In January 2025, Stripe—one of the world’s largest payment processors—terminated services for Manga Planet, an international manga distribution platform. The reason cited: “R18 content.” By October, Manga Planet announced it would close its digital operations entirely by March 2026.
Abstract
When Stripe terminated payment services for Manga Planet in 2025, it exposed a deeper structural issue: the emergence of payment infrastructure as a global mechanism of cultural regulation. What appeared as a business risk decision revealed how digital accessibility now depends on opaque, privately governed systems that operate beyond democratic oversight.
This essay maps that power structure—tracing how financial oligopolies determine what can circulate economically in digital space—and examines its implications for cultural production and distribution. From the Manga Planet case to broader questions of accountability, it argues that digital infrastructures have become de facto regulators of cultural access, enforcing control through technical systems rather than law.
Against this consolidation, physical infrastructures—galleries, bookstores, printed media—retain distributed forms of authority and accountability. Their persistence is not nostalgic but critical: they preserve structural plurality, enabling art to expose and counterbalance the invisible governance of digital economies. In a time when payment systems function as censors, art’s work is to make those systems visible—and to keep alternative infrastructures alive.
What makes this significant isn’t the content controversy. It’s what the case reveals about power structures determining what can circulate digitally in the contemporary world—and who decides.
Manga Planet wasn’t a marginal operation. Backed by Dai Nippon Printing (DNP)—one of Japan’s largest printing and publishing companies—it operated as a legitimate international licensing business, translating Japanese manga for English-speaking subscribers at $6.99 per month. The platform had operated since 2019, expanding its catalog through partnerships including a 2023 integration with futekiya, a Boys’ Love specialized site.
The content in question? Works legally published and sold in Japanese bookstores nationwide. Books you can walk into any major Japanese bookstore and purchase. The violation wasn’t Japanese law—it was payment processor policy.
Japanese visual culture has long engaged with representations that challenge Western categorical boundaries between art and commercial culture, between acceptable and controversial imagery—distinctions explored in depth in our examination of how Japanese visual culture transforms feminine representation. What makes the Manga Planet case particularly significant is that this cultural production, legitimate within its context of creation, became economically inaccessible through infrastructure decisions made in a different jurisdiction.
Japanese media coverage framed this as “クレカ表現規制” (credit card expression regulation)—recognizing payment infrastructure not merely as business service, but as regulatory force. This framing captures something crucial about contemporary power structures: when payment systems concentrate in few hands, their risk management decisions function as regulation. Not government regulation, but regulation nonetheless—determining what can circulate economically, operating without democratic accountability, enforced through infrastructure control rather than legal prohibition.
The telling detail in DNP’s announcement: the company will continue paper-based licensing operations. Physical books can circulate internationally. Digital distribution cannot. Same company, same content, same legal status. The difference isn’t legality—it’s infrastructure. Payment processors can veto digital access instantly. They cannot control physical distribution.
This isn’t a story about one platform’s misfortune. It’s a window into power structures most of us never examine: who has authority to determine economic accessibility in digital space, through what process, and accountable to whom?
Mapping the Invisible Governance of Digital Access
Layer 1: Payment Infrastructure Oligopoly
Global digital payments concentrate in remarkably few hands. Visa processes approximately 50% of global card transactions. Mastercard handles roughly 25%. American Express, Discover, and JCB account for most of the remainder. For payment processing—the technical infrastructure connecting merchants to card networks—the market concentrates further: Stripe, PayPal, and Square dominate, all headquartered in the United States.
This isn’t merely market leadership. It approaches oligopoly, with a crucial characteristic: no effective alternatives exist for businesses requiring international payment processing. Cryptocurrency adoption remains insufficient for mainstream commerce. Direct bank transfers prove impractical for consumer subscriptions across borders. Regional payment systems serve their geographic markets but cannot replace global infrastructure.
The result: near-total market dominance by a handful of companies, all operating under one nation’s legal jurisdiction, all applying that jurisdiction’s risk frameworks globally.
Layer 2: Decision-Making Authority
Who decides what content is economically accessible through digital payment systems?
Not elected officials subject to democratic accountability. Not courts providing judicial review. Not international bodies operating through multilateral frameworks. Payment companies’ internal risk assessment teams—employees of private corporations—make these determinations.
What criteria do they use? Terms of Service, defined unilaterally and modifiable without negotiation. Risk management policies, not publicly disclosed in detail. Legal compliance, interpreted primarily through US jurisdictional frameworks. Reputational concerns, assessed subjectively by corporate decision-makers.
The outcome: private companies with effective monopoly power make unilateral decisions affecting global content circulation, using non-transparent criteria, with no accountability mechanism beyond market forces—which don’t function effectively in oligopoly conditions.
Layer 3: The Decision Process
Manga Planet’s experience reveals how this power operates in practice. In January 2025, the platform received termination notice from Stripe. The stated reason: “R18 content.” No specific violations were cited. No detailed explanation provided. No warning period offered. No appeal process made available. The decision was presented as final.
Consider what this process lacks compared to government censorship, which operates through defined legal frameworks: court challenges aren’t possible. Evidence need not be presented. Appeal mechanisms don’t exist. Democratic oversight doesn’t apply. Constitutional protections prove irrelevant because “private company” status shields decisions from public law constraints that limit government power.
This isn’t to argue payment processors should face identical constraints as governments. It’s to observe that when private infrastructure becomes essential for economic participation, traditional distinctions between public and private power become less meaningful. The effect—content made economically inaccessible—operates similarly regardless of whether the censoring entity is governmental or corporate.
Layer 4: Economic Dependency
Why can’t merchants simply switch to alternative payment processors when terminated?
For international digital commerce, practical alternatives barely exist. Visa and Mastercard networks remain essential for cross-border consumer transactions. Alternative payment systems like Alipay or regional services lack sufficient global reach. Cryptocurrency faces regulatory uncertainty and insufficient adoption. Direct bank transfers cannot support subscription models across borders effectively.
This creates structural dependency. When a major payment processor terminates service, no practical alternative allows business continuation at previous scale. Termination becomes economic death sentence for digital businesses.
The structure isn’t accidental. Network effects favor incumbents. Regulatory barriers make new payment systems extremely difficult to establish. International coordination requirements create massive entry costs. Individual merchants lack leverage to negotiate or contest decisions.
Power Without Accountability
Who Do Payment Processors Answer To?
Payment processors face legal accountability to specific entities: shareholders seeking profit maximization, banking regulators enforcing financial compliance, and card networks whose membership rules they must maintain.
They do not face accountability to: merchants operating under their Terms of Service, content creators whose work becomes economically inaccessible, consumers in other jurisdictions accessing content through their systems, or democratic processes in countries where terminated businesses operate legally.
This creates an accountability vacuum. Power to determine economic accessibility exists. Mechanisms to challenge or review that power’s exercise do not.
The “Private Company” Shield
The standard legal response to complaints about payment processor decisions invokes private property rights: “Payment processors are private companies. They can choose their customers under contract law.”
This response contains legal truth but misses structural reality. The argument assumes alternatives exist—that merchants can simply choose different processors. In practice, oligopoly structure means termination by one major processor often means industry-wide inaccessibility. Payment processors share information through card networks. Merchants terminated for content violations find other processors unwilling to accept them.
When payment systems function as essential infrastructure rather than optional services, “private company” status creates problematic gaps. Public utilities face regulation precisely because market competition cannot adequately constrain essential infrastructure providers. Payment processors face neither effective market competition nor public utility regulation, operating in a curious middle space: essential infrastructure with private company protections.
The extraterritorial dimension compounds this problem. US-based payment companies apply US-jurisdiction risk frameworks globally. Content legal in Japan becomes economically inaccessible worldwide—not through Japanese law, not through international agreement, but through US corporate policy. No mechanism exists for other jurisdictions to contest these determinations. Legal content in Country A becomes economically impossible due to risk calculations in Country B.
No Check, No Balance
Government censorship, whatever its problems, operates within systems designed to constrain power. Constitutional protections limit what governments can prohibit. Judicial review provides challenge mechanisms. Legislative oversight creates political accountability. Democratic processes allow citizens to contest policies.
Payment infrastructure censorship operates through different mechanisms: Terms of Service unilaterally modifiable by companies. No review process beyond company internal appeals. No oversight body with authority to examine decisions. No accountability structure beyond quarterly shareholder meetings.
This represents the structural problem: power without accountability, determination without due process, global reach without democratic legitimacy or international framework.
Why This Structure Persists
Incentive Alignment
Understanding why this structure persists requires examining incentive alignment across the system.
For payment processors, risk-averse strategy makes business sense. Over-restriction costs relatively little—losing one merchant among millions. Under-restriction risks everything: regulatory action, card network termination, reputational damage affecting the entire business. The rational corporate strategy: when in doubt, terminate. Better to lose one merchant than risk systemic problems.
For card networks like Visa and Mastercard, reputational risk aversion dominates decision-making. These companies process hundreds of billions of dollars in transactions annually. Any association with controversial content—even legal content—represents potential brand damage. They pressure processors to adopt conservative content policies. No incentive exists to accommodate edge cases or defend nuanced positions about legal-but-controversial material.
For banking regulators, focus naturally concentrates on clearly illegal content: child exploitation, human trafficking facilitation, fraud. These represent unambiguous enforcement priorities. Legal-but-restricted content receives less attention. Politically, supporting broad restriction proves easier than defending merchants dealing with any form of adult content, regardless of legality. No regulatory pressure exists to create accountability mechanisms for content decisions.
The result: systemic bias toward over-restriction built into incentive structures at every level.
No Organized Counter-Pressure
Why doesn’t the market create alternatives if current systems over-restrict?
Network effects strongly favor incumbent payment systems. Consumers and merchants already using Visa and Mastercard face high switching costs. New payment systems must achieve critical mass simultaneously across consumers, merchants, and international banking relationships—extraordinarily difficult coordination.
Regulatory barriers compound this challenge. Payment systems face complex financial regulations varying by jurisdiction. International payment systems require regulatory approval in multiple countries. Compliance costs alone create massive entry barriers.
Individual merchants lack leverage to pressure for change. Even large merchants represent small fractions of payment processor revenue. Collective action proves difficult—merchants compete with each other and have divergent interests regarding content policies.
The structure thus self-perpetuates without meaningful challenge. Those with incentive to change it lack power. Those with power to change it lack incentive.
Physical Infrastructure as Structural Alternative
Why DNP Continues Paper Licensing
DNP’s strategic decision—ending digital distribution while continuing paper licensing—reflects neither nostalgia nor preference. It reflects structural analysis of power relationships in different distribution systems.
Physical distribution operates under different power structures. Local legal frameworks determine content acceptability. No central payment gatekeeper exists with unilateral veto power. Publishers maintain established banking relationships through traditional financial systems. Multiple transaction pathways exist—wholesale distribution, retail sales, direct orders. Authority distributes geographically rather than concentrating in single jurisdiction.
Digital distribution’s power structure differs fundamentally. Central payment infrastructure becomes required for international commerce. Single points of failure emerge—processor termination ends business. Decision authority concentrates dramatically. No practical alternatives exist. Power concentrates geographically in countries hosting payment infrastructure companies.
Same content, same company, different power structures produce different outcomes. Physical books circulate. Digital access becomes impossible.
What Physical Spaces Preserve
For galleries like aaploit, physical space represents more than exhibition venue. It constitutes infrastructure with different power properties than digital platforms.
Decision authority in physical galleries operates locally. Gallery directors and curators make programming decisions, accountable to local communities and professional networks. Local legal frameworks—democratically enacted, judicially reviewable—determine content acceptability. Direct relationships exist between artists, galleries, and audiences. No intermediary holds veto power over whether work can be shown or sold.
Economic structures differ significantly. Cash transactions require no payment processor approval. Local banking systems operate under local jurisdiction. Direct sales eliminate platform commissions and Terms of Service constraints. Physical possession means no digital revocation or access termination possibility exists.
Accountability relationships operate differently. Galleries remain visible to local communities. They operate under local laws and cultural norms. Decisions can be contested through local mechanisms—community discussion, media coverage, legal challenges if needed. Democratic oversight becomes possible through municipal governance.
This isn’t romanticizing physical space over digital platforms. It’s recognizing that different infrastructures embody different power structures and accountability relationships. Neither is inherently superior for all purposes. Both serve different functions and maintain different possibilities.
As payment infrastructure continues consolidating and decision-making authority continues concentrating, physical infrastructure’s value increases not despite digital platforms but because of dynamics within them. Physical spaces maintain possibilities that increasingly concentrated digital infrastructure cannot.
Making Power Visible: Art’s Critical Function
The Shadow as Structural Critique
When discussing “shadows” and what cannot be seen through digital platforms, this isn’t about hiding problematic content. It’s about making power structures themselves visible.
Contemporary art can reveal several dimensions of these structures. Exhibiting physically work that exists but cannot circulate digitally demonstrates concrete effects of payment infrastructure decisions. Showing where algorithmic and policy boundaries fall makes those boundaries visible as constructed rather than natural. Documenting how decisions get made—or more often, don’t get explained—exposes opacity in determination processes. Visualizing concentration of power through data, maps, or conceptual work makes abstract structures concrete and comprehensible.
Physical exhibition becomes critical practice—not escape from digital space, but demonstration that alternatives exist. Evidence that current power structures aren’t natural or inevitable. Proof that different accountability relationships remain possible.
The Manga Planet case offers material for artistic investigation: What work became inaccessible? Who made that decision? Through what process? Answerable to whom? What alternatives exist? These questions become artistic inquiry revealing infrastructure as ideology, economic structures as power relationships, technical systems as political arrangements.
The Work of Cultural Institutions
Galleries, museums, and alternative spaces function as infrastructure with different properties than digital platforms. They preserve complexity that payment systems flatten into binary allowed/prohibited categories. They maintain cultural context that algorithms cannot capture or evaluate. They demonstrate that centralized infrastructure represents one option among possibilities, not inevitable technical requirement.
Contemporary art institutions increasingly recognize this infrastructural role. Not merely displaying work, but maintaining alternative systems of circulation—systems with different power structures, different accountability mechanisms, different relationships between creators, institutions, and audiences.
For spaces like aaploit, this means exhibitions become more than aesthetic experiences. They demonstrate that art can circulate through systems not dependent on payment processor approval. They create encounters between artists and audiences not mediated by algorithmic content policies. They prove that local legal frameworks and cultural contexts can meaningfully determine accessibility rather than being overridden by distant corporate risk management.
For aaploit, maintaining physical space is not resistance through nostalgia,
but a practice of structural plurality — a form of art institutional critique that keeps multiple infrastructures alive.
This is art’s infrastructural work: keeping alternative circulation systems alive, maintaining spaces where power operates under different rules, demonstrating through practice that current arrangements don’t represent only possibilities.
Conclusion: Structural Clarity, Not Moral Judgment
This analysis doesn’t require condemning Stripe as villain or defending all content affected by payment restrictions. Stripe faces genuine legal risks operating under US banking regulations. Its decisions follow corporate logic. The problem isn’t individual corporate bad faith. It’s structural arrangement producing problematic outcomes regardless of individual intentions.
What requires clarity: who has power to determine economic accessibility in digital space, how that power is exercised, to whom that power is accountable or not accountable, and what alternatives exist or don’t exist.
Current structure concentrates enormous power—determining what can circulate economically in digital space—in remarkably few hands, operating through opaque processes, accountable to no one beyond shareholders and financial regulators, with no practical alternatives for merchants requiring international payment processing.
This structure isn’t natural or inevitable. It results from specific technical choices, business consolidation, regulatory frameworks, and lack of political will to address infrastructure concentration.
Physical infrastructure—galleries, bookstores, direct distribution systems—operates under different power relationships. Not universally better or worse, but different: more distributed authority, more transparent local processes, more democratic accountability mechanisms.
The shadow contemporary art must preserve isn’t shameful or illegal content. It’s complexity that doesn’t reduce to algorithmic categories. Cultural specificity that doesn’t globalize cleanly through single jurisdiction’s risk frameworks. Works requiring contextual judgment rather than categorical rules.
Most importantly: visibility of power structures themselves.
When payment systems function as censors—whether intentionally or as side effect of risk management—art’s critical role becomes making that censorship, and its structures, visible. Showing where boundaries fall. Revealing who draws them. Demonstrating that alternatives exist.
Physical spaces where art appears maintain this possibility. Not nostalgia, not rejection of digital futures, but preservation of infrastructure diversity. Places where different rules apply, different powers operate, different accountabilities function.
As digital infrastructure consolidates and power concentrates, this preservation becomes increasingly urgent. Not everything needs to exist physically. But some things must, to demonstrate that current arrangements don’t exhaust possibilities—to keep alternatives alive, to maintain spaces where power operates differently, to show that structures can be otherwise.
This is why galleries matter. Why physical books matter. Why direct relationships between artists and audiences matter. Not as regression but as resistance to total consolidation. Not as rejection but as insistence on plurality.
The shadow art creates isn’t darkness. It’s relief, depth, dimension—everything that disappears when single light source illuminates uniformly. Physical spaces cast these shadows, preserve these dimensions, maintain this complexity.
When payment infrastructure becomes censorship infrastructure, art’s work is making that visible—and keeping alternative infrastructures alive.
This article examines structural power relationships in digital commerce and content accessibility through the lens of contemporary art and cultural production.