Isn't this Shopify clearly engaging in theft? ... they locked us out of Upsell X and we couldn’t support it anymore. Even further - they kept charging merchants for Upsell X - but we never received those payouts.
Yeah, they should have an open-and-shut case against Shopify here, no?
Probably some manager in Shopify saw an opportunity to siphon off some funds, and figured they could hide behind lawyers.
As a layman very much not-lawyer, the term "unjust enrichment" is springing to mind. Wonder if that's what this would be considered as?
Hello everyone, I'm the founder of Checkout X and the original post creator - so flattered to see all the engagement here. Thanks for the kind words and the criticism, I totally respect everyone's opinion on the topic.
I intentionally waited a couple of years before I wrote the post as I just wanted to share the story of Checkout X for people to see it - without any agenda. Checkout X is a closed page for me and I'm looking forward towards the future.
Some updates from me:
- I built another Shopify app ( Vanga AI ) that got acquired this year
- I've summarised my thoughts on the current Shopify ecosystem in another blog post: Why I'm leaving the Shopify apps business ( https://www.leteyski.com/why-i-m-leaving-the-shopify-apps-bu... )
- I've summarised some of the business lessons I've accumulated into a Startup assessment framework called: The Dead Horse Framework ( https://www.leteyski.com/the-dead-horse-framework )
I don’t understand how Shopify can maintain market dominance as just a middleman value extractor. Probably why they’re forcing their app. I deleted my account and haven’t used Shopify since they wouldn’t let me get my order tracking any way besides the app. As someone who worked adjacent to logistics it was just the hardest hard “no” of all time for me. Money moves to easily now days to build a monopoly on e-commerce…
Always wonder why Shopify is needed. In my case a lot of banks provide consistent APIs or buttons for payments. Numerous providers that aggregate those APIs, but no one forcing You. No need to pay middleman
Most require programming skills (and then you are the one that need to make it secure) or use a CMS plugin (WordPress) and then you are back where Shopify fish for customers.
I use to run our businesses webshop with my own code but having less time to keep up on it I gave up and switched to OSS CMS instead. Not Shopify though as they take (at least back when I checked) a huge chunk of money for the service. I can't remember the amount but it was something like 3%? For a medium business that's enough to hire developers to create your own! Now I use a payment provider (bank) instead and it costs nothing except the payment processor fee I already had to pay.
I'm not a business expert or an entrepreneur, but I've been around this industry long enough to know: Unless your intention is to flip your startup into an acquisition, I would recommend against plays like this. Specifically, tying yourself up to a closed ecosystem by building what amounts to a (albeit very nice and powerful) super-feature. I am saying this because I work for a large-ish company where someone did thi…
It's called "platform risk". It can reduce risk to find customers or be the ultimate risk by killing your product (intentionally or unintentionally)
It's remarkable when stories like this reach the top of Hacker News, but then people still do not understand why one might want to build an application on a "Can't Be Evil" platform like a crypto network. Scalability/costs/complexity aside — this is why Ethereum and similar decentralized computers are attractive.
> "Can't Be Evil" platform like a crypto network
lol. Come over here and stand on this crypto rug for me.
It's remarkable when stories like this reach the top of Hacker News, but then people still do not understand why one might want to build an application on a "Can't Be Evil" platform like a crypto network. Scalability/costs/complexity aside — this is why Ethereum and similar decentralized computers are attractive.
I can't think of one single profitable business built on crypto apart from exchanges.
>> "...but this just seems really shortsighted." This guy made literally (tens of?) millions of dollars in revenue from his software. Sure the gravy train stopped, but man I hope to be shortsighted like that someday.
> This guy made literally (tens of?) millions of dollars in revenue from his software While living in Bulgaria
And so what? That's still a lot. Who's making that mind of money there? He even started investing in smaller businesses.