
Introducing Increment subscriptions - rolivercoffee
https://stripe.com/gb/blog/increment-subscriptions
======
reaperducer
People have been saying "print is dead" for almost a century now, and somehow
it hasn't happened.

I read an article a couple of months ago which stated that magazine
subscriptions are up, and so is printed catalog distribution and sales from
those catalogs.

Anecdotally, subscribing to Apple News only whetted my wife's appetite for the
printed versions of the magazines she sees on her iPhone. She's since
subscribed to the print versions of three of them.

We were at the rodeo one day and one of the magazines had a booth. I mentioned
to the people from the magazine that my wife subscribed to their publication
because of Apple News, and they said they hear that a lot.

Of course, I've also read that some publishers are not happy with the revenue
cut they get from Apple News, so perhaps its not right for every publisher.

~~~
bradstewart
Agreed. Also anecdotally, but I feel the same way with photographs. While
digital photos are amazing and I never want to go back, I also really, really
enjoy printed albums. Especially for photos of a trip or special event. I find
it way easier to capture, remember, and re-tell the story by flipping through
a book.

~~~
detaro
That's something I often tell people a bit unmotivated with their photography:
Go and get some of your images printed! It's surprising how much of a
difference it can make.

~~~
marvindanig
But isn't that sending them towards pulping and effectively killing the very
nature that inspires their photography in the first place?

~~~
bradstewart
Paper is not effectively killing nature. Especially in the US, which is home
to one of the largest paper-producing regions in the world.

Nearly (if not actually) all of the pulp required for paper comes from managed
forests grown and harvested specifically to produce wood products over time.
These tree farms are stable, not shrinking.

~~~
marvindanig
well, that’s not true.

“managed forests” produce high amounts of waste and take away arable land and
natural habitat quite aggressively [1]. what you have said here is a common
propaganda perpetrated by industry advocates on the web and is often passed on
as gyan without any scientific basis or authentic study or source to back it
up.

hell, even critical thinking is missing when people write comments like this!

kind of like lobsters were cheap prison food in 1800s story:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/emcx69/the_history...](https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/emcx69/the_history_of_lobster_canning_aka_lobsters_were/)

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_pape...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_paper)

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101008
Unrelated: I do a digital magazine too, people can download the PDF. I'd love
to give the people to opportunity to buy a printed copy if they want to (and
maybe do some profit on the side). I think that's a good SaaS idea: upload
your magazine in PDF and let the startup do everything, from pritning to
shipping, and get a cut on that.

~~~
ergl
This is mostly what Blurb ([https://www.blurb.com](https://www.blurb.com))
does!

~~~
wilde
Blurb is amazing! They printed a photo book that I gave to my fiancée when I
proposed. Top quality printing and an easy to use app to create the book.

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mchusma
Please introduce core missing features to billing and payments first before
print magazine subscriptions.

The most obvious one to me: allow people to test their applications in
production. Allow them to generate a temporary fake card number, expiration,
and cv2 that Stipe can authorize as if it is real.

Allow you to generate and expire it from the console and via the API.

We had people on stripe's support team for 6 months tell us we can't test in
production on real cards. We didn't want to, but we do have to test production
check out flows, and currently the only way to do it is with real cards.

Someone senior finally told us "of course everyone tests production, you have
to. Just nobody likes it. "

I would put out a call for at least 10 to 100 customer requested features
first before a print magazine.

I think it's been almost 5 years since stripe has introduced a feature we
actually wanted. I'm not trying to be a troll, but this super obvious payment
testing thing really bothers me because 100% of customers who build apps for
payments should be using it. And it's not built.

~~~
sudhirj
Aside from Stripe not doing what customers are asking for, there are very good
reasons why fake cards in production is a really bad idea:

* the fake cards can leak, and your customers can start using them on your site. I'm not sure how you want to handle this. If this is production your code shouldn't have to be checking for card number patterns, and since you don't get the full card number anyway, I'm not even sure how you would.

* Part of your bookkeeping is that all production transactions are reported as income, both to your CPA and to the IRS / tax authority of your country. You're going to have a major headache trying to explain what's going on to the auditors. These fake transactions will forever be part of your audit trail.

* It'll screw up your reporting - your analytics, revenue, churn rate etc will be artificial, and you'll have a hard time getting people to trust them the moment it's even possible to fake those numbers with test cards.

We have a ticketing system, and yes we do use our own cards to buy low value
stuff on production. We then trigger the normal return / complaint flows to
get actual refunds back (Stripe doesn't charge you anything for refunds), so
it's really no skin off anyone's back, and it does properly test both your
purchase and refund flows fully.

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spamizbad
I think more companies should create zines. But maybe not be so corporate
about it.. like this... be more authentic. Very powerful culture building tool
tho IMO.

~~~
GrayTextIsTruth
Could you elaborate on what makes these feel corporate? The design seems
really modern and polished to me.

~~~
spamizbad
"really modern and polished" strikes my tastes as corporate in the world of
zines. Just my opinion tho, not trying to gatekeep.

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tw1010
Curious: Do people find value in reading increment? I've tried reading it a
few times but have often found it to be too many words for too little deep
insight. Would love to be convinced otherwise though.

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GrayTextIsTruth
Can anyone speak to the quality of the articles? Thinking about subscribing
using my company’s “education allowance”.

~~~
mrala
You can see for yourself, the articles are free to read online:
[https://increment.com/](https://increment.com/)

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anant90
I wonder how many great marketing opportunities/channels are written off
because they seem to deviate from the values of focus or frugality? And
inversely, how many distractions are hiding under the cover of unconventional
marketing? I genuinely don't know.

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brenden2
Airbnb did something like this back when I worked there. Not sure what came of
it. I do remember seeing some copies of it sitting on coffee tables throughout
the office.

~~~
atestu
It's still going, I see it on newsstands

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paxys
I have seen so many of these magazines floating around I assumed there was a
subscription already.

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vageli
Is it just me or is it somewhat humorous that the checkout uses Shopify and
not stripe?

~~~
srehnborg
I believe, Shopify ultimately uses Stripe for the payment gateway.

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randall
Man I wish they had a Kindle edition. Would so subscribe.

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marvindanig
Yucks, more dead-tree printing. So much for the 'cradle of innovation' from
Silicon Valley, lol.

~~~
mc32
Trees for paper are specifically grown to produce paper pulp. They’re not
cutting down virgin forest.

You could argue it’s pretty monocultural but otherwise I don’t see much of s
problem with it.

~~~
ceejayoz
The overall manufacturing process pollutes quite a bit, doesn't it?

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edwinwee
(I work at Stripe.) We've made sure the process is carbon-neutral from forest
to page. (And the paper itself is certified by the Forest Stewardship
Council.)

~~~
ceejayoz
That's great, but paper's _pollution_ footprint is far larger than mere
_carbon_ output. There's so much focus on climate change that people forget a
bucket of mercury is carbon-neutral but still not great to pour in a lake.

Someone elsewhere in the discussion asks for a Kindle edition; that'd be a
great way to keep unnecessary paper down.

~~~
reaperducer
Strip mine the land for more minerals for more never-decomposing plastic
devices with chemical batteries?

I'd rather have the dead trees, thanks.

~~~
ceejayoz
I read my Kindle content on the smartphone I already own.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

