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It took me a while to read through this thread.
At the beginning this seemed to be something just between PayPal (PP) and Smashwords (SW), but it was pointed out that the instigators were the Credit Card Companies (CCC). So the situation looks like this:
CCC------>PP
^..............l
.l...............l
.l..............v
readers<--SW
The Credit Card Companies impose restrictions on PayPal who can't fight it so it has to impose the restrictions on Smashwords who can't fight it so it has to impose the restrictions on the readers urging them to try to communicate with the Credit Card Companies to make them stop. Even if PayPal is replaced by someone else, the problem would still be there.
There was in the beginning of the thread the rhetoric that we've heard before about how it isn't censorship if it's not done by the government. At some point we should either make a word for "action that would be called censorship if it was done by a government", or agree that we can use the word censorship for it.
Then there is the use of the word "to ban". It offends people because they read in it the implication that "banning"="reenacting part of the Spanish Inquisition and/or witch trials". This is usually followed by explaining how the person wants the effect of banning without actually banning anything because banning is bad.
On the other side of the discussion I see two positions: 1) I wouldn't read this but banning it would be bad, and 2) I read this and I don't think that it's offensive; the stuff that is actually offensive being banned by Smashwords already.
Do the people who approve of what PayPal did actually buy books from Smashwords?
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