So why doesn't Visa and MC also allow high-risk transactions, and similarly charge 14.5% (or whatever they need to keep their profit margins where they'd like) for the privilege?
Nearly everyone with a credit or debit card will have one with one of the major payment networks (that just all happen to disallow these sorts of high-risk businesses). No one has the ability to pay with CCBill unless they've run into a high-risk business and have decided that's a (possibly pretty big) hurdle that they're willing to jump. And many people won't want to sign up with CCBill... the end result is that these high-risk businesses are less viable. Maybe they should be less viable, but I don't think unaccountable corporations should be making that decision for us.
Because a) Visa/MC’s core competency isn’t navigating the fraud-ridden waters of high risk transactions and b) Visa/MC are scared of possible legal consequences of engaging with these businesses. It’s just not predicted to be profitable for them.
Visa/MC are relentlessly profit-oriented. If they’re not engaging with entire market sectors it’s because they don’t predict it to be profitable.
I’m a bit confused by your second paragraph. You can still transact with CCBill from MC/Visa. CCBill is like Stripe for high risk orgs.
Nearly everyone with a credit or debit card will have one with one of the major payment networks (that just all happen to disallow these sorts of high-risk businesses). No one has the ability to pay with CCBill unless they've run into a high-risk business and have decided that's a (possibly pretty big) hurdle that they're willing to jump. And many people won't want to sign up with CCBill... the end result is that these high-risk businesses are less viable. Maybe they should be less viable, but I don't think unaccountable corporations should be making that decision for us.