The End of Gumroad for NSFW creators

[yes]

https://help.gumroad.com/article/156-gu ... lt-content

Pretty bleak news today. Effective March 16th, all NSFW content will be taken off of gumroad. Comics, animations, artpack, 3D models, you name it. All because certain companies don't allow using your own money to buy such things. This thread is to discuss the news and share possible alternative sites.

This is especially hard for me, as selling stuff on gumroad was one of my future goals as an artist.

[IddlerItaler]

Just heard about this from my partner. It frankly sucks that NSFW artists are losing yet more territory. And to what? To internet mobs claiming "we are the defenders of good morals"? To rich people saying "porn is crass"? Sometimes it feels like those people have an oppression fetish.

[dragonfires]

The internet was a lot better when it wasn't so commercialized, a place for hobbyists and enthusiasts rather than just a place to make money. So I'm happy to see anything that makes commercialization a little harder, even if it's only in a narrow area like this.

[Daichi777]

Was going to post about it here but you beat me to it. Patreon also affected.

We're going to lose a few creators no doubt what with the bullshit you have to put up with from the community already.

If you are a creator and have an alternative platform, you could help others out by giving your experience with it as an alternative. (I have a substar for example but never use it past keeping the account due to the requirements to withdraw from it, but for others who don't use Patreon it's a good replacement I hear).



Gumroad aside from being a NSFW shop, I believe was used by a lot since it was harder for idiots to upload to scraper sites to fuel their 'archive'/'I want everything free slave' mindsets. Which meant you could survive, keep some motivation, and try to keep creating since you'd have basic human rights.

Patreon have updated their ToS earlier this week but it's contradictory when you see the violence part and what's allowed at the bottom. Essentially you can't have 'non-consensual' stuff aka any tiny that looks unhappy with a big foot/mouth above them is a no no. But video games/simulations are a bit different. Aka basically if you're on Patreon, don't make public image posts about those types of content on the site.

https://www.patreon.com/en-GB/policy/gu ... ying-works

Why this is happening:
The reasons for the changes are because of payment processors like PayPal and Stripe not allowing NSFW and threatening to pull services for them. That's why sites like OnlyFans and Substar don't use them and only credit card because Visa/Mastercard apparently still allow the payments. Also why Patreon hides NSFW creators from its search for years.

[yes]

I've read that a few content creators may be moving their digital storefronts to itch.io. As of now I don't know what limitations that may bring so we'll have to do some research on the platform's policies

[Quarters]

I've read that a few content creators may be moving their digital storefronts to itch.io. As of now I don't know what limitations that may bring so we'll have to do some research on the platform's policies

I don't expect that to last, as a lot of adult VN games are being forced off the platform as well...

[V]

I don't see how Gumroad stays afloat after this - I understand they don't want to lose their current payment processor, but payment processors are somewhat moot when no one is buying anything from your site anymore

[Hereforvore]

From the looks of things its unfortunately not really Gumroads fault- to directly quote-

“We have been asked to be more rigorous in enforcing our ToS and must comply,” Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia told TechCrunch. He declined to say which company asked Gumroad to enforce stricter rules. “Obviously, it sucks to do this. We don’t take it lightly that many creators rely on Gumroad for their livelihoods and have communicated that to our partners wherever and whenever we could,” he said. “We’ve been around since 2011, and this isn’t a new fight. It’s ongoing.”

Given that a company like Gumroad makes money from people on it, its very likely that they themselves couldnt care less, but when they get pressure from someone that they depend on they dont have a choice. Definitely blows, it seems every couple years theres another push to somehow make the internet 'family friendly' or 'advertiser friendly'.

[jaggedjagd]

Guess i'll be getting a nasty takedown e-mail from gumroad soon. Oh well, i don't even remember my login for that damn site... spares me the trouble of deactivating my account manually.

[LemonBarb]

Welp, guess that means I will intentionally miss out on the flash sales out of spite.

Screw Gumroad. It went public and therefore, this was inevitable.

All we have now (of the top of my head) is Itch.io and maybe Steam. Which is in short, a monopoly hassle I have a passive doom hammer fear over.

[T145]

Welp, guess that means I will intentionally miss out on the flash sales out of spite.

Screw Gumroad. It went public and therefore, this was inevitable.

All we have now (of the top of my head) is Itch.io and maybe Steam. Which is in short, a monopoly hassle I have a passive doom hammer fear over.

They take money by card, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Credit card processors generally aren't that happy about adult content, and also have the pull to put some serious pressure on sites to make it not happen. Although we don't know that it happened in this case, they've been speculated to be responsible for some anti-NSFW shifts in other places in the past.

Like with Pornhub, and Onlyfans.

[brainstorm]

Friend of mind he said creators of this type stuff going half go underground again probably half advertise on sites like eka what product is just hide what is in payment platforms or such sadly living in age of censorship, fascisim, and insanity, and going just half ride the storm till it's over.

[pervside380]

Oddly enough I can still access my purchases from other artists who recently deleted their stuff off the site

[nonexistenttriangle]

it is fucking horrifying. yet another example of the push by corporations to sanitize the web of every single thing which doesn't look good on a marketing powerpoint. this will fuck over so many artists, sex workers, all that.

[yes]

Oddly enough I can still access my purchases from other artists who recently deleted their stuff off the site

Thankfully anything that you've purchased will still be in your library. So if there's anything still up by now, you can nab it and its yours.

[Filan]

the only thing that would ever help this is a banking law that requires payment processors to be content neutral unless that content violates the law. In the case of payment processors most US ones are likely based in Delaware so it should be unless the content violates US or Delaware law they should be required to process payments.

[GastricAztec]

What about fetish stuff with no sex or nudity? Like shrunken man vore that could be on network TV?

[Nazrax]

Its actually all because of paypal. Paypal has held itself an arbiter of what is right and they weild their tremendous power like a bat against companies. They are scum and nobody should use their services. Gumroad stated they had received threats from paypal that they would stop payment processing if they didnt stop doing nsfw content. More companies need to tell paypal to fuck themselves.

[T145]

Its actually all because of paypal. Paypal has held itself an arbiter of what is right and they weild their tremendous power like a bat against companies. They are scum and nobody should use their services. Gumroad stated they had received threats from paypal that they would stop payment processing if they didnt stop doing nsfw content. More companies need to tell paypal to fuck themselves.

On the other hand, it's not like there are very many open places that could take a similar role to Paypal. At least for the moment, either the company takes payment from processors, or they don't get any money at all, which would be lethal to a company like Gumroad.

What about fetish stuff with no sex or nudity? Like shrunken man vore that could be on network TV?

Presumably, it's anything that would be identifiable as fetish content. If it's sufficiently abstract, like pictures of sand dunes, then it probably wouldn't be enough for them to have problems with.

The policy is probably deliberately vague, so it is harder to skirt around the rules, and they can apply it to things like that if they consider it fetish content, even if it is otherwise innocuous.

In hindsight, considering the push to label LGBT issues as something sexual/a fetish over in parts of the US, that might also be a point of concern. Would works depicting LGBT characters also be considered fetish content, and therefore banned from the platform?

[GastricAztec]

It seems like all of this is converging at the same time…

First deviantart

Now Patreon and Gumroad

What’s next?