Forget Google, Time to End the Payment Processing Duopoly

In the last few years, you’ve likely seen a fair few comments about monopolies in the tech industry, and suggestions for breaking them up. These comments usually revolve around the big FAANG companies (or at least, Google, Amazon and Facebook) and suggest the power they hold is unhealthy for society.

And they’re right. It is unhealthy, and definitely acts as a good reason to break up said companies.

But they’re not the only ones that need it, nor the most important cases. No, there are two others that are far more dangerous to the internet, businesses and society right now.

Namely, the payment processing companies, like Visa and MasterCard. These companies handle billions of credit card transactions a day, and have a level of power the likes of Google can only dream of.

Like almost complete control over what can be sold online. Ever wonder why certain things are difficult to buy via PayPal or other similar systems? Why Patreon ban certain types of creators really easily? Why adult sites find it so tough to process card payments?

Because these guys set the rules, and those rules ban a lot of content that’s either offensive or brings high risk of fraud. It’s why adult sites usually keep switching payment processors, or running ads from less than savoury networks.

So you’ve got a huge part of the monetary system controlled by parties with zero interest in neutrality, and power beyond…