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Stripe Is the New PayPal

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#121

Post by thoughtpolice »

AC__ wrote: post #101

All of these payments services are going to die within 5 years anyway. Before people get all pissy and down vote this assertion let me you remind you that a massive(and growing) portion of the world has become completely disillusioned with the global fiat currency system(or perhaps just enlightened as to how it works?), regardless, its days are numbered. I am not however entirely convinced that cryptocurrencies, name…

Hacker News: where some people legitimately believe that the entire world will abandon the current credit/monetary system, because reasons (or alternatively, "just because" - you know, to see 'how it works', because an entirely new monetary system is like testing on some FiveFinger shoes to be spontaneous).

Also, Bitcoin is totally an invention by the Fed to ween people off fiat, despite the fact the Bitcoin network and its total overall volume are a joke compared to global currency trade, and basically worse, or completely irrelevant, for consumers in pretty much all cases.

If there was any ever proof techno libertarian supernerds are insanely disconnected from reality, stuff like this is it. You have a better chance of actually being The Highlander. But seriously, I could write a comedy novel about this stuff at this point - so do continue to go on.

Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#122

Post by AC__ »

Aloha wrote: post #108
AC__ wrote: post #101

All of these payments services are going to die within 5 years anyway. Before people get all pissy and down vote this assertion let me you remind you that a massive(and growing) portion of the world has become completely disillusioned with the global fiat currency system(or perhaps just enlightened as to how it works?), regardless, its days are numbered. I am not however entirely convinced that cryptocurrencies, name…

This holds about as much water as a colander. Show me a survey show this supposed massive disillusionment with fiat currency.

Umm what about entire countries...Iceland...Greece.

Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#123

Post by jly »

jusben1369 wrote: post #90
jeffmould wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their engineering support is incredible, and their API is well-documented and so easy to integrate. It is hard to believe that they can't spend a little more time focusing on customer support, especially as they continue to add new features and countries the problem is only going to increase. At least adding a public-facing ticketing system would pull some pressure off. I don't necessarily mind waiting for support, i…

I think one thing that is not well understood is that Stripe has a "Freemium" model. Prior to Stripe nearly all other payment processors required a minimum monthly fee. Stripe's lack of any minimum monthly fee is something that makes it very attractive and undoubtedly helped partly fuel their rapid growth. It's a great example of how you can leverage VC funding to build a business. Having said that it must mean a sta…

Other payment processors that do not use a 'freemium' model charge less for their processing fees (and varying rates across cards). The reason it seems freemium for Stripe and other competitors is that they charge higher processing fees for the convenience than other traditional processors do.

Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#124

Post by [deleted] »

Aloha wrote: post #107
jusben1369 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one thing that is not well understood is that Stripe has a "Freemium" model. Prior to Stripe nearly all other payment processors required a minimum monthly fee. Stripe's lack of any minimum monthly fee is something that makes it very attractive and undoubtedly helped partly fuel their rapid growth. It's a great example of how you can leverage VC funding to build a business. Having said that it must mean a sta…

I'd argue the processing fees do not make it freemium.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#126

Post by paulhauggis »

akhatri_aus wrote: post #86
paulhauggis wrote: post #65

..Or the new Google..or the new Amazon. Both of the above companies have nearly 100% automated responses. With Amazon, if you get your selling account put on hold for any reason (even if it's by mistake through their automated bots), you will not be able to talk to anyone on the phone or through email. Your account is also put on hold for 90 days and your money might get transferred back to you when they feel like it…

Except Google and Amazon's primary customers are consumers. Amazon's customer support is quite good afaik, at least if you're on the buying end. Stripe is a B2B business it's also a bit 'lower layer'. You would have to rely on them for your business quite heavily.

Many 3rd party sellers rely on Amazon for their business. It also makes up a large percentage of Amazon's profits.

The same with Google. How many people use Adsense, Adwords, Analytics for their business? If you want any sort of tech business these days, it's hard to avoid.

Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#127

Post by thoughtpolice »

AC__ wrote: post #122
Aloha wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This holds about as much water as a colander. Show me a survey show this supposed massive disillusionment with fiat currency.

Umm what about entire countries...Iceland...Greece.

You didn't answer his question as to where this 'clear mass disillusionment' is. Where is the actual proof fiat is on the way out?

Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#129

Post by yc1010 »

gdulli wrote: post #94

Every time I see a post like this it makes me wonder if other businesses have unfairly gotten a bad reputation because of anecdotes reported by anonymous customers whose version of the story is subjective, biased, possibly exaggerated, etc. When a company is huge, even one out of 100,000 transactions going badly adds up to a lot of anecdotes.

In case of PayPal the bad reputation is deserved

In case of Stripe i sent last week a question in reply to an email from them from last year, there is no ticketing system it seems I got replies from 2 different people today after a week (not the same person one who originally was friendly and talked to me and might not be working there). Both answers were somewhat positive but a bit contradictory.

I do not believe that Stripe are fundamentally "evil" like PayPal, well not yet anyways we will see how turns out with more growth and more staff who might not care about customers.

Re: Stripe Is the New PayPal

#130

Post by netfire »

mason55 wrote: post #47
hellbanner wrote: post #42

-- PSA regarding Credit Card Validation -- Last year I was testing Stripe integration. I tried using my own credit card with a fake name. Surprise, it went through. I emailed Stripe support. After half a dozen emails discussing CC authorization I learned that Stripe does not and can not validate Name & Address on credit card. Stripe told me that Credit Card companies do not disclose this data to Payment Processors li…

> Last year I was testing Stripe integration. I tried using my own credit card with a fake name. This sounds like a great way to get your account shut down. They provide test/mock APIs for a reason.

That's a good point, hellbanner should have used the test API, but this is still troubling. First, due to the lack of the communication and a proper ticket system from Stripe. Second (and more troubling), the idea that someone could maliciously cause you to lose the ability to process payments on your site simply by submitting a bunch of fake (or half-fake) transactions.

Creating a system that processes payments can be an involved process, requiring significant development effort, even when using API and libraries like Stripe provides. It seems like Stripe should only be shutting people down as a last resort, after repeated warnings with a clear way on how to fix the problem. This is also just good business practice. No one wants to be shut down without a good reason and without any recourses for appeal or reconciliation.

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