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

MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

simplify.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 133 posts

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#71

Post by ISL »

dmix wrote: post #62
antr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SV expectation/mentality that if someone builds something first they "own" that space is unjustifiable. I'm not say you are saying that, but it is an implicit attitude in the Valley. Competition (or "clones") were around 100 years ago, continue to exist today and will be around for the next 100 years. Today's innovation is tomorrow's commodity thanks to competition. This is good. Is it disappointing that MasterCa…

Calling it "lazy" was fair given the points he made. He's not talking about copying products, he's talking about copying the product AND all the little UI/UX details. That really is lazy.

Unless Stripe is your competitor, and you think they're doing a good job.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and all that...

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#72

Post by ww520 »

pc wrote: post #19
greghinch wrote: post #16

To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…

(I built the first version of Stripe and work here.) I think the unfortunate aspect of these clones is that they're lazy. I have huge respect for anyone that innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…

On the bright side, MasterCard has validated the space and your work. Visa and Amex might buy you out to compete in good time. Don't feel discouraged.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#73

Post by yogo »

breck wrote: post #24
pc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I built the first version of Stripe and work here.) I think the unfortunate aspect of these clones is that they're lazy. I have huge respect for anyone that innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…

Two day payouts looks like a great innovation to me. :)

As a Stripe user that's one of the things that stood out to me immediately. This will definitely inspire some change on Stripe's part hehe. That's a good thing since it helps Stripe win in the long run.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#74

Post by greghinch »

foobarqux wrote: post #56
greghinch wrote: post #16

To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…

Entering into a price war would kill Stripe: it does not have sustainable low cost advantage.

Yet. I don't want to necessarily speak for Stripe, but I seem to recall when they were first opening to the public, one of their main goals was to get to the point where they no longer needed 3rd party providers for the services they offer, and could then drive the costs down. Could be mistaken (or things could have changed).

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#75

Post by appleflaxen »

greghinch wrote: post #16

To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…

I don't hate Mastercard nearly as much as I love competition.

The existing credit card companies have an oligopoly on payment, and the more people there are in this space, the better options we will have.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#76

Post by sideproject »

kawera wrote: post #54

At this time, however, the merchant must be a U.S. business Oh well...

With clones of Stripe poppin' up everywhere, I think the niche advantage would be to be able to scale the service to a number of other countries where this type of service is either expensive or unavailable (please come to Australia! - I know there is "pin", but we wouldn't mind a cheaper alternative without any monthly fees!)

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#77

Post by lbarrow »

sideproject wrote: post #76
kawera wrote: post #54

At this time, however, the merchant must be a U.S. business Oh well...

With clones of Stripe poppin' up everywhere, I think the niche advantage would be to be able to scale the service to a number of other countries where this type of service is either expensive or unavailable (please come to Australia! - I know there is "pin", but we wouldn't mind a cheaper alternative without any monthly fees!)

Have you looked at Braintree? We're charging 2.4% and $0.30 in Australia, with no monthly fee.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#79

Post by ceejayoz »

jusben1369 wrote: post #18

"Sign up and develop. When you're ready to go live, tell us a little about your business." It's actually more of a "PayMill" model than a Stripe model. So they allow you to begin development but they don't actually promise immediate on-boarding.

Stripe does exactly the same thing. You have to enter some business details like tax ID, sales volume, etc. to go live.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#80

Post by No1 »

dangrossman wrote: post #30
rsync wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which is a fairly terrible percentage rate. Even a small processor should be able to get under 2%, provided you don't have a lot of fraud/chargebacks. There's a tremendous amount of froth in those rates.

2% is below CNP interchange on a lot of card types. For example, it costs the processor 2.95% to charge a Platinum MasterCard or 2.05% to charge a World MasterCard card as CNP. A processor charging less than interchange is taking a loss; it's paying the merchant more than it'll get funded by charging that card. The flat-rate pricing these new aggregators offer at 2.7-2.9% already builds in taking a loss on some cards…

You would think that MasterCard could charge significantly lower fees on MasterCard transactions since they're, like, MasterCard and all... Clearly, they're not interested in competing based upon price.
Post reply on HN