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Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

easyful.com

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Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#81

Post by omniglottal »

lolinder wrote: post #75
bravura wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, consider…

> Instead, it came across as an admonition. That's because it was intended to. OP hijacked a Show HN to share a bunch of links with complaints about Stripe. They were so quick to do so that they didn't notice that half their links were dubious. Then this hijacking post becomes pinned to the top with upvotes just like the dubious Stripe posts did before clearer heads prevailed. HN needs to get out of this habit of acc…

Dismissing all claims on the face value of some is also in error. The simple fact that there are so many of these claims, and also given the exact repercussions of those who were in (ToS) error, are enough to recognize a statistically strong weight toward the "do not trust" response which blanket dismissal and acceptance of partial ignorance cannot overcome. The extent to which hidden forces (i.e., "sockpuppets") quash this dialogue further suggests that we're only seeing the tip of this customer-antagonistic iceberg.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#82

Post by _trackno5 »

jhartist wrote: post #67
_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

Like I said, and the link confirms, it will not by default collect tax.

For that you need to set up Stripe Tax on top of it. Stripe Tax itself also takes a cut from your payment.

It also “helps” you file taxes only by providing the reports you need. You still need to file the reports and each country is different.

Please read the FAQ before this causes you trouble: https://stripe.com/docs/tax/fa q

>> Does Stripe Tax handle remitting and reporting tax, or filing tax returns?

> Stripe Tax doesn’t handle remitting and reporting tax, or filing tax returns. Stripe Tax provides itemized and summarized exports to help users prepare, file, and remit the tax that was automatically calculated and collected. To automate filing in the US, we recommend using TaxJar’s AutoFile solution. In Europe, we recommend using Taxually or Marosa. To get started, visit Taxually’s partner page or Marosa’s partner page.

Disclaimer: I work at Stripe

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#84

Post by specialist »

janosdebugs wrote: post #80
specialist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya. I have zero intuition why online stores charge 30%. Is that fair? Should the store's cut go down with more volume? Or should smaller, younger, lower volume vendors get a better deal? I have no idea . So I keep landing on the notion that online market places should be not-for-profit orgs (consortiums?) that are run at cost plus some margin. And then figure out the hosts' cut from there.

You produce the content and provide the marketing. They provide almost everything else for you: the storefront, the billing, the invoicing, charging sales tax/VAT, etc. If you wanted to do it yourself, you'd be in for quite a lot of work, even if you happened to host your own software.

Granted.

Is charging 30% fair?

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#85

Post by janosdebugs »

specialist wrote: post #84
janosdebugs wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You produce the content and provide the marketing. They provide almost everything else for you: the storefront, the billing, the invoicing, charging sales tax/VAT, etc. If you wanted to do it yourself, you'd be in for quite a lot of work, even if you happened to host your own software.

Granted. Is charging 30% fair?

That depends on how much you value your time you would otherwise spend dealing with a storefront. A lot of creators on Gumroad are relatively small-time, so to them it's probably totally worth it since they would have to spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with things they are not very good at. I'm quite good with servers, but I'd also have a hard time justifying the time spent on maintaining and updating a webshop software that deals with all the things required. If I was selling 3D assets, I'd pick one of the many fab sites over hosting my own anytime.

Another point to make is the added visibility. ArtStation for example is quite prominent in the art / 3D world, whereas Steam is unavoidable as an indie dev. Itch.io takes a much lower cut, but it doesn't bring in even close to the amount of viewers as Steam does.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#86

Post by d--b »

janosdebugs wrote: post #85
specialist wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted. Is charging 30% fair?

That depends on how much you value your time you would otherwise spend dealing with a storefront. A lot of creators on Gumroad are relatively small-time, so to them it's probably totally worth it since they would have to spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with things they are not very good at. I'm quite good with servers, but I'd also have a hard time justifying the time spent on maintaining and updating…

Exactly. it's not fair in the sense that platform pricing is not set by an "efficient free market". What you pay for is not the features, it's the visibility. So the pricing of gumroad/apple store/etc is way above their operating costs.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#87

Post by ecuaflo »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #63
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?

Yes people had an issue with just that. Some would sell for thousands, so I can understand being cautious about access.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#88

Post by janosdebugs »

d--b wrote: post #86
janosdebugs wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on how much you value your time you would otherwise spend dealing with a storefront. A lot of creators on Gumroad are relatively small-time, so to them it's probably totally worth it since they would have to spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with things they are not very good at. I'm quite good with servers, but I'd also have a hard time justifying the time spent on maintaining and updating…

Exactly. it's not fair in the sense that platform pricing is not set by an "efficient free market". What you pay for is not the features, it's the visibility. So the pricing of gumroad/apple store/etc is way above their operating costs.

I'd look at it differently: currently running a business, me and my wife are spending a lot more than 30% of our time on non-core activities. If a service would reliably take a chunk of that off of our shoulders, it would absolutely be worth the commission. Especially since there are no fixed costs, no income = no costs.

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#89

Post by quickthrower2 »

anagri wrote: post #76
snvzz wrote: post #33

Related: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32854528 Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34233011 Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36403607 Don't Use Stripe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34035581 Stripe is about to refund €147k wor…

agree you cannot run gumroad like financial transaction business without licence and agreement with stripe. it is bound to be closed down on short notice, and all the earnings will be clawed back. so don't use this app. period.

Running gumroad and running “as a gumroad customer would” are two different things

Re: Show HN: Easyful – A Free Gumroad Alternative

#90

Post by specialist »

janosdebugs wrote: post #88
d--b wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. it's not fair in the sense that platform pricing is not set by an "efficient free market". What you pay for is not the features, it's the visibility. So the pricing of gumroad/apple store/etc is way above their operating costs.

I'd look at it differently: currently running a business, me and my wife are spending a lot more than 30% of our time on non-core activities. If a service would reliably take a chunk of that off of our shoulders, it would absolutely be worth the commission. Especially since there are no fixed costs, no income = no costs.

Thanks for engaging my question.

I now realize I should have been asking if 30% is "reasonable".

For you, absolutely, and I appreciate your explanations.

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