merchant accounts which
could handle our payment volume was a major challenge.

We have the tools to judge individuals and businesses by actions, not as
members of arbitrary groups. Sure some businesses may deserve some initial
extra scrutiny, but at some point your history should speak for itself.

~~~
forapurpose
African-Americans and the discrimination against them are not at all
comparable to to pornographers and their problems getting payments processed.
These are entirely different things with very different causes and with
consequences that are orders of magnitude apart.

~~~
asobalife
African American here. The comparison is actually pretty apt. Deliberate,
systemic economic barriers put up against those seeking to do legitimate
business due to blanket group policy (see banks like Wells Fargo who are STILL
doing redlining and race-based credit rationing today) actually encourages
illegal activity for people trying to make a living. And lets not forget the
sex workers who are creating the content sold by porn sites. Law after law
pushed by both conservatives and "progressives" that criminalize even their
responsible activities, make it difficult for them to bank, and making them
even more vulnerable to bad actors.

The consequences are actually more or less the same - sex workers have much
higher rates of mental health issues, victimization to violence, and lower
life expectancy. Pretty much the same types of problems faced by (esp low
income) black Americans. For largely the same structural economic reasons.

------
marikio
There are a few companies/orgs trying to solve these issues:

[https://spankchain.com/](https://spankchain.com/)

[https://www.iliac.io/](https://www.iliac.io/)

But porn doesn't have high margins. No one (except the large distributors like
Mindgeek - Pornhub, Redtube, YouPorn) is making much money. Especially these
small sites that are being built. After you subtract legal, production,
performer fees you're left with almost nothing.

I worked in the Adult Industry for several years, but building tech for the
industry wasn't financially stable for me so I had to leave. Still really
passionate about the sex worker community though. Porn performers/activists
are the kindest, sweetest, most intelligent group of folks I've ever worked
with.

Maybe we can start a small group of engineers who want to discuss working
through some solutions together. My email is hello@marik.io if anyone is
interested.

~~~
rbinv
iliac seems to be your very own venture. A disclaimer would have been nice.

In what form exactly hasn't the industry been "financially stable" for you and
why? As a contractor? As an employee?

------
Miltnoid
Mirror:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180809104802/https://dev.to/jw...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180809104802/https://dev.to/jwoertink/programming-
in-the-adult-entertainment-industry-is-broken-hgn)

~~~
rever
We have to go deeper: [https://archive.is/mP6Ky](https://archive.is/mP6Ky)

------
akanet
This article is extremely alarming. The process the author is calling "cascade
billing" is money laundering. This exact process of disguising the nature of
transactions to get banking institutions to transfer funds is literally what
the feds took down Backpage for recently. I am very familiar with the details
of that case and am surprised to see someone be so cavalier with the details
publicly.

Many adult services providers are burning through hundreds of merchant
accounts, getting them closed/actioned, and repeating as long as they aren't
prosecuted. The moment they have to deal with any criminal prosecution,
however, there are going to be a lot of problems now that the feds have
learned to prosecute this as money laundering.

EDIT: Holy shit, the author cops to being an accomplice to wire fraud in the
comments: [https://i.imgur.com/S5UWBZZ.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/S5UWBZZ.jpg).
He needs to take this post down immediately. This is why programmers need to
learn about the world before they do things to it.

~~~
caruana
They are selling content through different payment services, this is not money
laundering, stop being an alarmist.

"the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money, typically by
means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses"

Illegally obtained money being they key term!

> literally what the feds took down Backpage for recently.

Also, incorrect. Backpage was taken down because they facilitated human
trafficking
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/501214002](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/501214002)

~~~
akanet
Your mistake is in thinking that the money laundering is achieved by, say,
generating a credit card charge for FOO when the item sold was BAR. Not so -
the money laundering is in opening many merchant accounts purporting to be for
selling FOO, generating profit sanitized as "clean," moving those profits
between banks, and essentially deceiving payment processors to generate a
profit.

This was, in fact, one of the actual mechanisms brought to bear against
Backpage. Certainly the indictment was motivated by, you know, underage sex
trafficking, but the enforcement mechanism used to achieve a verdict was
mostly money laundering. You can read the indictment yourself:
[https://www.justice.gov/file/1050276/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1050276/download).
How many counts of trafficking vs money laundering do you see?

And finally, no, they are not "selling different content through other
processors." These processors' entire business model is to create
"legitimate," totally unrelated transactions to the credit card authorities,
to take a cut, and pass back the funds to the merchant. I believe Backpage was
instructing people trying to purchase ad inventory to go to a portal to
purchase dog food for a while.

~~~
caruana
My point is the issue is not as black and white as you are making it out to be
(hence, don't be an alarmist). All things are subject to interpretation and
your position attempts to definitively categorize this activity as fraudulent
behavior based on a 1000 word essay by a developer.

~~~
moneylaundering
I work on money laundering cases. What the poster admitted to doing,
particularly in the comments section, reads like money laundering. I have used
emails more vague than this write-up against defendants in money laundering
cases. The underlying crime would be bank fraud, wire fraud, or mail fraud, or
all three, depending on how a particular merchant account was opened, how
transactions were processed, and who the parties to a contract are (if a
financial institution, then bank fraud, and so on).

~~~
caruana
You created your account 3 hours ago, with a creative name and then
annonymously post you work on money laundering cases ... As if that is
supposed to add credit or show some sort of background. You are anonymous,
don't try and take some high ground to reinforce an invalid argument.

~~~
dang
It's more complex than that. Sometimes people create throwaway accounts so
they can share more information than they'd otherwise be able to, and really
are experts or insiders on a topic. It's not always easy to tell such cases
apart from fabricators or trolls, but it's important to try, and to give
people the benefit of the doubt. I generally go by how substantive the
comments are or seem (admittedly not an infallible test).

------
latchkey
As someone who spent 4 years working for Kink.com (NSFW) building and running
their entire IT infrastructure, this guy brings up some valid points. We had
to build some extremely complicated systems to handle payments, performance,
security, etc. It was a really fun learning experience. We used top of the
line equipment. We got lessons in scaling. Even came up with creative ways to
tell people where I worked... 'Educational video company'.

~~~
robinduckett
Don't need to be ashamed of working for kink.com, or any adult site in that
matter, especially in this day and age.

My fiance was upset at this news, to this day she is sad about it:
[https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jan/25/porn-bdsm-
ki...](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jan/25/porn-bdsm-kink-armory-
closing-san-francisco)

(I'm not really into it, but I fully believe in to each their own!)

~~~
kkop
I wouldn't necessarily hold it against anyone working in porn so much as
working in the porn industry. The porn industry is violently against even
basic things like condom use (and the list continues). Such resistance tends
to mean justifying things with excuses. Since compromising would be to admit
to responsibility. So why should I trust that someone working in such an
environment isn't going to treat private data, important infrastructure or
financial software the same? Random programmers from overall mediocre
environments are quite easy to find whether it is porn or something else.

Edit: It is always funny how when you claim that people are biased and don't
have arguments on Hacker News, they downvote you. People really can't get out
of their heads. My point still stands. Good programmers doesn't have to go
into controversial industries. They don't need excuses to justify how things
"actually really are". The article says that the porn industry is "leading" in
technology. That is bullshit. They might be leading in commercialization of
certain technologies for a brief second, but that is all. How many programming
languages did they invent? Zero.

Don't go into mediocre industry where people accept problems as a feature. All
the people around will be there because they don't care about certain things
and so won't you. You might not like it, that is up to you, but don't come
complaining when you can't find a job after 40 because you haven't developed
the skills companies are looking for at that age. Like identifying, solving
and taking responsibility for larger problems.

~~~
FlipperBucket
> The porn industry is violently against even basic things like condom use

THAT is a matter of profitability, whatever else you may think. SMH I have to
wonder what's wrong with people who think there's some other motives.

~~~
kkop
That is certainly part of it, but it is also about capability. They don't know
how to make it work, maybe especially not in their own heads. The same is true
for developers. Seniority is largely measured in how good you are at
delivering what is fundamentally correct without compromising. While lesser
programmers will convince themselves that it is unnecessary or that their own
solution is good enough.

~~~
stevenicr
Actually, some of the top notch, well funded production companies tried to
make it work. They knew how to make it work.

Was it Wicked(?) (one of the big name, well experienced, well funded
companies) that tried to make all their hired performers wear protection, even
married couples.

They had top notch good looking talent, professional camera people, great
lighting, costumes, everything.

I think they made some money from the HBO type cable channels buying the
'camera does not show the actual penetration' market, but not enough to
continue the condoms only crusade that was attempted, from what I remember.
Maybe there is a crew still making condoms only porn, but I have not see much
of it.

The free market shows what most people are looking for, and from what I can
tell, they aren't choosing the 'all condom' channel, even when it's free on
the free sites.

~~~
enwa
That isn't really making it work. Look at the UFC. Total spectacle when it was
first acquired, now it is one of the largest sports in the US. Largely because
they are ahead of the regulation. People who want to compete by being a
spectacle don't get licenses and access to large arenas. If they would have
known how to make it work there would be a similar situation for payment
processing and free sites as well.

------
saurik
> Speaking of fees... Stripe charges 2.9% + .30 cents per transaction. Some of
> the billers in the porn industry charge up to 30% per transaction. Yup, 30%
> (not cents; percent) PER CHARGE. So if we charge someone $1.00 for a 1 day
> trial, the biller gets 30 cents off the top.

This was a really bad example, as Stripe actually charges more than 30 cents
for a $1 charge ;P. More reasonable companies (including PayPal) give you
better rates for small receipts; PayPal offers 5%+$0.05 as a "micropayment
rate". But yeah: with a better example, this is still clearly a point ;P.

~~~
lowercased
The paypal route made you choose which type of processing the account would
be. "microtransaction" account was indeed the 5% plus 5c, and the 'regular'
was the 2.9%. One account didn't process both ways.

Would be nicer if paypal just ... adjusted your charges. I used paypal in a
situation where some charges would be ~$5, and some would be $50+. The 5% rate
applied to a $60 charge was comparatively crazy. I ended up creating 2 paypal
accounts, and routed $5 charges to the 'micropayment' account, and others to
the regular once. It was against paypal terms of service, technically, but...
was also annoying. I was doing enough transactions that the 2% spread was...
well... I wasn't raking in millions, but the 2-3k I did some months meant a
difference of $50/month or so.

------
PunchTornado
I don't understand why these companies don't have normal names and then nobody
will suspect anything.

Like the video chat company that I worked for was called Telecom. Their
website said nothing about this, all general words about what a good company
they are with happy employees and nothing specific. Put it on my CV with no
issues.

Then they have an affiliate website where everything was happening. All
charges were direct through this Telecom company. If someone asked about the
billing they probably answered something about a phone, extra charges etc.

------
segmondy
As someone in the payment industry, find a processor/payfac that specializes
in this. They handle all that complexity, they will have multiple
processors/banks in the backend to find out who will accept the card. Your
frustration is due to lack of who to use, all the pros use such processors.
It's pretty much transparent, they also have massive fraud systems, and since
they process for tons of sites, if they notice a card doing fraud/multiple
chargebacks across different sites, they put a stop to it quickly.

------
crtasm
Post has been deleted.

> To those of you spreading the "you're admitting to fraud" comments, you're
> the reason we can't have nice things.

I fail to see how this forced you to remove the post.

~~~
smsm42
Maybe because the author expected sincere discussion of the problems they are
facing, and got a storm of crap dumped on their head by people who spent all
of 2 minutes on the issue but already know everything about it and are very
judgmental about it. There is no shortage of those on the internet, and
dealing with them is very annoying. Not everybody can tolerate such
environment.

------
karmakaze
I wasn't sure about the heading and was hoping this was about general content
for adults being broken. I dont think I'm getting smarter faster but the
content is going down fast. That's what's great here expect one thing, learn
another.

------
Rjevski
Seems like cryptocurrencies would be the way to go for this.

~~~
vortico
Yes, definitely. I barely use Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies at all
(because USD works great for everything I do), but cryptocurrencies are
perfect for this industry because they are

\- fast enough. 15 minutes to validate a transaction is sufficient for a porn
site.

\- as certain as wiring money. There's no chance a customer can force money
back from you once paid.

\- anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank statement, so less chance of
"fake-angry" customers trying to force money back.

\- The money goes directly to the content creators. No need for sketchy
middleman services.

The disadvantage is that most people don't know how to use crypto. Therefore,
laymen-friendly online wallets are the solution that basically baby users into
uploading cash, clicking a big "send" button, and copy-pasting a wallet ID. I
have not seen an online wallet simple enough for the average computer to use,
but it's close.

A quick Google search shows a few sites that accept Bitcoin, but they probably
make up less than 0.1% of the market. Why don't major sites use
cryptocurrencies at least as an alternative option? It seems like a quick and
easy 100%-commission payment method to me for the customers that are capable
of it.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
> anonymous. Your wife won't find out in a bank statement, so less chance of
> "fake-angry" customers trying to force money back.

Right, she'll think you're buying drugs instead when she sees the charge for
cryptocurrency.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Or prostitutes?

~~~
sokoloff
Why would you need crypto (rather than cash) for any inherently in-person
exchange?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
A prostitute of sufficient quality and reputation may actually require payment
ahead of time.

------
norswap
Since the article has been censored/retracted now, here's the wayback link:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180809104802/https://dev.to/jw...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180809104802/https://dev.to/jwoertink/programming-
in-the-adult-entertainment-industry-is-broken-hgn)

------
bsder
This is such a shame because the porn industry used to be at the forefront of
technological innovation.

Quite often, the AVN Expo had _better_ actual technical content than CES
(which was held at the same time).

The porn industry was the first to adopt videodiscs, VHS, DVD, handheld
cameras, the web, online payments, etc. Basically, if any new technology was
useful for porn, it was going to catch on.

~~~
istorical
If you look at VR film making, they are still at the forefront. Camera rigs
evolving at lightspeed.

------
pjc50
The big "legit" payment provider is cc-bill.

The "tube" sites are more exploitative than the rest of the industry in that
they don't actually pay the performers, they're simply piracy, and because
small independent producers don't have the political leverage to impose an
equivalent of content-ID on them they stay that way.

~~~
neoform
As someone who works for a large tube site, you're entirely wrong. We pay a
lot of money to people who upload content.

~~~
dragonwriter
People who upload content and content producers have no necessary
relationship. Paying _uploaders_ is not a rebuttal to a charge that tube sites
are dominated by piracy and don't pay content producers.

~~~
neoform
We only pay people we've confirmed are in the videos.

Your comment doesn't just apply to _porn_ tubes but _all_ tubes. Youtube has
tons of pirated content, they take it down when reported, just like us.

~~~
lmm
Youtube has content-id which these other sites have no equivalent to.

------
AngeloAnolin
Update: I found an archived link [2] as I scrolled further below.

I may have missed the boat as this is what can be seen on the original post:

"I've deleted the post because some of you are [insert expletive]. The client
I do work for is not doing anything illegal. There's no money laundering going
on. It's a more legit business than some big-chain stores I shop at."

Anybody care to provide a gist of what was originally posted? Tried cached
version [1] but contents are still the same.

[1
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qqZZR3...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qqZZR3ggRv0J:https://dev.to/jwoertink/programming-
in-the-adult-entertainment-industry-is-broken-hgn+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)
[2] [https://archive.is/mP6Ky](https://archive.is/mP6Ky)

------
vesak
Something like Stellar should have a great market here, and in the legal
cannabis market as well (check out the first commenter on OP's link). Every
new innovation in the websphere starts from porn, so why not cryptocurrencies
as well.

[https://www.stellar.org/](https://www.stellar.org/)

------
philip1209
Some questions:

\- Would ACH solve an issue like this? There are some clean interfaces (e.g.
Plaid), and chargebacks are not trivial.

\- Would 3-D secure solve the chargeback problem? As I understand it, it
shifts liability to the consumer, not the business.

\- Is blockchain being adopted anywhere for micropayments like this?

~~~
kennydude
> Would ACH solve an issue like this?

Still doesn't solve the problem of people with shared accounts and then one
half pays for porn without telling the other. It happens so often UK banks
have ways of looking up subscriptions.

People would reverse the transaction, still enjoy porn and the company goes
out of business.

> Would 3-D secure solve the chargeback problem?

As far as I know, that's a European only thing? It shifts it to the consumer,
but people get very angry on the phone to the bank causing a higher chargeback
rate.

~~~
joecot
3-D Secure is not a european only thing. If someone successfully signs up with
3-D Secure, the onus is on the issuing card's bank, not the merchant, so that
would be ideal.

The problem we ran into was that since the 3-D Secure verification (which is a
page you redirect the surfer to, or an iframe or similar) is handled by the
credit card _issuing bank_ , each page is different, and since no one actually
_uses_ 3-D Secure, when we tried to implement it, it mostly didn't work.

Reducing chargebacks is great, but if you lose 30% of your sales by
redirecting them to broken pages, it defeats the purpose.

------
gonzo41
Two thoughts about all this pop up. You'd think porn companies would charge
with sensible names? And I'm surprised Stripe wouldn't build an off brand
company to handle this part of the market. Seems like it's just giving up on a
lot of money for 'reasons'

Though similar problems exist in business for things like weed companies.
Banks don't want to touch em.

~~~
krapp
>You'd think porn companies would charge with sensible names?

If they're doing legal business, why should they?

~~~
teekert
I think margins are going down and there are plenty of stories of women being
completely stuck in a world they don't want to be in, some of them actually
struggling with mental issues. Sure, some probably like it but I can
understand that companies prefer not to be associated with a world that
seemingly contains a lot of misery. There are plenty of documentaries about
the industry, they don't paint a rosy picture.

~~~
lagadu
> I can understand that companies prefer not to be associated with a world
> that seemingly contains a lot of misery.

They're already in the pharma and health business.

~~~
teekert
I understand the down voting and I also understand your response. But wouldn't
it be nice if there were fair-trade porn sites? Where we know people are
treated an paid well? It's insane that there is so much for free while there
is so much work involved.

~~~
lagadu
I completely agree, I recall running into a couple here and there but the only
one I know from memory that attempts that is kink.com (or so they say).

------
asimpletune
Do developers make more or less working in adult entertainment?

~~~
xutopia
In Montreal I see a lot of junior developers making quite a bit more money
than they would in other companies. I don't know any senior developers in the
field though.

~~~
mgleaker
Montreal unique. MindGeek here for cheap worker. Why pay american so much
higher money and stock when canadien work for 100000 US dollar less and no
stock. Government also pay back much amount of salary. Price for company
finally maybe 40000 US dollar for each year for developer. They do have senior
but many more junior.

------
cartercole
It looks liek this entire article has been deleted after he changed the post
content

