But I’ve seen no evidence presented that Rentboy.com has even a single victim. Human trafficking doesn’t seem to be a large concern among gay prostitutes; there’s some evidence that homeless gay youth may be particularly likely to turn to sex for survival, but it’s difficult to understand how shutting down the site would improve their situation. The practical effect of the site and others like it has been to move prostitutes off the street and onto the web and to enable safer, more predictable encounters for prostitutes and customers. And there is zero chance that taking the site down will end gay prostitution.

Then there are the seven people who’ve been charged.

Instead of earning a living facilitating consensual exchanges, they’re taking up time on a court docket. If prosecutors get their way, they’ll be locked up at taxpayer expense. The majority of the public whose lives are unaffected by the gay prostitution scene will be no better off, despite footing the bill; and the small number of people whose lives are touched by the scene will mostly be worse off.

At Reason, Scott Shackelford sympathizes with a hypothetical customer.

“Not all gay men look like they belong in gym ads,” he writes. “While the increased acceptance of homosexuality has made it easier for gay men and women to come out earlier in their lives, we still have untold numbers of older gay men who came out late (or still aren’t comfortable coming out at all) and didn’t move to big gay metropolises like New York City or San Francisco to find love. Gay men (and women!) are still a small part of the population. It is inaccurate—even heartless—to assume that all gay men are able to find a sexual companion through conventional means ... Say you’re a pudgy, lonely 55-year-old in southern Illinois with a fetish for something very kinky. You’re a minority within a minority. What do you do if you can’t find somebody around you who shares your interest?”

Maybe that man looks elsewhere on the web, making the government’s action pointless. Maybe he looks on the street, creating a negative externality that comes with street prostitution. Or maybe the oldest profession endures, as it always will, but at the margins there’s a lonely 55-year-old that makes do with pornography instead. If you want to foot the bill for the prisons, courts, and law-enforcement agencies necessary to bring about that “best-case scenario,” support existing prostitution laws and prosecutors. If not, it’s hard to see much to celebrate in the announcement.