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Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#331

Post by geophile »

detaro wrote: post #238
geophile wrote: post #236

DocuSign is obviously crap. When I first encountered it, I couldn’t believe that anyone took it seriously. The only security is that you got the document at your email address. My brother was scammed as a result of this lax security. A crooked business partner set up a plausible email address for him, and took out a loan in his name. He only found out when he started getting notices about missed loan payments.

How did it go fighting that fake loan?

All good, but it took a while, and I think he got the ex-partner to pay his legal fees. The local DA said that a prosecution was unlikely though. Revenge would have been nice.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#332

Post by high_byte »

habosa wrote: post #251

In every big transaction,” said Leech, “there is a magic moment during which a man has surrendered a treasure, and during which the man who is due to receive it has not yet done so. An alert lawyer will make that moment his own, possessing the treasure for a magic microsecond, taking a little of it, passing it on. If the man who is to receive the treasure is unused to wealth, has an inferiority complex and shapeless…

wow beautiful. I just read the summary on Wikipedia the plot and symbolism are all great

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#333

Post by burnte »

GycDH6mb wrote: post #312
burnte wrote: post #91

HelloSign. Great product, every bit as good, if not better than DocuSign. Every bit as valid and accepted. Very inexpensive. Their support, however, is literally the worst support experience I've ever had.

If you don't mind my asking, what could be improved? I work in engineering but would like to send the feedback over to our customer support team. Unfortunately, a large portion of HelloSign's customer support team was affected by a reduction in force earlier this year, because Dropbox didn't want to pay salaries for support staff in high cost of labor areas, like San Francisco.

I'd be THRILLED to tell you. Shoot me an emal at grey@hodge.be and I'll tell you everything. I love the product, been a fan of Dropbox for ages, and if I can help you help someone else improve the experience, maybe Docusign can get real competition.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#334

Post by rubyfan »

wallacoloo wrote: post #327
rubyfan wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You suggest Docusign could compromise their core business and therefore the customer problem is lack of trust in Docusign? So how big is such a market of potential customers that don’t trust Docusign to not tamper with the attestation? I’d hypothesize the potential customer segment is very small. Big companies that need Docusign have incentive enough to get it right and typically have rigorous standards to making dec…

> So how big is such a market of potential customers that don’t trust Docusign to not tamper with the attestation? I’d hypothesize the potential customer segment is very small. This is sort of my point. This market probably exists, and it's almost certainly too small at the moment for Docusign/Hellosign/etc to consider going after. Which means any nimble startup that wants to can claim that market without much compet…

Um no. I didn’t say “no one.” I said who and for what reason.

In my opinion, some rando startup deciding to do it (no offense to @knurled99); or a hypothetical rando VC deciding to back it still doesn’t make it a real threat to the sector.

It’s real if it changes the game and takes meaningful market share - not just a proof of concept or boutique outfit catering to the blockchain echo chamber.

This type of blockchain hype is the original point of my comment, implementations of blockchain for X absolutely exist and there’s plenty of examples. That was never in question. My point was to turn and run because the motive for using blockchain is hype or bullshit like many AI/ML, big data, no code/low code outfits tend to be. Sell you on new tech everyone seems infatuated with but don’t understand.

To the original point of debate…

> Someone is going to roll a decentralized ID system on blockchain and tank this whole sector...

There are a whole lot of things that could disrupt the document signing industry but blockchain on its own isn’t the thing. Again, who and for what reason matter a lot more than whether they use blockchain or traditional cryptographic hashing and S3.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#336

Post by jokethrowaway »

necovek wrote: post #329
jokethrowaway wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I thought about doing it. It could be a nice passive business to be a small payment gateway provider. It's not rocket science, I could implement it alone. You invest some money to make it compliant with the security standards of the sector, charge less than all the other fat companies and you have another income stream. The only cons is you have to abide to so much stupid regulation in order for it to be le…

I think you are still ignoring the unknown unknows which are abstracted away through legislation and government. If we exclude government, and avoid any fees from external providers (let's imagine a cryptocurrency-like asset), how would you warrant your solvency in fulfilling all the transactions and converting to fiat (which is ultimately what customers need today in a payments processor). I can't see it having a wi…

While we're at it we could go back to a monetary standard backed by physical assets. Not necessarily gold, let's say a basket of everyday assets (wood, wheat, iron), so that the value of currency is tied up to the basic needs of a society. If you want to convert from fiat to these goods, you can do that.

You can handle banks misbehaving and defaulting on their obligations with a competing system of private banks, third party services reviewing and auditing these banks and by paying a private insurance tied to the amount you own.

Given that generally banks will make money with your parked resources they could be able to pay for the private insurance from the interests on your money.

I don't think cryptocurrencies are the answer, they're a technical answer to a political problem and governments will probably just squash it or find a way to benefit from it.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#337

Post by jokethrowaway »

smoe wrote: post #278
jokethrowaway wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in this situation, I lost roughly 2k£. I tried to go to court for 8k£ in small claims which is what the law allowed for as a compensation for the crime. This guy got arrested by the police, he was released and then run away to Dubai where he's from. He came back after a month and opened a company under a false name and started doing the same scam. I knew his address, I reported everything to the police and the…

How does this hypothetical world not end up with people that can afford to hire the more powerful protection agency be favored in those settlements? Not that I'm happy with the current system, but I can't really see how a privatized one would not end up with an even bigger class divide where the laws are only enforced against people that are on the same level as you or below.

Because private court systems would have a reputation as well. You can also have 3rd party companies auditing and reviewing the system. If a court system is notably unfair, it will lose business.

I don't see why corrupting a private judge would be easier than corrupting a public one.

The private one at least could default if they had no more business due to their unfairness.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#338

Post by jokethrowaway »

owisd wrote: post #281
jokethrowaway wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in this situation, I lost roughly 2k£. I tried to go to court for 8k£ in small claims which is what the law allowed for as a compensation for the crime. This guy got arrested by the police, he was released and then run away to Dubai where he's from. He came back after a month and opened a company under a false name and started doing the same scam. I knew his address, I reported everything to the police and the…

In this hypothetical world you’d be paying way more in protection money than you are currently paying in taxes to the local mafia gang who would have long murdered all the other private protection agencies.

The local mafia gang would be just one of the private protection agencies with armed forces.

There is definitely a competition between them; but is violence or negotiation the most business effective way of dealing with it?

Warfare is expensive, you risk men lives and weapons aren't cheap.

If there is violence on the street or if protection money is too high, no-one would want to live there and there would be less people to sustain your army.

I think the incentives are aligned to solve disputes in a pacific way.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#339

Post by jokethrowaway »

Fazel94 wrote: post #302
jokethrowaway wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in this situation, I lost roughly 2k£. I tried to go to court for 8k£ in small claims which is what the law allowed for as a compensation for the crime. This guy got arrested by the police, he was released and then run away to Dubai where he's from. He came back after a month and opened a company under a false name and started doing the same scam. I knew his address, I reported everything to the police and the…

You realize you have been treated the same as somebody that 2k was all his belongings and now walked without cash to the private security firm :)))) For what history says about such firms, look up Pinkerton agents and London's policing before the current system.

The difference is that I'm paying quite a bit for the government.

An equivalent would be paying the expensive private security firm subscriptions for 10 years and then expecting service when something bad happens.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#340

Post by mindwave »

elil17 wrote: post #41

If you want to e-sign lease agreements, you don’t need any special software. You can just have the signee type their name in the signature space and email the document back to you. The date of the email will be evidence of the timestamp, and the email records are commonly accepted in court. That’s just as legally binding as Docusign. The reason people use Docusign is to keep track of a large number of legal ageeement…

I work at a competing esign and would say that while this is true, this will not fly for customers. They want the impression of legality, even if typing your name and email time stamp would suffice. The hand drawn signature, the Envelope ID, etc all create the impression of a Legally Binding Agreement. That impression matters a lot, especially to the Signer
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