No, that's fine. I understand many people just don't have the funds, and I don't want anyone to be spending beyond what they can afford. But there are some people for whom a $10 a month charge is totally trivial, and I've had multiple convos in the past few days where people go "oh right you have a subscribestar! Totally forgot, happy to contribute!" So it's a balance between not being overly annoying and mentioning/reminding enough that those that ARE in a position to support, and want to, actually end up there.

And thanks, I'll do what I can. A power user tip for FA: deep in the settings, you'll find an option to switch to "legacy" mode or whatever. Not the legacy coloring, but the actual mode. Do so. It will look like something from 2006 (because it is), but IMHO it's way easier on the eyes, and much smoother to navigate.

Indeed.

Yup, it's been brought up. To be clear, this petition has nothing to do with government, it's a petition TO VISA/Mastercard to reverse course which..lol. But it also takes 2 minutes, so may as well. Somewhat more tangibly, H.R.987 - Fair Access to Banking Act and a senate version are in committee as we speak, have been submitted multiple years in a row without going anywhere. By a bunch of republicans actually (they didn't like that VISA wasn't letting them buy legal guns from legal gun stores). Prohibits exactly this:

"(b) Prohibition.—No payment card network, including a subsidiary of a payment card network, may, directly or through any agent, processor, or licensed member of the network, by contract, requirement, condition, penalty, or otherwise, prohibit or inhibit the ability of any person who is in compliance with the law, including section 8 of this Act, to obtain access to services or products of the payment card network because of political or reputational risk considerations."

Unfortunately not a single dem has signed on in the past and it always dies.

Ey Dino. I go over this more in my new post, but yeah, the effect isn't just in the initial loss of income. The whole point of Itch was network effect, and that will alllll go away now. I have an FA, and I suppose I could commission some stuff occasionally and get it up on e6 to get the word out, but it's grim. Best strat for now is that I'm hoping to convince enough people to "pre-buy" the game on Substar to secure development, at least for chapter 3. But it's an enormous blow to momentum: 4k followers here, potentially just gone. Follow over on FA if you aren't already, no telling how long this page will remain up: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/bitshift/.

Always watch over your archives carefully. That said, I didn't pull the game lightly, because I knew this would happen in a few situations at least. Can you check and confirm you can't download it from your library either? Also, I would recommend contacting me over at FurAffinity via the notes (DM) system if it's not too much trouble: less chance you'll get lost in the shuffle and I can toss you a private download easier over there. https://www.furaffinity.net/user/bitshift/

Oh the "feminists" campaigned for that too (scare quotes because if someone is campaigning for women to have LESS rights and freedoms, they're probably not a feminist). That's why half the states in the country now can't show you porn on a website unless you give them an ID (ie, blackmail material).

Yes, as Dan said, there is no escaping this, short of legislation or eventually some form of crypto. I think the average person doesn't understand just how far Visa and Mastercard control EVERYTHING. There IS no "paypal", "Stripe", "Patreon", "Gumroad" (remember them?) etc. Pull off the Scooby doo villain mask, and it's just credit cards again. It's credit cards all the way down. Paypal can technically do a bunch of stuff outside of the CC system for example (which is what made it so successful), but it still has to INTERFACE with CCs. What do you think would happen to Paypal if tomorrow people just...couldn't use their credit cards on it? Uh huh.

1. EVERYTHING ONLINE IS CREDIT CARDS
2. UNLIKE CASH, CC CAN AND WILL KICK YOU OFF THE SYSTEM FOR WHATEVER INFRACTION THEY LIKE.
3. PRESSURE GROUPS (OF ALL SIDES) KNOW THIS, AND FREQUENTLY WEAPONIZE IT.

Things are very bad.

That said, SubscribeStar is still functional, and probably will be for a while because they're....weird. They've got some very odd receivership bank stuff set up. But if it work, it works.

First let's be clear, because this is the modern era and no one has brains: We're talking FIGURATIVELY about an ORGANIZATION. But that's a good question, and one I'm not really equipped to answer. I think it's past time furries formed a lobbying group for this shit. Beyond that, the far right, pushed off of many platforms, has started to form their own, "alt tech." Maybe it's time furries, NSFW creators and net sex worker (like those screwed by the recent Fansly ban) started doing the same. I KNOW there are furry lawyers out there. Might be the time to shine.

You have to figure out who is funding them, find Criminal evidence of wrong doing in some form or other, then black mail them into pulling their funds from Collective shout, and you have to do this to each of the individuals or organizations that are funding Collective shout to the Tune of 510M annually. 

i did sign that tho

On the one hand, Change.org petitions are essentially worthless. On the other, it takes like 2 minutes, may as well. On the third hand, as Corbin said (hey Corbin!) call the payment processors. Supposedly this happened because 1000 people called and bitched to them and said sexy things were VERY SCARY and HURT WOMEN (even though women are some of the most horny, degenerate, holy shit porn lovers (and creators) out there). Probably this is just VISA/Mastercard getting an excuse for censorship they wanted to do anyway. but let's see what happens if 1000 people call them and tell them to stop censoring media. Or 10,000. Or 100,000. I supposedly have 4k followers here, and I'm just one rinky dink game creator. Itch just nuked north of TWENTY THOUSAND NSFW games off the platform. Even one caller per game would be a bit noticeable.
If you do, don't be rude to the customer service rep though. They have as much culpability and control over this situation as me (0%). Try to escalate to someone higher up, be clear about the complaint, and try to frame it in broad, non-cringe terms (censorship of artistic expression in general). Stress that the same group wanted to suppress mainstream games like Beyond Two Souls, and basically anything with attractive women in it, no matter how tame.

It's pretty grim. For now, be sure to follow over on FA if you aren't already: no telling how long this page will be around for.

Appreciate it. It may end up coming down to whether I can get enough new people on board the substar to stop the bleeding.

That's my thinking, yes. But who knows. Will have to see how things shake out.

Yup, saw. They're going to do a "review". No word on how long that'll take, and probably 90% of stuff will end up nuked anyway. But we'll see.

100% harassment/pressure campaign by Collective Shout against payment processors. This needs to end.

it is