I noticed a similar thing with Tuenti some years ago. I wanted to advertise something targeting only Spain and began to inquire about their ad services. They did offer advertising in their social network but it was really difficult to actually reach somebody that could help you with that (it wasn't automated, btw). After a very brief email exchange their response was pretty much "we don't care about less than a few million dollars", I was honestly surprised but eventually settled on "Well, ok, I'll just use Facebook ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
4 years into it, and they're dead meat. (Ok, they pivoted on to some kind of VoIP service with social features or whatever, so they're not technically dead yet).
Tuenti: A social network in Spain that used to enjoy a really good market share in that country.
I don't buy the "we do not know who Bansky is" meme.
The guy has had exhibitions at major museums, interventions where someone, at least police, should have allowed him to carry out his stuff without interruptions, and yet the media claims that all these things can be carried out by an anonymous player.
What surprises more is that pretty much everyone is falling for that fad.
Brazil is a sovereign country and they are free to define their legal system any way they want. Facebook needs to comply with Brazilian law, not the other way around.
If you do something illegal you should expect punishment from the law sooner or later.
"They respond quickly if you're doing $80k a month in business with them"
If I were asked to put into words Stripe's attitude towards its users I wouldn't have come with a better example. Thanks.
"PayPal has way too many caveats"
IKR, like, "setting up a merchant account in minutes".
"Why should I add a disclaimer that's already in my profile?"
Because most people here would assume that you provide an unbiased point of view and wouldn't bother to check your profile. Didn't say you were hiding that, but that's what disclaimers are for.
Btw, disclaimer: I do not work for PayPal I just settled with them and I'm okay. Also (if you're from Mexico) check out PayU (formerly DineroMail), they are really cool too because they also process "offline" payments through banks and convenience stores.
Obviously depends on your use case but with PayPal you break even at $5,000. Way lower than 80k month. And "get in touch", yeah I know what happens when you try get in touch with them.
Also consider adding: [Disclaimer: I write books about integrating Stripe with your business]
"The whole purpose of Stripe is to make basic tools for starting an internet business more broadly available and without barriers."
Well, I didn't have to publicly shame PayPal and wait for years to get invited to use their platform. So I guess they fill better the whole purpose of your company.
Stripe was appealing to me (and a whole lot of other developers) because of the developer experience you introduced back then, you kind of felt that Stripe was cool and was made with you in mind. After this experience I felt betrayed (and many others I know).
Taking a step back an evaluating all the choices I currently have Stripe is the most expensive one (no volume discounts). PayPal improved their APIs and are now easier to use, and the things you can implement with them are amazing (chained payments, subscriptions, reserved charges, preauthorizations, etc...) I know you can do some of those things with Stripe too, but not all. And your newer product has the amazing feature of being taxed on another country and then deal with double taxation schemes and all the fiscal issues that come attached?
This means nothing for me (and should also mean nothing for the targeted audience of the post).
I've been constantly ignored from Stripe since they launched their beta in Mexico (actually way before that, I subscribed years before, when Stripe launched in the US). I can't do business with them because I'm not part of their secret club, while at the same many businesses here somehow get access and start using them. That feels like some kind of unfair competition.
I know, you are going to say, they are not obliged to provide service with you, but then, after reading the kind of PR they publish (like this one) you would feel like it, at least they should be morally obliged to stand by their word.
"Stripe Atlas is invite-only to start. ... You can apply directly or get a referral from one of our partners."
Oh ok, so another secret club, and this time the gatekeepers in Mexico are some guys named Antoni and Lelo de Larrea , which for you outside of Mexico, the Larrea family are a powerful group in Mexico that came to be through corruption, government favors and pretty much all the things you usually hate from Mexico. Remember when the miners in Chile were trapped and then rescued? The same thing happened at more or less the same time in Mexico, a lot of media coverage here in Mexico, the mining company owned by them, it was relatively cheap to rescue them but they decided not to do it, they let them die because it was not worth the money. And now I have to do business with those people if I want to process my payments?
4 years into it, and they're dead meat. (Ok, they pivoted on to some kind of VoIP service with social features or whatever, so they're not technically dead yet).
Tuenti: A social network in Spain that used to enjoy a really good market share in that country.