I think this is a problem worth solving. The image on the developer page with the bank vault and with a window in in it asking the question 'why give them the keys when they just need to look in the window' is the perfect analogy.
Slightly confusing is that the homepage says the service is $1.50/month but the developer page says 'nothing to pay' and links out to an out of context refenerce to the Wikipedia page on QFX the common Quicken financial data format.
The consumer demo is an admirable conclusion, but after running the wizard my takeaway is that the consumers bank would need to support this standard and that they are aiming for something like auth tokens, envisioning a similar UI to Auth tokens on GitHub.
I think what's missing is the blog post explaining the the why of what is needed for this to be mass-adopted and why also this is the best solution to the problem.
You make great points. We'll publish such a blog post, but the gist is this:
SimpleFIN Bridge is a "bridge" between where we are today (no banks implement SimpleFIN) to where we want to be (every bank implements SimpleFIN). It costs money because of the ridiculous work involved to map all banks to a common API. Once banks do it themselves, then the Bridge goes away.
Previous versions of the page included: "The goal of this service is to not exist."
Slightly confusing is that the homepage says the service is $1.50/month but the developer page says 'nothing to pay' and links out to an out of context refenerce to the Wikipedia page on QFX the common Quicken financial data format.
The consumer demo is an admirable conclusion, but after running the wizard my takeaway is that the consumers bank would need to support this standard and that they are aiming for something like auth tokens, envisioning a similar UI to Auth tokens on GitHub.
I think what's missing is the blog post explaining the the why of what is needed for this to be mass-adopted and why also this is the best solution to the problem.