Payment Chokepoints Curb Online Vice

Both items show how platform intermediaries can change payment‑related flows to produce immediate social outcomes: the article documents DoorDash/Uber altering checkout flows and tip timing to suppress tips (average tip fell from $2.17 to $0.76; $550M lost), which is an example of platforms using payment UX as a lever—analogous to the idea that payment rails are a fast governance lever.

Both pieces foreground how market plumbing (payment rails in the payments example) or market structure (consolidated insurers/providers here) are decisive governance levers—i.e., the article argues that leaving markets 'free' without attending to chokepoints or concentrated intermediaries will not produce meaningful competition or consumer relief.

The article documents fraud schemes that exploit payment rails (credit‑card cloning, SIM‑swap authorizations, courier cash pick‑ups) and thus connects to the idea that payments are a high‑leverage regulatory lever; here the evidence is the detective’s account of how thieves convert stolen card data into high‑value purchases and cash flows that move across borders.

Both ideas treat financial‑market plumbing and pricing as high‑leverage public‑policy levers. The article describes a proposed 10% legal cap on consumer APRs (actor: President Trump; evidence: NY Fed $1.23T card debt, average APR ≈20%) and banks’ warning that consumers would be pushed to 'less regulated, more costly alternatives.' That echoes the existing idea’s claim that payments rails can be used to achieve social objectives — here via rate caps rather than payment‑rail blocking — and highlights the shadow‑credit substitution risk the original idea emphasizes.

That idea highlights how payment rails are a powerful lever for governance; this article shows a closely related phenomenon — platform‑bank relationships (Apple Card) concentrate credit issuance and risk on specific banks, so changes in issuing bank behavior (Goldman exiting, JPMorgan taking over) can rapidly alter access, terms, and enforcement tied to a major consumer payment product.

The author describes sanctions, naval embargoes and economic coercion as core instruments in the administration’s toolbox for managing Venezuela without occupation; this parallels the existing idea that payments and economic rails are high‑leverage levers to enforce behaviour across borders.

Both ideas treat financial rails as a high‑leverage regulatory tool: the existing idea shows cutting payment access (e‑wallet links) quickly curbed gambling in the Philippines; the UK plan would similarly use a payments restriction (banning crypto donations) to prevent anonymous or foreign funding of politics. The article names ministers, the Electoral Commission, and Reform UK’s crypto portal (Nigel Farage’s party) as actors implementing or affected by this payments‑as‑governance approach.

Shutting a crypto mixing service functions like cutting a payment rail: law enforcement removed a tool that anonymizes flows, analogous to how payment‑rail restrictions quickly reduced gambling activity in the Philippines—showing payment infrastructure is a high‑leverage governance lever against online crime.

The existing idea emphasizes payment and commercial rails as high‑leverage levers of behavioral change; this article documents China using economic pressure (seafood import bans, tourist discouragement) and market access (cancelling concerts/film releases) to coerce Japan and signal deterrence around Taiwan. That maps the same mechanism — targeting trade and consumer flows to achieve political ends — into an East Asian diplomatic context.

The article details how regulators used banking/payment access as a lever against sectors like payday lending, online gambling, pornography, firearms and others—an earlier, large‑scale case of governing behavior via financial chokepoints rather than direct bans.

Rising public concern that legal sports betting harms society and sports (Pew: 43% and 40%, up sharply since 2022) could increase support for payment‑rail interventions that curb online gambling, aligning with the idea that financial chokepoints are an effective lever on digital vice.

Bangko Sentral ordered e‑wallets to remove betting links, immediately reducing betting volume by about 50%.

The FDIC letters are an instance of using financial‑sector chokepoints to constrain an industry: like the cited example where cutting payment rails reduced gambling, these letters show regulators pressing banks to withdraw services from crypto firms, illustrating payment/ banking access as a fast, high‑leverage governance tool.