Why we shouldn’t turn up our noses at pornography

Last week, OnlyFans announced they would boot all porn off of their platform as of October 1, which predictably started an uproar on the Internet. For those not familiar with OnlyFans, it is a platform that allows content creators to sell content directly to their fans and to virtually engage with them. In practical terms, this means that it is mostly a marketplace for homemade porn. However, the site has gained some mainstream usage over the Covid pandemic, including mainstream celebrities (e.g. Cardi B and Tyga), chefs, and yoga instructors.

Payment providers vs Adult Content

After OnlyFans announced they would ban pornography, there were many complaints from the site’s creator community, and it became quickly known that the porn ban was mandated by Visa and Mastercard. Credit card processing has always been a sticky issue for porn sites, who (if they can do credit card processing at all) often resort to sketchy and expensive payment processors. In fact, the porn industry was one of the first industries to adopt cryptocurrency as an alternative to mainstream payments.

OnlyFans was not the first content platform to ban porn. Patreon banned all “Adult Content Creators” in 2018 as a result of pressure from the payments industry, and Tumblr removed all porn in 2018 after Apple removed its…