Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

numair.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 84 posts

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#71

Post by URSpider94 »

loceng wrote: post #55
astuyvenberg wrote: post #3

This is true of basically all platforms, including every major cloud provider. AWS's playbook can be described as: 1. Provide low level infra 2. Observe what customers build on it 3. Create a general solution and charge a premium for it 4. Repeat, moving higher up the stack. Not to mention Amazon.com's "Basics" playbook of finding what sells, then knocking it off, releasing their own version (and ranking it higher fo…

The issue there needs to be a mechanism, say an added/increased tax, to extract more value from the companies covering more services or industries due to the economies of scale and other advantages - and then that money funneled into smaller, new(er) entrants so there are competitors that can exist as a fallback/failsafe.

Im not sure I follow. You’re suggesting that the government should somehow get involved to levy taxes on companies based on subjective criteria, like how big they are, and then … fund startups to compete with them?

We already have a Small Business Administration that gives loans to small businesses, including start-ups. There’s also an extremely vibrant venture funding industry out there just waiting to write checks.

Additionally, it would be hard to argue that Stripe has anything like a payment processing monopoly. If you don’t like their products, use one of the myriad other companies offering payment processing solutions.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#72

Post by loceng »

URSpider94 wrote: post #71
loceng wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue there needs to be a mechanism, say an added/increased tax, to extract more value from the companies covering more services or industries due to the economies of scale and other advantages - and then that money funneled into smaller, new(er) entrants so there are competitors that can exist as a fallback/failsafe.

Im not sure I follow. You’re suggesting that the government should somehow get involved to levy taxes on companies based on subjective criteria, like how big they are, and then … fund startups to compete with them? We already have a Small Business Administration that gives loans to small businesses, including start-ups. There’s also an extremely vibrant venture funding industry out there just waiting to write checks.…

It's more complex than this but yes, allow smaller competitors to exist long enough to compete by offering similar enough products as a large, evolved ecosystem/platform provides, as to eventually have competition in place to keep fees/how much they extract from society in check.

I didn't argue Stripe has a monopoly but even ogilopolies once mature enough are problematic.

Also of you're trying to argue VCs make investments in companies that ultimately make good decisions for society vs. self-interested - then I disagree.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#73

Post by GauntletWizard »

jessaustin wrote: post #68
Zababa wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mice in or around my house has no relation to "the bane of humanity since the dawn of agriculture", I live pretty far from any farm, and the most they ate from me is crumbs on the floor. Wanting to kill them is fine, and I understand totally. Letting your cat kill them if he catches them before you, totally fine for me too. He hunted her, it's his prey, why not? On the other hand, giving mice that you caught to your…

I give all mice to the cats, whether dead or alive. Supervising a cat's treatment of a mouse is not something I will ever spend a second of my life doing. Enjoying how demented and evil cats naturally are, I have spent so far, in total, at least twenty minutes over 45 years doing. I'm glad that cats are on our team.

Enjoyment of the torture of small mammals is literally the textbook definition of psychopathy. I don't care that my cat plays with it's food, but it is grim reality that I try to avoid thinking about, like where my burger comes from.

I keep chickens, and I hate the bastards - They're an incredible pain in my ass. I have never slaughtered one for supper, but I know I could do so. Again, though, I would handle it with grim reality.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#74

Post by Zababa »

jessaustin wrote: post #68
Zababa wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mice in or around my house has no relation to "the bane of humanity since the dawn of agriculture", I live pretty far from any farm, and the most they ate from me is crumbs on the floor. Wanting to kill them is fine, and I understand totally. Letting your cat kill them if he catches them before you, totally fine for me too. He hunted her, it's his prey, why not? On the other hand, giving mice that you caught to your…

I give all mice to the cats, whether dead or alive. Supervising a cat's treatment of a mouse is not something I will ever spend a second of my life doing. Enjoying how demented and evil cats naturally are, I have spent so far, in total, at least twenty minutes over 45 years doing. I'm glad that cats are on our team.

I'll admit that it feels a bit alien to me, but I don't know anything about you so it's not my place to judge. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#75

Post by andrewmcwatters »

I just feel like Stripe is inherently limited because of who they work with. They're not the top of the totem pole. So it means that they can't screw you over, otherwise some investor is going to wise up, take a small amount of capital and work directly with the processors. I imagine you could bootstrap a Stripe alternative with just under $1,000,000-5,000,000.

I mean what's stopping people from signing up directly with Chase Paymentech or Wells Fargo Merchant Services and just creating their own Stripe? Or if you wanted to, talking directly with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

There's an absolute floor to these solutions, and it's clearly 2.9% + 25-30c. You cannot grow beyond this. You have to do more.

If you're interested in doing this, I'll help you build the team.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#76

Post by ldng »

edwinwee wrote: post #32

Edwin from Stripe here. At first, I think I agree with the title (the article itself, not so much). Stripe isn't really a platform. It's a platform of platforms. The three products linked to in the article, Invoicing, Payment Links, and Capital, were three of the most requested features from our users. So we built them. And platforms use all of them to provide these services to their users. Invoicing's smart dunning…

Stripe WAS "just means payments processing" and changed course to "increase the GDP of the internet". That is exactly the point of the article.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#77

Post by hrishi »

dalbasal wrote: post #31

There was a point in time, maybe circa 2008, where platforms were expected to be a thing. The web was/is a platform. Operating systems were a platform, and MSFT even got rich. Platforms had the power to support an ecosystem so rich their inventors' could never have imagined it. Facebook and Twitter genuinely had plans to be platforms, remember? Paul Graham even called it a new core protocol, and YC recruited startups…

Agreed, with perhaps the exception of Apple. They've remained a platform, with a healthy amount of apps they own and operate outright, and sweeping control of their ecosystem elsewhere.

Maybe not forever it looks like though.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#78

Post by meowface »

jessaustin wrote: post #58
Zababa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this very weird too. If the cat found the mouse by itself, sure, there's not much you can do about it. But giving the mouse to him and watching him torture it for a day? That's honestly very weird and cruel.

Have you really never done this? This is the main reason to own cats.

Did you read the whole article? They already had trapped the mouse and then deliberately led the cat to slowly torture the mouse to death.

It's one thing if the cat finds the mouse, but to go out of one's way to trap an animal yourself and then present the helpless trapped animal to another animal so they can be tortured for hours is extremely sadistic and psychopathic, in my opinion.

Re: Stripe isn’t a platform, it’s a mouse

#79

Post by [deleted] »

jessaustin wrote: post #68
Zababa wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mice in or around my house has no relation to "the bane of humanity since the dawn of agriculture", I live pretty far from any farm, and the most they ate from me is crumbs on the floor. Wanting to kill them is fine, and I understand totally. Letting your cat kill them if he catches them before you, totally fine for me too. He hunted her, it's his prey, why not? On the other hand, giving mice that you caught to your…

I give all mice to the cats, whether dead or alive. Supervising a cat's treatment of a mouse is not something I will ever spend a second of my life doing. Enjoying how demented and evil cats naturally are, I have spent so far, in total, at least twenty minutes over 45 years doing. I'm glad that cats are on our team.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN