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Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#51

Post by harha »

crummy wrote: post #37
dsizzle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've signed PDFs digitally overlaying a digital version in Preview on a Mac, which is free -- for all parties. I'm not sure how much more legal wiggle room there is for that version vs Docusign. Either way, as noted, DocuSign has other features.

This is my favourite lifehack. I don't own a scanner and signing docs can be a pain without it. A very few places will reject the Preview-signed copy, wanting a hand signature, but you can filter the pages a bit (tilt slightly, add noise) and they won't know the difference.

I’ve combined it with my scan app in black-and-white setting (no shades of grey) off my screen to pass German companies that don’t accept digital signatures. (It looks like the good old fax they love and can’t replace)

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#52

Post by redthrow »

I thought an email exchange where both parties reached an agreement is a legally binding contract, even without the use any document singing apps like Docusign. Is there any jurisdiction where it isn't?

Companies use and pay for a lot of technically unnecessary things.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#54

Post by korijn »

dsizzle wrote: post #26
codingdave wrote: post #10

> legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF. IANAL, but the idea that a signature is what makes a contract legally binding is not exactly true. It is a symbol of the acceptance of the contract, but legal acceptance can take many forms - so whether you use a service to signify acceptance, or just sign it using acrobat or Adobe's site, or even just a verbal agreement... those are all valid acceptanc…

I've signed PDFs digitally overlaying a digital version in Preview on a Mac, which is free -- for all parties. I'm not sure how much more legal wiggle room there is for that version vs Docusign. Either way, as noted, DocuSign has other features.

As I understand it, it's actually the fact that docusign maintains a record in their database of you signing the document which makes the e-signature verifiable. That's what the hash in your docusign PDF refers to, so the signature can be verified, as opposed to _just_ having an image in a PDF.

Source: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-A...

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#55

Post by blaze33 »

crummy wrote: post #37
dsizzle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've signed PDFs digitally overlaying a digital version in Preview on a Mac, which is free -- for all parties. I'm not sure how much more legal wiggle room there is for that version vs Docusign. Either way, as noted, DocuSign has other features.

This is my favourite lifehack. I don't own a scanner and signing docs can be a pain without it. A very few places will reject the Preview-signed copy, wanting a hand signature, but you can filter the pages a bit (tilt slightly, add noise) and they won't know the difference.

I remember an HN post of a program doing exactly this: adding your signature to a pdf and altering the document so that it looked liked a scanned one.

Could have been handy a while later but I never managed to find this post again... It was an open source program hosted on Github FWIW.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#56

Post by yellow_lead »

elil17 wrote: post #41

If you want to e-sign lease agreements, you don’t need any special software. You can just have the signee type their name in the signature space and email the document back to you. The date of the email will be evidence of the timestamp, and the email records are commonly accepted in court. That’s just as legally binding as Docusign. The reason people use Docusign is to keep track of a large number of legal ageeement…

Right, you can even sign (drawn signature) a PDF with Acrobat or Foxit or Libre, return it over email, and it's binding.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#58

Post by sterlinm »

These are documents that you’re signing or that you’re collecting?

I use the built-in signature tool in Preview on MacOS all the time without issue.

If you’re the one collecting the documents I guess it depends on whatever the regulations are in the industry that you’re in. You might check out Docassemble. It lets you build workflows for creating documents from questionnaires. https://docassemble.org/

It can do signatures too. https://docassemble.org/docs/questions.html

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#59

Post by antjanus »

codingdave wrote: post #10

> legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF. IANAL, but the idea that a signature is what makes a contract legally binding is not exactly true. It is a symbol of the acceptance of the contract, but legal acceptance can take many forms - so whether you use a service to signify acceptance, or just sign it using acrobat or Adobe's site, or even just a verbal agreement... those are all valid acceptanc…

I really like it -- lots of legal documents I've signed over the past few years are in DocuSign. Which also means that I have easy storage for my _own_ documents. If I log in, I can see the lease I signed 3-4 years ago, the contract I signed last year, etc. etc.

Plus, yeah, you get to see if the other party signed, all the appropriate spots for signing are flagged, the entire audit trail of the document.

It's super convenient.

Also, it's cheap AF. A personal account is like $10-15 and a business account is $25-45. That's pocket change for the service you get.

EDIT: I've worked on document management software. Let me tell you that people will pay bank for document management -- without even the signing part. In any field.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#60

Post by IncRnd »

> Are there free, open source alternatives to Docusign? If so, why do more companies not use them?

Unfortunately, trust doesn't come for free. If a random, free-to-use company is used as a root-of-trust for document signing, who would trust that? It is a meaningless party to trust. There needs to be a reason to trust.

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