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Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

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Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#71

Post by the88doctor »

varispeed wrote: post #27
grose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that we have to complain on social media to get an actual human response to this kind of thing. If Stripe decides to reverse their decision, I'll leave it up, but it will remain open source.

It's a shame there is no regulation protecting small business from these practices. It shouldn't be legal for a big corporation to shut down someone's business on a whim.

Sadly, not only is it legal, but it is incentivized. Financial service providers have enormous civil and criminal liability by tech company standards, and some regulations require them to use "risk-based" approaches to decline service to clients. The legal consequences of shutting out innocent small businesses are essentially nothing compared to the consequences of allowing a single criminal or terrorist to use their service.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#72

Post by jacquesm »

karlshea wrote: post #39
edwinwee wrote: post #23

Sorry about this. I work at Stripe — could you email me at edwin@stripe.com and we can dig into this further?

Why is it so hard to fix your processes instead of relying on the HN Support Forum for the privileged few that know it’s an option?

Because at $5 MRR any time Stripe spends on this translates into a loss for them. But it's good PR so they should solve it anyway. Realize that operating a business like Stripe at scale is a lot harder than it may seem to be on the outside.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#73

Post by jacquesm »

grose wrote: post #62
ryanmcdonough wrote: post #55

"think Google Play Music, except we won't disappear. currently in early access." You can't just give up at the first sign of a payment issue, otherwise you're no better than google ;)

You're right :). Let's say inter.tube is not dead after all. I'll leave it up and try and figure something out. I'm willing to eat the charges while we figure it out (it's also very cheap to run -- I prioritized cheapness in the design).

If it helps you to keep it afloat I'm willing to offset some or all of your costs depending on how high those are.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#74

Post by pencablecoffee »

nolok wrote: post #16

Instead of closing your service, may I recommend switching to payplug.com ? Started as a small smartup, now bought by a french main bank chain but has english documentation, very clean API, easy to get support, low fees. Easily handle refunds, payment link, payment page integrated or separate, 3D Secure, subscription/recurring payment, etc etc ... Been using them for a few companies the past year and a half, and migr…

This is very relevant to my immediate needs. I just posted a question to Ask HN seeking advice on this topic and hadn’t heard of payplug. Do you have any experience with them as part of a multi-vendor marketplace product?

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#75

Post by AnthonyMouse »

varispeed wrote: post #27
grose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that we have to complain on social media to get an actual human response to this kind of thing. If Stripe decides to reverse their decision, I'll leave it up, but it will remain open source.

It's a shame there is no regulation protecting small business from these practices. It shouldn't be legal for a big corporation to shut down someone's business on a whim.

The regulations in practice do the opposite. Customers can easily issue charge backs, which puts the cost of fraud on the payment processor, which makes them too aggressive with the big red button. It costs them less to vaporize a small business than for their fraud prevention system to have a false negative.

The right way to fix this is for something like Zelle to get a standardized payment request API. Then the merchant submits a payment request using the customer's email address (the only information the merchant needs from them, so no data breaches), and payments go through irreversibly if they haven't been contested in 30 days, or immediately if the customer affirmatively legitimates the payment on their bank's website/app because the merchant needs to be paid before delivering goods or services. (And payment requests from merchants the customer has never used before get denied after 30 days if not affirmatively legitimated.)

That also removes the credit card fees because it's really a bank transfer.

But where is it?

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#77

Post by nolok »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #60
nolok wrote: post #16

Instead of closing your service, may I recommend switching to payplug.com ? Started as a small smartup, now bought by a french main bank chain but has english documentation, very clean API, easy to get support, low fees. Easily handle refunds, payment link, payment page integrated or separate, 3D Secure, subscription/recurring payment, etc etc ... Been using them for a few companies the past year and a half, and migr…

> "no bullsh*t about random overnight account closure..." Is it possible to predict this in advance? Can't these companies just do it any old time they feel like it? There's always a first. Or is there good regulation in France?

I would say it's mostly the attitude, it's just a very different way to view things and to have a relation with your payment processor ; where there is an issue my experience has been that they talk to you to find a solution together, which may be higher fees or some options and controls becoming mandatory for your account, rather than throwing you away to avoid being stained like Paypal is known for and Stripe is more and more moving toward (again, my opinion).

In terms of regulation though, short of explicit chargeback or disputed charges, they will never hold your money hostage.

Which is why I added that they're already backed and owned by a major bank, so it's not at risk of changing overnight after being acquired. For reference they exist since 2012 and have over 16k merchant account, including some big names in France (Veepee, Lastminute.com, ...) including some big names in business I feel like Stripe wouldn't touch (Dorcel store / adult toys and movies, Winamax and Pokerstar / online betting and poker, ...).

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#78

Post by m00dy »

grose wrote: post #70

UPDATE 2: My Stripe account is back! Thank you so much! inter.tube will remain online, but open source from now on! Update: I have reached out to the nice Stripe employee who volunteered their email, let's see what happens. It's been pointed out a few times that my marketing says the site won't die, and me killing it would be very ironic. This is 100% true, and I have decided to leave the site up even if Stripe decid…

[flagged]

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#79

Post by grose »

jacquesm wrote: post #69
grose wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. My MRR is $5 currently, peaked at around $40. I'm far too small for Stripe to care about me. I was running this as a passion project. I'm not sure how to even get an account manager (does it just happen if you become big enough to matter?)

At an MRR like that I wonder why you even bother with the payment service. It seems like a giant barrier to entry if it isn't making money anyway. Or do you use it to limit the influx?

Honestly good question. Mostly I do it to discourage abuse. I configured the infrastructure so that it should always break even if people fully utilize their storage. But this project would probably be more suited to use something like Patreon (assuming it's OK with their ToS!). I'm open to alternative ideas for sure.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe killed my music locker service, so I'm open sourcing it

#80

Post by lylejantzi3rd »

jacquesm wrote: post #72
karlshea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so hard to fix your processes instead of relying on the HN Support Forum for the privileged few that know it’s an option?

Because at $5 MRR any time Stripe spends on this translates into a loss for them. But it's good PR so they should solve it anyway. Realize that operating a business like Stripe at scale is a lot harder than it may seem to be on the outside.

The catch-22 here is that it doesn't become good PR for them until the customer posts a complaint on social media. If Stripe solved it privately and then released a press release, people would accuse them of either lying or being manipulative, and there goes their good PR.
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