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Farewell Kagi

kagi.com

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Re: Farewell Kagi

#31

Post by SyneRyder »

stevoski wrote: post #14
dcsoft wrote: post #11

I am a current Kagi supplier, and this unexpected closure has me in a bad place. It took a few days to code my system to interface with theirs and to generate licenses automatically for each purchase. I suppose I need to redo all that. I appreciate Kagi for their years of friendly and comprehensive service as well as the next person, but why didn't Kee Nethery support us better during the closure? No migration path t…

If you don't mind do a bit of coding: * Stripe * PayPal. (You want the "Express Checkout" workflow) (Hint: for increased sales offer both. Stripe is a developer's dream; adding PayPal adds perhaps 30% more sales, although YMMV) If you want someone else to take care of all the details in return for higher commission: * FastSpring (full service, heavyweight) * Paddle (streamlined, focused towards Mac and towards digita…

Depending on your situation, you might want to lean towards FastSpring or the other full services - from memory one of Kagi's value-adds was collecting the appropriate tax when selling to certain countries (ie collecting and remitting VAT when selling to customers in the EU).

[I'd actually recommend talking to FastSpring - they used to provide a concierge service to setup the order form for you, and they have a system where they can ping a licence key generator on your server (eg in PHP), much like what Kagi did. I'm happy to try to answer questions if you or anyone else gets stuck, contact details in my profile.]

Re: Farewell Kagi

#32

Post by drdaeman »

stevoski wrote: post #14
dcsoft wrote: post #11

I am a current Kagi supplier, and this unexpected closure has me in a bad place. It took a few days to code my system to interface with theirs and to generate licenses automatically for each purchase. I suppose I need to redo all that. I appreciate Kagi for their years of friendly and comprehensive service as well as the next person, but why didn't Kee Nethery support us better during the closure? No migration path t…

If you don't mind do a bit of coding: * Stripe * PayPal. (You want the "Express Checkout" workflow) (Hint: for increased sales offer both. Stripe is a developer's dream; adding PayPal adds perhaps 30% more sales, although YMMV) If you want someone else to take care of all the details in return for higher commission: * FastSpring (full service, heavyweight) * Paddle (streamlined, focused towards Mac and towards digita…

Just a warning: when some subscription-management service advertises they support PayPal Express Checkout/Payments Pro make sure to check the exact requirements.

Many require reference transactions support. Which requires PayPal approval, and (from what I understood from the person who actually talked with PayPal) they only give it after some revenue levels that aren't trivial to achieve if you're just starting and don't even have any sales yet.

When coding on their own, interfacing PayPal directly, one can avoid this requirement, settling for a somewhat more limited but still fairly functional set of EC APIs.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#33

Post by rbritton »

Kadin wrote: post #20
erikb wrote: post #12

What did they do? Never heard of them. Edit: Ah, they were like an old-school Amazon? webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GSePr0KJAvoJ:krm.kagi.com/about/ Edit: Why is this post downvoted? There is nothing discriminating here, not even an opinion. Just someone asking what Kagi is. Instead of downvoting you should simply answer the question.

Kagi was a payments processor / fulfillment service provider focused particularly on shareware. Back in the days before app stores, if you were an indie developer your options for distribution and monetization were very limited. Generally you put out a demo version that took some sort of code to unlock, and users sent you money via the mail in return for unlock codes. This is how many software authors got their start…

It was also very Mac-centric, I believe, so that may have limited the knowledge of who they are to smaller circles.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#35

Post by armadsen »

SyneRyder wrote: post #31
stevoski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind do a bit of coding: * Stripe * PayPal. (You want the "Express Checkout" workflow) (Hint: for increased sales offer both. Stripe is a developer's dream; adding PayPal adds perhaps 30% more sales, although YMMV) If you want someone else to take care of all the details in return for higher commission: * FastSpring (full service, heavyweight) * Paddle (streamlined, focused towards Mac and towards digita…

Depending on your situation, you might want to lean towards FastSpring or the other full services - from memory one of Kagi's value-adds was collecting the appropriate tax when selling to certain countries (ie collecting and remitting VAT when selling to customers in the EU). [I'd actually recommend talking to FastSpring - they used to provide a concierge service to setup the order form for you, and they have a syste…

Seconding this recommendation. I'm a Mac developer and sell shareware, but have very little web development experience. I switched from a (pretty thrown together) implementation using Paypal to Fastspring a few years ago, and the process could not have been smoother. Fastspring was super helpful getting me set up, and I had to do very little work to get my existing (PHP) license generator integrated with their system. I've been a satisfied customer ever since.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#36

Post by stickfigure »

Nullabillity wrote: post #19
stevoski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind do a bit of coding: * Stripe * PayPal. (You want the "Express Checkout" workflow) (Hint: for increased sales offer both. Stripe is a developer's dream; adding PayPal adds perhaps 30% more sales, although YMMV) If you want someone else to take care of all the details in return for higher commission: * FastSpring (full service, heavyweight) * Paddle (streamlined, focused towards Mac and towards digita…

> Stripe is a developer's dream Unless you're using the JVM. Their Java API is so awful that it feels like you're just shelling out to cURL.

Have you tried PayPal? Stripe's Java library may be a bit simplistic but at least the fundamental API concepts are sound.

Re: Farewell Kagi

#37

Post by SyneRyder »

FoeNyx wrote: post #9
arikfr wrote: post #7

I wonder if they could sell their domain name to cover some of their debt... 4 letter .com domains are hard to come by.

And that name could certainly be of some interest for people in the security or cryptography fields (kagi meaning key in Japanese)

Indeed, the original Kagi logo played on this - if you looked at their logo upside down, it spelled Key.

http://www.naratt.com/Pictures/KagiLogo.gif

Re: Farewell Kagi

#38

Post by stryk »

veidr wrote: post #21

As I posted on the other, stillborn, HN thread[1] about this: I had been selling through these guys continuously for the past 19 years. Back when I set Kagi up to handle sales of my apps for Newton OS (1997), they were one of only a few companies offering that kind of thing, and were a familiar name to anybody who bought shareware back then. But, for me, well, I guess the Newton OS gravy train[2] is finally over! :-/…

Wow, people were still actively using Newtons? AND spending money in it's ecosystem? Well, will wonders never cease. That's incredible. I guess some folks stick with the things they like when they find them. More power to them!

Re: Farewell Kagi

#39

Post by initram »

SyneRyder wrote: post #37
FoeNyx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that name could certainly be of some interest for people in the security or cryptography fields (kagi meaning key in Japanese)

Indeed, the original Kagi logo played on this - if you looked at their logo upside down, it spelled Key. http://www.naratt.com/Pictures/KagiLogo.gif

And "Kee" was the owner's first name, as well!

Re: Farewell Kagi

#40

Post by initram »

I too used them to get my first business off the ground. I sold through them for over 5 years and always had good experiences. I met Kee and some of the staff at MacWorld 12-15 years ago and they seemed very nice. I'm sad to see them go, especially like this. They made something that would have been impossible easy at the time.
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