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Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

getlago.com

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Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#91
post #55

This article comes at a welcome time for me. I've been building out a usage-based B2B product and have wracked my brain on how to properly implement billing (without having to pay large upfront fees or integrate a more complex gateway that I don't really need). I'd never heard of Lago before but I think I'll give it a try.

https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/usage-based

I use Stripe for other products, and their usage-based billing is limited to specific scenarios that are not one-size fits all. This is in fact the entire subject of the post we are commenting on.

Why would you assume I haven't evaluated Stripe's offering on a post that is specifically about the shortcomings of Stripe's offering.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#92
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sound quality and filtering on Zoom is noticeably better than on Meets. Perhaps you also need to use the product that your competitors use to understand what you need to beat.

For testing and strategy maybe not for day to day use.

Maybe alternate between the leading product and your own so you can experience the same pain users do when they are forced to use the inferior choice after becoming accustomed to best-in-class.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#93
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds terrible, it shows a lack of confidence in your own product, imagine if Google internally would use Zoom... I can tell you that devs that use their own product deliver better quality.

The sound quality and filtering on Zoom is noticeably better than on Meets. Perhaps you also need to use the product that your competitors use to understand what you need to beat.

I'm sure Google Meets works flawlessly at Google's office (presumably a short hop away to their data centers via dedicated fiber optics link).

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sound quality and filtering on Zoom is noticeably better than on Meets. Perhaps you also need to use the product that your competitors use to understand what you need to beat.

I'm sure Google Meets works flawlessly at Google's office (presumably a short hop away to their data centers via dedicated fiber optics link).

Google has invested heavily in sound management in their rooms, and issued noise cancelling headphones to everyone awhile back they got to take home. That might explain some things.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#95
post #66

(I work on Stripe Billing). This is a question we raise fairly regularly internally at Stripe. The real, prosaic answer is because when we started working on Stripe Billing in 2017, Stripe had already built an internal billing system to bill its own customers. Stripe was 7 years old at that point. At the time, we got lots of feedback from the folks who had built that system. Our goal was to build a flexible billing s…

Thanks for some internal insights. I think the original post wasn't making the point that such a use case is not possible to build but rather that the architecture and design choices of Stripe Billing are not optimized for these use cases and don't make it easy.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twilio is the same. They use Zoom & Slack internally, not their own video and chat offerings. Dogfooding is a good thing. You’d be surprised how few companies actually do it (which is terribly shocking).

There's got to be a better term than "dogfooding"

A salesperson that I worked closely with like to use: “Drinking our own champagne.” I liked it enough I started using it though the engineer in me tends to be fine with “dogfooding”.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First off, yes, Stripe uses Stripe to bill our own customers. This is confusing because you’re implying that Stripe Billing is used internally but another employee clarifies and says it’s not, it’s simply another billing service was created that predates Stripe Billing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33193807

Sorry, to be clearer—we are moving away from the old billing service my colleague mentioned and to a new one. Our new system shares similarites with the Stripe Connect + Stripe Billing flow I mention above (specifically https://stripe.com/docs/api/usage_records ).

no bad intention - I am not sure when was the turning point but you appearing on a Stripe thread now seems like a negative signal recently, for me at least

It's of course your choice, jfyi

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#98
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's got to be a better term than "dogfooding"

"Use your own product" was too simple and direct.

"Using your/their own product" is six syllables. Dogfooding is half that.

In the version without "ing", that's 5 versus 2 syllables.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dogfooding is a good thing" That gets repeated a lot but I have observed the opposite when you have a diversified company dogfooding an internal product that isn't strategic in their portfolio, or is targeted at a market segment that the company doesn't belong to. I have seen companies hamstring themselves by using a product that isn't the best offering for them or a poor technical fit, only because it is their own…

Also if your product is adware, full of dark patterns or generally hot garbage it might be really frustrating to use!

Like the Twitter employee who bragged that Twitter employees can turn off ads in their personal accounts.
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