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DISCUSSION: FurAffinity Improvements (Payments)
10 years ago
Good day, my subjects.
A few weeks ago, I made a post discussing ways that I believe FurAffinity can be improved. Today I want to go into more detail around payments.
When FurAffinity started, it originated as an artwork sharing site. It was basically a furry-only DeviantArt (and may have even emerged from the time when DeviantArt had that anti-furry backlash). However, over time, new uses were developed by the community. It ceased to be simply a site for displaying artwork, and artists began to sell their artwork. Then they offered commissions. YCH's. Adoptables. Eggs. Bases. Proprietary species. Streaming services. Classes. Tutorials. The uses of FA have changed, and yet FA has not changed to accommodate these new usecases. Why?
To some degree, I think FA doesn't change much because it doesn't have-to. FurAffinity is by-far the most successful furry website in the world. (So maybe this isn't really a discussion topic for FA, but for all their competitors to come up with new and innovative ways to improve the FA experience and thereby increase their customer base). From the patterns how users use FA's features, we can see there are lots of unmet needs. You see it in the glut of YCHs in your submissions stream, and the number of "Commission Opening" and "CLOSED" journals you get.
Why do you get all of these? Because FA doesn't have an in-model mechanism to deal with them.
Today I want to talk about one in-particular that can be improved and that's PAYMENTS. I've touched on this before in a previous journal but didn't go into much depth. Last time I talked about streamlining the process of artists interacting with their customers. Now I'd like to take it a step further.
Paypal is not really our "pal". If paypal catches users performing transactions about adult furry content, they have been known to lock down, suspend, or otherwise ban furry commissioners and artists from using the service. Additionally, Paypal's fees have been increasing to levels that one might consider onerous. The smart move would be for furries to move away from Paypal. That way we can't get banned for transacting for furry stuff (furry stuff is kind-of the point), and we could use those fees to fund FurAffinity rather than non-furry ads.
The problem is that Paypal is entrenched and nobody really thinks that they can be replaced. But they don't have to be replaced! Paypal has an enormous and efficient security infrastructure, but we wouldn't have to duplicate that for a furry site. We don't need direct withdraws from bank accounts, or embeddable endpoints for external sites. All we need is a credit card reader, and a way to use Paypal for those furs who don't have credit cards.
Naturally, to streamline the process, there should be a way for FA to save credit card data in a very-secure encrypted place and format. This is an area where FA has been lacking in the past. Furries are a prime target for hackers, but there are best practices that make stealing useful data impossible. One just simply has to follow them.
But this is the missing piece. If included with my previous proposals, one can actually build a system that is self-financing, for only a marginal fee (still cheaper than Paypal), and integrate it into the commission process discussed previously. This opens up other possibilities like custom store-fronts for artists where they can sell digital or physical goods. Replace Patreon with a furry-only equivalent. And more!
Soooo much synergy.
Just putting this out there. Feel free to discuss below. (Civilly, of course.) And thanks for reading!
~ Prince Etheras
A few weeks ago, I made a post discussing ways that I believe FurAffinity can be improved. Today I want to go into more detail around payments.
When FurAffinity started, it originated as an artwork sharing site. It was basically a furry-only DeviantArt (and may have even emerged from the time when DeviantArt had that anti-furry backlash). However, over time, new uses were developed by the community. It ceased to be simply a site for displaying artwork, and artists began to sell their artwork. Then they offered commissions. YCH's. Adoptables. Eggs. Bases. Proprietary species. Streaming services. Classes. Tutorials. The uses of FA have changed, and yet FA has not changed to accommodate these new usecases. Why?
To some degree, I think FA doesn't change much because it doesn't have-to. FurAffinity is by-far the most successful furry website in the world. (So maybe this isn't really a discussion topic for FA, but for all their competitors to come up with new and innovative ways to improve the FA experience and thereby increase their customer base). From the patterns how users use FA's features, we can see there are lots of unmet needs. You see it in the glut of YCHs in your submissions stream, and the number of "Commission Opening" and "CLOSED" journals you get.
Why do you get all of these? Because FA doesn't have an in-model mechanism to deal with them.
Today I want to talk about one in-particular that can be improved and that's PAYMENTS. I've touched on this before in a previous journal but didn't go into much depth. Last time I talked about streamlining the process of artists interacting with their customers. Now I'd like to take it a step further.
Paypal is not really our "pal". If paypal catches users performing transactions about adult furry content, they have been known to lock down, suspend, or otherwise ban furry commissioners and artists from using the service. Additionally, Paypal's fees have been increasing to levels that one might consider onerous. The smart move would be for furries to move away from Paypal. That way we can't get banned for transacting for furry stuff (furry stuff is kind-of the point), and we could use those fees to fund FurAffinity rather than non-furry ads.
The problem is that Paypal is entrenched and nobody really thinks that they can be replaced. But they don't have to be replaced! Paypal has an enormous and efficient security infrastructure, but we wouldn't have to duplicate that for a furry site. We don't need direct withdraws from bank accounts, or embeddable endpoints for external sites. All we need is a credit card reader, and a way to use Paypal for those furs who don't have credit cards.
Naturally, to streamline the process, there should be a way for FA to save credit card data in a very-secure encrypted place and format. This is an area where FA has been lacking in the past. Furries are a prime target for hackers, but there are best practices that make stealing useful data impossible. One just simply has to follow them.
But this is the missing piece. If included with my previous proposals, one can actually build a system that is self-financing, for only a marginal fee (still cheaper than Paypal), and integrate it into the commission process discussed previously. This opens up other possibilities like custom store-fronts for artists where they can sell digital or physical goods. Replace Patreon with a furry-only equivalent. And more!
Soooo much synergy.
Just putting this out there. Feel free to discuss below. (Civilly, of course.) And thanks for reading!
~ Prince Etheras
And FA actually does have good uptime. We bash it because its important in our lives, but its still like 99% uptime. Really not that bad.
And to be fair, the website would need a LOT of backend improvements to meet those best practices you mentioned. And to be fair, most of the furs I know are FAR from careful or even fully aware of the risks of on-line transactions....
So... its not hard, but it might be hard for them without hiring additional staff. That being said, I heard Adam Wan is actually a web programmer, and that he's now on staff. If that's true, I mean.. you could bang it out in a weekend, really.
And of course, you have to try and idiot-proof it against people who log on using open wifi, pirated networks, or their virus-riddled PCs......
As for the idiot proofing, I don't think it would need anything more than most banks have. Simple SSL should be sufficient. You can make it stronger by having one time keys with form submits, and other just-in-time encryption, but once your security is stronger than a bank you're probably taking it too seriously.
The key vulnerability in FA isn't man-in-the-middle, its exposed endpoints clientside, and storing cleartext data in their database. I mean... this is Security 101 stuff that they fail on. But its all fixable. These are well-understood problems that have solutions. FA simply needs to take the time to implement them. Really it would probably be better to start over on the backend with professional-grade code (no more cookie cutter). At a certain point, its easier to start anew and be certain, than to patch and maintain lots of legacy stuff that might have hidden holes you're not aware of.
Also that leads to some weirdness where the public might come after them. The public already is freaked out by furries thanks to some investigative journalism and CSI and stuff. Point is... they would probably come down on adult paypal. But I don't think they'd come down on FurAffinity, which is already an established thing.
2.) FA would need to spend 10-20% on processing fees because of its adult content (plus another fee to cash out). This is why DeviantArt doesn't do this.
3.) When did PayPal increase fees to "levels that one might consider onerous"? They are still comparable to normal credit card processing fees.
4.) PayPal prohibits adult content.
5.) PayPal frowns upon being used in conjunction with another payment processor.
6.) You will not be able to create a small time payment facilitator for adult content for less than PayPal's fees. Period.
One problem that keeps surfacing are artists trying to avoid the fees by having funds sent as gifts or family. If you buy a commission, that falls under the goods and services class. Trying to avoid these fees is a sure way of getting your account banned and a $2500 fine assessed against it.
I will say, Paypal's main actions are geared to protect the purchaser. There are a lot of shady sellers that sell either pirated materials, or nothing at all, just claiming they have the item. However, that does make the honest seller vulnerable to the dishonest buyer who tries to get their money back through illegal claims: item was misrepresented, item was never delivered, etc. Unfortunately, the only way I know to fight those is to develop a history of good solid transactions on the service.
some artist have moved onto direct credit card payment processing.
Personally I would love to see a an option to view the art I've Favorited from an artist. An an artist be able to see the art work I've Favorited of theirs. That way when some one posts or commissions. Both parties can have some idea what the other party likes of their art.
The one downside is it would require allowing artists and commissioners to be able to see each other's real names. This wouldn't be a problem for some people, but could be for others. Of course this could be avoided if you had 2 accounts. However you can only have 2 accounts if you have 2 phones as your account is linked to your phone number.
Additionally, in particular areas (and/or contries) it also CAN be very difficult to actually get a credit card :p
Or even an on-site currency which approximately a 1:1 ratio of currency:USD which could be withdrawn to a bank? It'd make tipping, giving gifts etc much easier~
This would allow those people who don't have a credit card to use the currency as well (but they could probably only use it to buy other things on FA). If FA improved its security I'd be happy to give it a go, and a small cut of every transaction could go directly to funding the website.
Disputes/claims would be much easier to handle if there was a board of dedicated volunteers or staff who helped resolve them. Disputing a transaction on Paypal for digital art can be pretty tricky. I would probably be happy to volunteer a few hours of my time each week to helping resolve claims, like "I bought art for 50 currency from X artist and it's been four months, they still haven't delivered!!" But I don't know how the site would work with chargeback things (actually retrieving the money). =/
Maybe a feature where you can only take up to 20 orders before you can't accept any more currency or something, until the customer gets their art and ticks a box or something saying they are satisfied. I really don't know.
But at the least, an in-built way to make furry purchases and sales would be wonderful~