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Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

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Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#61

Post by bravura »

lolinder wrote: post #41
snvzz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing the discussions in these submissions doesn't give me that impression. Instead, I am inclined to think that mass-flagging is being done by Stripe sockpuppets as a means of mitigating negative impact on Stripe's public image.

The person who called out "Don't Use Stripe" [0] tied a very legitimate account to their accusation. jacquesm is a very prominent user, and called out another one for being too vague, with no reply [1]. The third was clearly selling an NSFW AI service [2] and admitted it. The other three I'm willing to believe, I'm just cautioning against believing every submission you see. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34…

Than you for the parent post clarification, but your GP post did NOT have an agnostic tone or focus on the spirit of sober inquiry. Instead, it came across as an admonition. I just wanted to share.

"Not that there aren't legitimate problems with Stripe, but the extent of those problems is blown out of proportion if you take all of these complaints at face value." That conclusion feels a bit like legerdemain, considering that you acknowledge the strength of some of these claims (which are HN only).

It's a bit like you're boxing your argument into: "If there are only seven people dead from mass shootings this year, their importance is blown out of proportion versus much more common preventable causes of death." But in a universe where the only people that get any news coverage for mass shootings are the ones that get posted and upvoted on HN. I hope my point here isn't too oblique.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#63

Post by lloydatkinson »

ecuaflo wrote: post #25

I made something similar for selling access to GitHub repos but it didn’t take off. People were hesitant to give a new product like mine access to their repos because we hadn’t built up trust that established brands like gumroad have. Makes it really hard for new players to enter this space. Have you seen similar concerns and how do you address them?

Isn’t it possible to allow access to just the repo you’re selling, instead of all of them?

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#64

Post by lloydatkinson »

jhartist wrote: post #28
pyuser314 wrote: post #26

Stripe already has similar. It’s called Payment Links. Extremely easy and they manage all past transactions. https://stripe.com/payments/payment-links

Easyful is a layer on top of Stripe Payment Links that handles the fulfillment for you. All Easyful users are using Stripe Payment links.

What does fulfilment mean in this case? Digital downloads and the like?

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#65

Post by numpad0 »

lolinder wrote: post #41
snvzz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing the discussions in these submissions doesn't give me that impression. Instead, I am inclined to think that mass-flagging is being done by Stripe sockpuppets as a means of mitigating negative impact on Stripe's public image.

The person who called out "Don't Use Stripe" [0] tied a very legitimate account to their accusation. jacquesm is a very prominent user, and called out another one for being too vague, with no reply [1]. The third was clearly selling an NSFW AI service [2] and admitted it. The other three I'm willing to believe, I'm just cautioning against believing every submission you see. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34…

While my heuristics says a lot of those deserves bans, where in that process are local law enforcement and court systems involved? It sounds wrong that a Stripe account, AdSense account, these quasi bank accounts used by small businesses and individuals(and criminals) as quasi public utility can be opened and closed by decisions of "the team", by unqualified software engineers and ex-engineer managers, completely unmonitored. The web is not a huge advert or scientific experiment anymore, I mean, it hadn't been for a decade or two, but now it's significantly less so.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#66

Post by rmbyrro »

a2128 wrote: post #24

This looks cool, but I'm curious about how taxes work with this setup. From my understanding, Gumroad handles sales tax for you in a number of countries (US and EU at least). Does Easyful do something similar, or is that left up to the user to go through that headache on their own?

If you're an individual digital creator in, say, South Africa, why would you worry about paying taxes in Norway for $500 that came from customers there?

I mean, big, established companies are a big target. But it doesn't seem that the Norway Revenue Service would spend time finding who's Joe from South Africa who sold a $50 ebook to 10 Norwegians...

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#67

Post by jhartist »

_trackno5 wrote: post #54

Nice project, but this is a bit of a misrepresentation of Gumroad. The reason you “give up” so much money to them is because they handle VAT, which this service doesn’t seem to do at all. Stripe by default will not collect and remit VAT.

Stripe actually does collect VAT and helps you file and remit. Check out their docs page for doing this with Payment Links, which is what Easyful uses:

https://stripe.com/docs/tax/paymentlinks

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#68

Post by jhartist »

d--b wrote: post #47

Why not take 1-2% instead of 30? Just what you need to cover the hosting costs. Taking 0% tells users you’ll end up screwing them one way or another in the future.

Good question: because we’re not handling payment processing or anything, just emailing users your content, we think Easyful can be default-free forever. If we get a bunch of usage, we might build some more advanced pro features and sell those features as a paid tier. We’ve had success with that model before.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#69

Post by jhartist »

emperor_ wrote: post #55

I won’t use a service like this if it’s free. Without a pricing or business plan I’m worried it will shutdown any moment or doesn’t get maintained anymore. Where do I go if I need support? This doesn’t sound like a long term sustainable business.

We’ve run Smallchat, a default-free saas app, for a few years now, supporting millions of users. Our experience: with low-operating-cost saas apps like this, you can add a paid tier with pro features if you get a lot of traction while keeping the base app free.

With Smallchat, for example, a small percentage of paid users more than covers the operating costs of our mostly-free user base.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#70

Post by jhartist »

bberenberg wrote: post #59
jhartist wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question: we mostly built Easyful to use ourselves, but if it gets a significant of usage we might build some more advanced pro features and sell those features as a paid tier upgrade, while keeping the base app free. We've had success with that model before with Smallchat, a saas app we launched several years ago, and it's still going strong supporting millions of free users. With low-operating-cost saas apps,…

What exactly are you using it for yourself?

We started building Easyful while looking for a platform to fulfill orders for Standerd, a Figma UI kit our team uses that we sell:

https://www.standerd.co/

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