Farewell Kagi • Hacker News Board

Re: Farewell Kagi

#21

Post by veidr » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 1:34 PM UTC

As I posted on the other, stillborn, HN thread[1] about this:

I had been selling through these guys continuously for the past 19 years. Back when I set Kagi up to handle sales of my apps for Newton OS (1997), they were one of only a few companies offering that kind of thing, and were a familiar name to anybody who bought shareware back then.

But, for me, well, I guess the Newton OS gravy train[2] is finally over! :-/

It's interesting to me that I set up that store in 1997, and it ran untouched for years after that, generating a decreasing modicum of sales, every year, until today.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12200601 [2]: http://www.fivespeedsoftware.com

Re: Farewell Kagi

#22

Post by Millennium » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 1:53 PM UTC

Millennium wrote: post #5

https://web.archive.org/web/20160801094831/http://www.kagi.c... Site seems to be dead already. This seems awfully fast, given that they only ceased operations yesterday and still have a couple of things left to do, so the site might come back up for a bit. But here's a link to a snapshot just in case.

...and they're back. That was odd.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#23

Post by agbonghama » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 1:53 PM UTC

dcsoft wrote: post #11

I am a current Kagi supplier, and this unexpected closure has me in a bad place. It took a few days to code my system to interface with theirs and to generate licenses automatically for each purchase. I suppose I need to redo all that. I appreciate Kagi for their years of friendly and comprehensive service as well as the next person, but why didn't Kee Nethery support us better during the closure? No migration path t…

Might want to try out fastspring.com

Re: Farewell Kagi

#24

Post by RossBencina » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

dcsoft wrote: post #11

I am a current Kagi supplier, and this unexpected closure has me in a bad place. It took a few days to code my system to interface with theirs and to generate licenses automatically for each purchase. I suppose I need to redo all that. I appreciate Kagi for their years of friendly and comprehensive service as well as the next person, but why didn't Kee Nethery support us better during the closure? No migration path t…

I am a Kagi supplier too. Although I stopped selling with them some time ago, I still have a lot of customer data in their database. I was surprised to hear of the closure and received no notification from them.

I have been using Share-It for over five years. They have a solid system for running licence generators and although it's not the most modern, I can recommend them as an equivalent service to Kagi. If you sell in the EU you'll want to check the fine print on their VAT policies.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#25

Post by RossBencina » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

jameskegel wrote: post #15

dcsoft wrote: post #11

I am a current Kagi supplier, and this unexpected closure has me in a bad place. It took a few days to code my system to interface with theirs and to generate licenses automatically for each purchase. I suppose I need to redo all that. I appreciate Kagi for their years of friendly and comprehensive service as well as the next person, but why didn't Kee Nethery support us better during the closure? No migration path t…

Full disclosure: I'm a payment processor. Your best bet is Stripe in most cases. They have a robust API, and a simple payment scheme as far as handling interchange and fee structures. However, it makes sense to find someone like myself (a dev payment processor) when you fill two critera: 1) an average transaction size of $25 or greater, 2) a monthly transaction volume of over $5,000. Until both of those criteria are…

imho the main service of Kagi (and similar services) was not payment processing, but robust and secure licence key fulfillment.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#26

Post by aytekin » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

stevoski wrote: post #14

dcsoft wrote: post #11

I am a current Kagi supplier, and this unexpected closure has me in a bad place. It took a few days to code my system to interface with theirs and to generate licenses automatically for each purchase. I suppose I need to redo all that. I appreciate Kagi for their years of friendly and comprehensive service as well as the next person, but why didn't Kee Nethery support us better during the closure? No migration path t…

If you don't mind do a bit of coding: * Stripe * PayPal. (You want the "Express Checkout" workflow) (Hint: for increased sales offer both. Stripe is a developer's dream; adding PayPal adds perhaps 30% more sales, although YMMV) If you want someone else to take care of all the details in return for higher commission: * FastSpring (full service, heavyweight) * Paddle (streamlined, focused towards Mac and towards digita…

No higher commission & no coding option:

* JotForm (+Stripe or +PayPal)

Re: Farewell Kagi

#27

Post by gkanai » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

jameskegel wrote: post #16

arikfr wrote: post #7

I wonder if they could sell their domain name to cover some of their debt... 4 letter .com domains are hard to come by.

Suppose I had a four-letter domain I'm not using; what avenues are available for selling it, aside from Sedo?

You would need to find a domain broker you trusted to sell it for you.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#28

Post by gkanai » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

The domain could be quite valuable not only because of the 4-letter length but also because it's an old domain with lots of links all over the 1.0 web.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#29

Post by funkaster » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

This is very sad... When I was 16 ('97), I sold my first Mac shareware tools and games through them. I still remember my dad asking me why someone was sending me checks in US dollars (I'm from Chile). His face got only weirder when I told him: "internet stuff, dad... I'm selling stuff through internet".

Re: Farewell Kagi

#30

Post by SyneRyder » Mon, Aug 01, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

erikb wrote: post #12

What did they do? Never heard of them. Edit: Ah, they were like an old-school Amazon? webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GSePr0KJAvoJ:krm.kagi.com/about/ Edit: Why is this post downvoted? There is nothing discriminating here, not even an opinion. Just someone asking what Kagi is. Instead of downvoting you should simply answer the question.

For perspective, Kagi was around before Paypal. They let the little guy sell online, in an era when e-commerce meant in-person appointments with your local bank manager to seek approval for a merchant account. (And then you'd have to discuss how your system would actually interface with the bank.)

You're probably being downvoted for the "Never heard of them", which may sound dismissive of the company.