Two things. One, I think 30% is a very high percentage to be charging for a fee, which inevitably will affect how questioners feel about paying it and the growth of your site. Second, if you don't actually charge until the transaction is ready, then few should object to paying say, $60 for a $50 question (20% fee) for an answer ready to be read.
I feel bad reading these, having spent the first 10 years of my life in Russia before it all went from shit in disguise to outright, oh-the-audacity type of shit (~1990)
But this is the rule, not the exception, and it saddens me to say that Russia's the last place I'd want to start a company.
A number of sites completely withdrew from the US (Party, Pacific, etc), either out of fear or because of their particular company's corporate setups / locations.
A few big ones remained operational for US players, the biggest being Stars and FullTilt, with the only change being refusal to accept credit cards as a deposit method. I'd venture to say millions of bank deposits have occurred since then within the US, and the legality of it all was never black and white, and certainly not enforced in any way.
I've been thinking about how I'd educate my own kids, and currently it's a tossup between the Harkness approach a la Phillips Exeter, the entirely home-schooled approach, and something like this which seems like a hybrid.
If anyone has experience with any of the above, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks Jeremy. I'll choose to post here as I didn't intend for my original comment to come off hostile, so I'll try and clarify what I meant.
The comment stemmed from frustration at the fact that, for a very long time, CL has been killing all creative efforts to improve or build on it. Mature sites used by millions shut down after years of operation, despite loud user protests[1][2], and those killed in utero[3] have been the norm. I realize that it's easy to point to the TOS and call it a day, but the TOS is neither consistent[4] nor clear.
Friends of mine are running startups that get some of their data from CL, and try to stay under the radar because of fears and uncertainties. They aren't doing anything remotely shady. To them, CL's decision to kill a site comes on a whim, and nobody really knows what's considered okay WRT the TOS and what isn't. I mean, if Craig himself can't provide a definitive answer[5], then surely you can see how this could become frustrating for developers.
I'm not used to any kind of openness coming from CL on the dev front, and your post has been the first one I've seen in that category, so I want to apologize if you caught the brunt of my frustration.
No disrespect towards you, Jeremy, you're pretty awesome in my book (literally.. my High Perf MySQL book).
But with Craigslist being the most closed-minded and developer-hating organization I've ever come across, I don't particularly give a rat's ass what it's built on.
I wish it wasn't so, because I generally love posts like this, but if a dictator's employees start giving tours of the mansion, you certainly won't find me dazzled by the motion-sensor water fountains..
"every Microsoft Tag can be read by every Tag Reader, so there is no consumer confusion"
Hah, yes, much like every ActiveX-enhanced website could have been viewed by every IE6 browser. There certainly won't be any consumer confusion, what with none of the top barcode scanning apps supporting MS Tag and all.
Ah, so easy! Only 28 steps filled with remote Linux shell commands, certificate creation, and downloaded software! I'm sure that's exactly what his wife wanted to hear when she asked how to avoid being Firesheeped.
Whatever happened to good old ssh -ND ? Wouldn't that solve 90% of most casual hotspot users' problems ? And I'd be wary suggesting even that one-liner to someone who isn't a techie, which I'm assuming his wife isn't since she asked the question.