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The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

remysharp.com

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Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#171

Post by ChuckMcM »

mdpopescu wrote: post #160
ChuckMcM wrote: post #6

I discovered a similar problem with writing, which is that writing an email or a comment takes no time at all, but when someone is paying for what I write it takes a lot more effort . I wrote a column for a couple of years and it wasn't until the second year that I actually took my editors advice to just send her the first version and work on it collaboratively rather than try to get it perfect. I see side projects a…

This reminds me of Heinlein's rule three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order

Heh Jerry Pournelle, another science fiction author, used to say "The secret of good writing, is re-writing." :-)

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#172

Post by PythonicAlpha »

wobbleblob wrote: post #169
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you look over the borders, maybe (can you be a little more specific, btw?). In Germany, being a freelancer can be a big hassle, again! There is currently again a hunt for so called "Scheinselbstaendige" (Fictious-self-employed) and when they catch you (even when you are really self-employed, they just don't agree with you) you can be held liable for it and have to pay huge compensations. It is even worse, becaus…

I thought north western border was specific enough. It's a smaller, less formal, less regulated copy. The only difficulty I can think of is that you have to prove you worked for more than one customer during a fiscal year if you want to make use of the tax deductions for the self employed.

I never was that good in geography. I can only think of the Netherlands or Belgium.

One fiscal year can be very short in the IT sector. In some cases, you need halve a year to get to know the complete topic.

According to the link I have given, at least in Germany the situation is now such, that even when you have more than one customer in a year, you can be accused to be "Scheinselbstaendig". The offices just search for evidence that you might be, but not for evidence that you are not. One such evidence for "Scheinselbstaendigkeit" can be for example small investment needs ... something you typically have in the IT sector as freelancer ...

It seems that the new law in preparation shall codify this practice.

But of course, when the situation is better e.g. in the Netherlands, it could be worthwhile to work there. But (since I already thought about that possibility) would it also be possible to do so without moving there and still earn the benefits?

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#173

Post by camdenre »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #55
bluecalm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VATMOSS is a nightmare for small businesses. I am lucky that authorities in my country decide that I can avoid it with my project (because it doesn't fit exact definition of electronic service so I can pay VAT in my country as it's a place the service is provided in according one interpretation of the new law) but they have plans to extend it and I may be forced to go through accounting hell to comply with this regul…

Thank you for sharing! >I guess they think typical business is like Google or Amazon or something. I guess, that is all they want -- and it very likely could be, that this is all they will get, when they are not stopping this. The EU is about to kill inventions in the online business. With this kind of regulations, the EU will become a dessert with the Amazon's and Googles ruling over it. But I think, many big system…

desert* A good way to remember is a dessert (the post-meal treat) is so good you want 2 (hence 2 's' characters)!

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#174

Post by umziehennachbar »

artursapek wrote: post #168
umziehennachbar wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but then doesn't that require you to hold onto the credit card details to process two weeks later. One of the attractive features of stripe is that you don't store cc details on your system but rather they get passed on directly to Stripe. if you implement a delay, you have to hold the credit card to charge later

No, you tokenize the card through Stripe immediately and then charge the token 2 weeks later. You don't have to hold on to the card details.

so after you charge the card two weeks later, the transaction still gets completed unless you've somehow figured out during the two weeks how to determine whether \the attempt was fraudulent. I don't think this strategy will work because it will depend on the fraudsters knowing that the payment won't be processed for two weeks and then deciding it's not worth it. Are they going to read the TOS?

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#175

Post by PythonicAlpha »

camdenre wrote: post #173
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing! >I guess they think typical business is like Google or Amazon or something. I guess, that is all they want -- and it very likely could be, that this is all they will get, when they are not stopping this. The EU is about to kill inventions in the online business. With this kind of regulations, the EU will become a dessert with the Amazon's and Googles ruling over it. But I think, many big system…

desert* A good way to remember is a dessert (the post-meal treat) is so good you want 2 (hence 2 's' characters)!

Thanks, as non-native speaker, I always fall in those traps ...

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#176

Post by tekromancr »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #175
camdenre wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

desert* A good way to remember is a dessert (the post-meal treat) is so good you want 2 (hence 2 's' characters)!

Thanks, as non-native speaker, I always fall in those traps ...

Haha, and as a native English speaker, I also fall for these traps. English is a silly language, sometimes.

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#177

Post by wobbleblob »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #167
wobbleblob wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intention with EU regulations like these is usually to prevent a 'race to the bottom' as they call it. They're turning the EU into a common market without internal trade barriers, but when you do that, what happens when one country has a VAT of 15% and another of 25%? Businesses that can move, will move (administratively) to the 15% country, forcing all countries to lower their VAT to the lowest level. You can ar…

>The intention with EU regulations like these is Regulatory capture is almost always given some reason behind it. As such when determining if something was regulatory capture, the stated reasoning behind it is ignored, which is why I was asking to what extent did multinational organizations influence this decision.

It's difficult to see why the EU would try to favor large, usually American and Asian tech giants like Amazon, Samsung and Google versus local startups through tax regulation. The most likely explanation if you ask me is that the motivation behind VATMOSS is exactly what it says on the tin: harmonization of the common market without forcing every member state to adopt the same domestic policies.

The dynamics are different in the decision making processes in the EU. None of the commissioners are elected, they don't have campaign funds to worry about, so there is no legal veneer for corporate 'lobbying' as you would call it. I can't tell you for sure that it doesn't happen, but it can't happen out in the open as it would be considered corruption, and illegal.

The problem instead is that the commissioners are put forward by the (elected) governments of member states, so there is always the danger of them either deliberately or unwittingly favoring their national interests, and it makes them potentially vulnerable to domestic political pressure.

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#178

Post by PythonicAlpha »

pluma wrote: post #164
wobbleblob wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know two people who tried to start a business in Germany and failed, not because of the EU but because of domestic, German rules. One tried to start some kind of innovative form of pharmacy (the details weren't clear to me), but found himself unable to join the pharmacy guild, and apparently it is illegal to start a business without joining the guild. The other tried to start a bed & breakfast business, but the 'br…

Yes, all professions are regulated. Sadly this has less to do with an overzealous government and more with lobbies and accidents of history. Guilds used to rule all professions in the middle ages and a lot of the regulations are sadly derived from that. This means you can't do certain things without the proper certifications (e.g. if you're a licensed car mechanic or "KFZ-Mechatroniker" that doesn't mean you're also…

> But as an employer I have to say some of the regulations, laws and restrictions can be incredibly tedious and annoying. Especially if you're running a very small business.

Yea. My impression is (too), that the regulations in Germany are much more harmful to smaller companies than to big corporations. As big corporation, you basically can do very, very much, without being penalized much. In Germany, you always can say, that health costs are covered by the public health insurance. So, it is common, that compensations are small fractures of that which is paid in the US or even no compensations are made.

My feeling is, that German judges are much more reluctant to rule against corporations, as long as their fault can not be proven 110% -- for common people on the other hand, 80% prove are enough most of the time (I remember, that not long ago a young girl was convicted for computer fraud, just because Siemens said, that the 4 digit PIN-system for EC cards was 100% secure -- something we soon later found out, was never true!).

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#179

Post by cvandebroek »

umziehennachbar wrote: post #42

If $6 is too cheap and encourages fraudsters to test credit cards on your service because banks don't get concerned about transactions at that cost, how much should he have charged at a minimum? $10 $20?

Fraudster doing credit card tests is something that happens everywhere. This is not specifically related the the type of service or to the amount charged.

Everything < 50€ / $50 / £40 will hardly trigger any security measures.

Re: The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4)

#180

Post by TheSmoke »

daxelrod wrote: post #37
TheSmoke wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

risk score means the possibility of a transaction being fraudulent. here's another way you can do this for cards issued in Europe: if the risk score is too high start a 3D secure transaction. if the risk score is acceptable then start a normal transaction. a full 3D transaction will never mean it is not fraud however you will have no liabilities when a chargeback is issued by the card holder. many of your US customer…

As a US customer, I'm hesitant to use 3D Secure because: 1) The implementations by Visa and MasterCard have security weaknesses, terrible usability and look like phishing: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf 2) My understanding is that my bank shifts liability to me for 3D Secure transactions. Why would I want extra liability?

in turkey, banks automatically enroll your debit or credit cards to 3d secure networks so you don't have to do it yourself. all you have to do is to enter a one time password sent to your mobile phone during payment.

with full 3d secure payments the liability shifts to the customer and you will have no liability. because the customer verified the payment him/herself by hand with the otp.

p.s. i am yet to read that link.

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