//BLUF: replacing any part of the system is infeasible, you must replace all the parts as orgs like NCOSE will attack any weak link in the chain. it’s easier to accept crypto as that replicates 70% of the systems needed.
I think you are conflating the payment processors (a type of merchant acquirer) and card networks (basically links between merchants, processors, and banks). rightly so, it’s a very complex thing and often gotten wrong or explained in very misleading ways that reuse terminology. here is a nice article that really breaks it down well: https://fin.plaid.com/articles/major-players-in-payment-processing/
Replacing card networks is much harder than replacing a payment processor. You have to convince people to trust the "Nys Credit Card you can only use online and also basically only for adult entertainment" amid attacks from other groups. Also, you have to figure out international payments. On top of that, adult entertainment is a high-risk industry when it comes to payment processing. Fraud, chargebacks, and most problems are orders of magnitude more common. This means some high-risk PPCs like CCBill not only have much higher fees but require generous minimums in your account to cover any issues that arise.
Now, even though those companies (CCBill, gmbill, etc) are willing to take on this risk, they still have to play by the rules of the payment networks. These rules typically require allowing the card network and therefore payment processor full insight into each sale and site content for audit at any time. This is why most adult PPCs are also billing services as then you just integrate all payment and subscription management in one place and Visa occasionally decides that the alien is too animal like and therefore it’s gotta go. A good summary of this is here: https://archive.ph/zXKuD
You’d have to become like Discover or Amex who are both the lender and the network, however you still need to now have people get access to those cards and setup a processor to accept it which means you’re basically running an isolated vertical of financial industry that requires ACH or Wire transfers to get money in and out of.
Suffice to say it gets very complicated immediately and now you have to deal with issues like chargebacks, fraud, and CSAM that made Amex refuse to support any adult entertainment across the board.
The root cause are orgs like “National Center on Sexual Exploitation” (aka Morality in Media/ Operation Yorkville) who aggressively hamper the lives of SWers under the guise of “saving the children” all in an effort to bully companies into not dealing with anything NCOSE deems immoral by making it too much of a hassle. They were behind the PornHub unverified video takedowns, and starting any kind of adult friendly org puts you square in their sights.
I’ve run through the numbers several times with some trusted people and it just isn’t feasible to create a credit union or similar bank-like organization for the purpose, despite the market. Cryptocurrency (unfortunately) is about as effective as any system you are likely to build.
