>their API is a little bit... bloated for simple needs
I used Stripe about 7 years ago. I used it because their APIs were simple and PayPal etc. was complex and bloated.
It seems that this cycle repeats throughout b2b startups. Is there now an opportunity to create yet another simple lightweight API but one that doesn't cover all use-cases?
Is there now an opportunity to create yet another simple lightweight API but one that doesn't cover all use-cases?
I think so.
One of my businesses has used Stripe since they launched in the UK, around the same time we were launching ourselves. Like many others, we appreciated the straightforward API, excellent documentation and easy integration. I’ve been happy to recommend Stripe personally on many occasions since then.
Recently, we were trying to update that original integration to take into account the new SCA rules that came in across the EU last weekend. Unfortunately, after reviewing Stripe’s current documentation site in its entirety and other SCA-related material, followed by a lot of discussion with Stripe’s support team, we were still struggling to understand the model of how SCA fits in with Stripe’s current API. That left us unclear about the structure that our integration needed in terms of Stripe.js, the API and webhooks. Essentially, after a lot of effort, we still didn’t really know where to start, and inevitably there came a point where it wasn’t viable to continue and we had to look at other options.
Of course Stripe has grown a lot more than we have in those intervening years and it’s understandable that their data models and APIs will have become a lot more complicated to meet the needs of their wider target audience. But sadly, the simple API, clear documentation and top-notch support that made them so attractive originally do seem to have been casualties along the way.
Given that SCA seems to be causing a lot of bother across the whole industry in Europe, to the point that several EU member states seem to be deferring its implementation because so many people aren’t ready for it despite years of advance notice, it does feel like there’s an opportunity for someone to disrupt the online card payments market in Europe now with a back-to-basics approach that is enough to meet the new regulatory requirements. One interesting question is whether it will actually be another card payment service that does so, given that a lot of other payment methods are popular in various European countries and some of them do have significant advantages including fewer complications due to SCA. We live in interesting times, as they say.
I used Stripe about 7 years ago. I used it because their APIs were simple and PayPal etc. was complex and bloated.
It seems that this cycle repeats throughout b2b startups. Is there now an opportunity to create yet another simple lightweight API but one that doesn't cover all use-cases?