Technology

Visa and Mastercard are the reason steam removed a bunch of adult games and itch.io removed all adult games.

Because a payment processor is a moral arbiter for what you spend your money on.

Lots of countries use debit cards.

How is that card even used if it doesn't have a number? Can you use it only physically with payment terminals? I have a debit card and it can be used just like credit card but without the loans part obviously.

I have a credit card, a debit card, and a savings card. But essentially they can all be just used interchangeably and you don't really have to worry about it.

The big difference between a debit card and a credit card is that you don't have to have the money in the account when you make the purchase with a credit card. But you can just think of it as a debit card and just use it like that, and not worry about the short-term zero interest loan options that they offer.

I don't really use the savings card for anything, I in fact don't know where it is, but it's essentially just a debit card with a limited amount of money. They're often used by kids whose parents top them up every now and then. As an adult they're a good way to keep a handle on your accounts and prevent you from accidentally overspending. Although obviously you can just transfer obscene amounts of money into it, so you have to have some self-control or it doesn't work.

Steam will take all of them.

As far as trusting the card companies goes, I don't really trust any of them but I also don't think they're going to sell my data, there would be too much of a scandal if they did that.

I think you’re imagining the difference between them from a technological point of view to be much bigger than it actually is.

I have debit and credit cards, Visa and Mastercard for both. Using them feels identical; one draws from your bank account balance and the other goes towards an invoice sent to you at the end of the month.

When you pay with them, the vendors themselves don’t see any private information about you, other than the card number and the way your name is written on the card. Some of my cards only have my first initial and my last name.

They can, however, track that card number across multiple purchases or with partners to build a profile.

Visa and Mastercard themselves can see a lot more, but that’s a given if you use any kind of banking services anyway.

In terms of where they’re accepted, I’ve used them all over the world and the only time it mattered which type I use, is this one flight where Ryanair was not accepting debit when I was trying to buy water… Somehow you have to borrow money to eat/drink on board, which is just silly.

A debit card in DK is exactly like a credit card in every way except one; you can't get credit, or anything related to credit.

Ok, that sounds almost like what we call a "credit card" here (FR) except they do have the numbers for online use...

that's interesting. Here a debit and credit card are functionally identical (both have numbers etc) and only the source of the money changes

That concerns are also really inconsistent. They don't seem to have a problem with cigarettes and alcohol, and are quite prepared to authorise payments to strip clubs.

But they have a problem with porn games. How does that track?

even if you have a debit card, in much of the world unless it’s a visa/mastercard it’s not going to be accepted in many places online

my debit card (in canada) uses interac. it’s accepted basically everywhere in physical stores, but online it’s pretty much useless if you don’t also have paypal (which is also not accepted everywhere a credit card would be)

Those have fees, though. Back when I didn't have a bank account, it was already over $5 per card, so I assume it's much higher 15 years later.