I think we have to start treating this as a MOT (major ongoing topic) and do something about all these follow-ups [1]. I've delayed making this call because of the core principle that we moderate HN less when YC or a YC startup is part of a story [2]. But less does not mean not at all. At some point we have to remember the other core principles of HN moderation too, such as that repetition is bad for curiosity [3].
I don't mean that these incidents aren't real—and obviously they are super important to the users who are personally affected. But from an HN point of view, the question is "is this story new/different enough to support a substantially different discussion", and here the answer is clearly no.
Indeed. With the nice addition that now the posts are biased towards small companies that still have not figured out that going single-vendor for online payment is a terrible idea.
When it comes to Stripe, what choice do small businesses have? Tokenized Payment details are not portable, I can't take a saved debit or credit card in Stripe and slide it over to a First Data or Tsys account at whim.
I'm fine with integrating another API (hell, InvoiceNinja already supports most payment gateways), but changing processors when you rely on stored payment details is extremely risky business.
Stripe charges a premium transaction fee for being a no barrier to entry processor, but when they decide to underwrite your account and fail to do so, you end up SOL with a locked account.
1. Why is stripe a seemingly preferred payment processor for HN crowd?
2. Is there no ( edit: real ) competition or is the competition similarly bad ( or somehow worse )?
edit: Instead of replying individually, I decided to edit this section. Thank you everyone for the background(s). It does answer a lot of the questions I had. I perused their site and I can absolutely see the 'dev first' principle in play.
Once upon a time, it was like a breath of fresh air. Originally pitched as a dev-first payment API, it was vastly easier to get up and running than other options at the time. In recent years it has suffered under the weight of its own success. The simplicity and ease of use it once promised has been buried beneath a now-bloated and obtuse API. The user interface has struggled to keep up with the feature creep and it too has become a challenge to navigate and interact with. The documentation, once considered an industry-leading example of how to write and present such things, has mutated into a frustrating byzantine mess that's riddled with contradictions and obvious omissions.
As an early adopter and someone that was once very fond of this company and its approach to things, I'm disappointed to see the direction it has gone.
It's following the trend of nearly every startup ever made.
* Newcomer trying to gain traction. They'll do just about anything to make and keep customers in the name of top-line growth. This includes expensive labor and human costs.
* Grow into a successful business. Start feeling the pains of "infinite growth".
* Realizing revenue can't grow indefinitely, they start cutting costs and see how long they can ride the coat-tails of success.
* The small/cheap accounts start gaining wind that customer support sucks, so they start looking for something else. The big accounts are likely still happy since they're large enough to justify a handler who will make them happy.
* A new startup lurks in the background, likely to follow the same process.
It really just comes down to whether or not the incumbent realizes it's only a matter of time before the major accounts start leaving too.
From a development perspective, Stripe is by far the fastest/easiest to integrate with, the most featureful, and has the best documentation. As I understand it, other payment providers will often require underwriting up front before you can even begin, which can take a while.
Edit: is it just me, or does PayPal's UI kind of break, when you choose the "horizontal" layout in their integration builder? Example: https://imgur.com/a/IvBdYeI
Both of them seem to have some scary stories around them, in regards to frozen funds or closed accounts, but what are you going to do about that? For many, there aren't many options, since any of the other platforms out there are likely to have similar power over your finances if you go with them.
