Seeing a lot of folks criticize the claim about needing side projects/GitHub. I think if you already have experience it doesn't matter too much, but if you have a nontraditional background/lacking experience, it is totally the difference between an offer and never hearing back. I've experienced this from both sides of the table.
But the bigger thing is generally how advanced the existing finance infra is. Lots of countries have really slow bank transfers, processing a refund requires handing in physical paperwork, etc. Stripe relies on having underlying bank infra that's somewhat functional.
As far as the EU, the regulatory environment is manageble, but the payment landscape is very different from the US where Stripe originated. For example, in Germany only around 30% of users pay for stuff online via card [https://askwonder.com/research/german-market-what-s-breakdow...], that means for every country a ton of new payment methods have to be added for the service to be actually useful.
Coverage is spotty. It's crazy how much people here underestimate the lack of willingness of many business to use these systems. I live 45 minutes away from SF and recently got a haircut at a decently popular place and it was cash only. Adoption of new technology by small businesses is really slow.
They already do this actually, but the coverage is pretty spotty. There are still restaurants that don't have websites and you're asking them to set up a digital booking system through Google. It's just not going to happen. Also, I see this tech as more of a way of training up their AIs on tasks that provide a bit of value while they wait for people to connect to the official booking APIs and such.
