> If you went on Amazon and purchased art+drugs, that would quickly be shut down.
Would it? Amazon has no way to know that it's a payment for drugs, as far as they know it's just art.
The primary reason that doesn't happen much is that Amazon and eBay charge higher fees than simple payment processors and the drug dealers have no reason to pay a premium to have their "art" show up in the Amazon search results to people who don't know that it's really for drugs and therefore aren't going to buy it anyway.
> If they are collecting payments from fans and disbursing it to creators and artists, then I say that they have a responsibility to ensure no illicit activity goes on and people are getting what they paid for.
Why is this their responsibility any more than it's the responsibility of a bus driver to search through all your luggage for drugs, or the responsibility of a hardware store to prevent you from using the duct tape you bought to commit a kidnapping? They're merchants and common carriers, not law enforcement.
> In meatspace, you're going to have a comedy club or a concert venue, an art gallery, you know, someplace that showcases artists and may sell their work, or enable them to work for money.
Do you know how much "money laundering" goes on at "legitimate" art galleries?
> And the opportunities are vast for organized crime and nation-state threat actor sort of activities when you scale that up and go crossing international borders with your service, wouldn't you agree?
Neither of those entities have any use for small time payments systems. Nation states and large criminal organizations have their own value transfer systems:
Every large organization with shady dealings has an internal system that works like that. They don't need "buy me a coffee" services to transfer money, they just put a stack of cash or a sack of gemstones on the same truck as the drugs and guns. So all you get by harassing the retail payment services is harm to innocent people who get shut out for no benefit.
Would it? Amazon has no way to know that it's a payment for drugs, as far as they know it's just art.
The primary reason that doesn't happen much is that Amazon and eBay charge higher fees than simple payment processors and the drug dealers have no reason to pay a premium to have their "art" show up in the Amazon search results to people who don't know that it's really for drugs and therefore aren't going to buy it anyway.
> If they are collecting payments from fans and disbursing it to creators and artists, then I say that they have a responsibility to ensure no illicit activity goes on and people are getting what they paid for.
Why is this their responsibility any more than it's the responsibility of a bus driver to search through all your luggage for drugs, or the responsibility of a hardware store to prevent you from using the duct tape you bought to commit a kidnapping? They're merchants and common carriers, not law enforcement.
> In meatspace, you're going to have a comedy club or a concert venue, an art gallery, you know, someplace that showcases artists and may sell their work, or enable them to work for money.
Do you know how much "money laundering" goes on at "legitimate" art galleries?
> And the opportunities are vast for organized crime and nation-state threat actor sort of activities when you scale that up and go crossing international borders with your service, wouldn't you agree?
Neither of those entities have any use for small time payments systems. Nation states and large criminal organizations have their own value transfer systems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
Every large organization with shady dealings has an internal system that works like that. They don't need "buy me a coffee" services to transfer money, they just put a stack of cash or a sack of gemstones on the same truck as the drugs and guns. So all you get by harassing the retail payment services is harm to innocent people who get shut out for no benefit.