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Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

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Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#21

Post by dylan604 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
endisneigh wrote: post #4

I’ll never get over how regressive it is that we are literally clicking on images filled with text as a way to share… text. I seriously cringe each time, lol. Anyway, on topic, it’s good to see this little debacle behind them. Both stripe and plaid offer good services and competition is good in any case. I do wonder if there’s some room for innovation here from Google and Apple. It would be interesting to see if it’s…

It is crazy to me too. When I was younger, I thought how great it is that we can use websites as a cheap and easy way to authenticate or reasonably assume the authenticity of what was written or said, and here we are using screenshots of text on twitter as evidence.

What about websites provided something as authentic to you? The not-knowing how easily websites are to make and that anybody can put anything on them? Since you specifically stated "when younger", I'm assuming you no longer feel the same way. Did getting into tech/dev squash the dream of what the internet could have been? It did for me

Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#22

Post by a-dub »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
endisneigh wrote: post #4

I’ll never get over how regressive it is that we are literally clicking on images filled with text as a way to share… text. I seriously cringe each time, lol. Anyway, on topic, it’s good to see this little debacle behind them. Both stripe and plaid offer good services and competition is good in any case. I do wonder if there’s some room for innovation here from Google and Apple. It would be interesting to see if it’s…

It is crazy to me too. When I was younger, I thought how great it is that we can use websites as a cheap and easy way to authenticate or reasonably assume the authenticity of what was written or said, and here we are using screenshots of text on twitter as evidence.

it seems the maladaptive images of text thing is being used to work around the 140 character limit rather than any sort of authentication here.

it's pretty funny where you see this and twitter "threads" of like 14+ posts.

life is complicated, 140 characters is not enough.

Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#24

Post by axg11 »

echelon wrote: post #14

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like Stripe just nuked the whole of Plaid's platform and value proposition from orbit. Plaid just went from a decacorn to a cheap acquisition target for PayPal, Square, Shopify, etc. I can understand this being absolutely gut wrenching for the founders and early employees that are still on board. It must feel like having tangible dreams crushed. Not as bad as a cancer diagnosis,…

You are not wrong, although I don't believe this will be the death of Plaid. Their growth is certainly limited. Plaid should focus on improving their product. They made a mistake by not expanding into related product segments. Now they will have to directly compete with Stripe on product quality.

Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#26

Post by rabidonrails »

I think that people underestimate what this feels like for the Plaid founder and potentially for Patrick too.

For Plaid you've spent your life building this business. Presumably there are many happy customers and you're working really hard to define the space and provide service. One morning you flip on your laptop and see a headline that one of your customers (and competitors) launched a new service that directly competes with yours.

As the founder of "attacked" company not only do you see the competition coming from a customer but from another "friendly" company in your space. Yesterday you were friends, today you're enemies. Doesn't matter who you are, this comes as a shock and it stings.

Worse still, when you show up on HN, a space that in the past might have championed your service, you are now met with comments about how your customers are excited to switch.

Showing up to HN and seeing your comrades immediately jump ship stings no matter who you are. And if you're Stripe leadership and you believe that you're playing an infinite game, then pissing off another similarly minded company (and supplier) isn't a good feeling either.

Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#27

Post by anon_3b4150 »

I have dealt with Stripe as a partner for my last three companies, and I do not trust them.

The core team was A+ and very reasonable, but the non-core folks would regularly lie and misrepresent themselves. I have to be careful about examples because I don't want blowback to my colleagues, but here's one: telling a third party that they should not do a hybrid Stripe + my_old_company solution because our product couldn't support the use case. But, of course, we had the exact product requested in market then, and the team in question knew that. It's fine to want to close a deal, and I guess some people lie to close a deal. But saying one thing to me and another thing to the world has happened many times with Stripe.

I don't know anything about this particular case, but it does match a pattern that I have seen firsthand.

Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#28

Post by lotsofpulp »

dylan604 wrote: post #21
lotsofpulp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is crazy to me too. When I was younger, I thought how great it is that we can use websites as a cheap and easy way to authenticate or reasonably assume the authenticity of what was written or said, and here we are using screenshots of text on twitter as evidence.

What about websites provided something as authentic to you? The not-knowing how easily websites are to make and that anybody can put anything on them? Since you specifically stated "when younger", I'm assuming you no longer feel the same way. Did getting into tech/dev squash the dream of what the internet could have been? It did for me

Presumably, the website has a history or reputation (such as Stripe or Plaid’s official website). I guess Twitter might serve the same function, especially since this is a real person posting under their supposedly verified account, but I do not use Twitter, so for me, it is less easy to verify the source.

A better example is the tech emails twitter account that posts screenshots. How would I know if they are fake or not?

I would think a website with links to the source material such as the court filings showing the emails on a government website would be preferable.

Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#29

Post by endisneigh »

dylan604 wrote: post #13
endisneigh wrote: post #4

I’ll never get over how regressive it is that we are literally clicking on images filled with text as a way to share… text. I seriously cringe each time, lol. Anyway, on topic, it’s good to see this little debacle behind them. Both stripe and plaid offer good services and competition is good in any case. I do wonder if there’s some room for innovation here from Google and Apple. It would be interesting to see if it’s…

>we are literally clicking on images filled with text as a way to share… text. In this case, it sounds like the original post was removed, so the only thing left would be images types of things. Also, does an image/screengrab add any more validity to something rather than text quoted on another page/site?

It’s not about validity, it’s about accessibility. For example in the image there’s a link which can’t be clicked because the info wasn’t included

Re: Stripe responds to the Financial Connections/Plaid kerfuffle

#30

Post by heromal »

kehphin wrote: post #18

As a consumer, I'd welcome some more competition in this space. All of the personal finance aggregation apps I've tried, e.g. Mint, YNAB, Personal Finance, etc. have used Plaid and almost always, I have issues with connecting one or more banks on any given day. Submitting tickets re: connection issues rarely resolves in a timely manner too.

Mint doesn't use Plaid, it uses Intuit's API since the acquisition.
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