Honestly I think Visa/MC appreciate being nudged into this situation. Normalization of them as financial gatekeepers gives them a big favor that they can grant to governments by cutting the tap off to orgs/companies/people whenever. Its a direction that is convenient for them and a lot of the heat for the move gets passed on to some Australian non-profit instead of them. Hard for me to square their behavior unless they are quietly quite receptive.

If this were the case, we'd probably see very different policies for every country.

Yet this doesn't seem to be the case. Pornhub doesn't say 'payment for interracial porn is available in all countries except Opressionland'.