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Reminds me of the whole "Just run this cURL request and a payment is made, it's that easy." messaging that Stripe used to have right at the top of their landing

Reminds me of the whole "Just run this cURL request and a payment is made, it's that easy." messaging that Stripe used to have right at the top of their landing page in the beginning, showcasing not only how easy their payments API was but also that they were a company by developers for developers. Brilliantly simple :)

Bromskloss 10y ago
Developers, developers, developers, developers, …
atonse 10y ago
I just realized what stripe has done is now I always tell clients "payments are the least of your worries" thanks to stripe. Hard to understate that sea change.
- phillc73 10y ago
  Which is true, unless your business falls in their "Prohibited" list [1]. It's quite a long and wide ranging list, which would appear to restrict many businesses from accepting Stripe payments. For example, 51. Personal computer technical support and many things to do with travel and tourism: 13. Airlines, 23. Currency exchanges or dealers, 27. Cruise lines, 49. Timeshares, 50. Centralized travel reservation services or travel clubs [1] https://stripe.com/at/prohibited-businesses https://stripe.com/at/prohibited-businesses
  - contingencies 10y ago
    I stopped recommending Stripe when they stopped accepting my card. Despite me pointing this out to them, nobody at the company has done anything concrete to fix it. Sadly, they are no longer a company by developers for developers. In addition, they are pretty useless in some regions where they do not support locally dominant payment methods.
    - tedmiston 10y ago
      Perhaps you could elaborate on the card provider or what is unique about your card.
      - contingencies 10y ago
        Did that last week to no avail, emailed a responding employee, got nowhere.
    - edwinwee 10y ago
      Hey there, I work at Stripe. I'm sorry for trouble—could you email me at edwin.wee@stripe.com and we can look into this?
      - throwaway987611 10y ago
        Are you another support drone or a manager? I have contacted the support desk many times and you guys have lackluster support. Some of the support team don't seem to grasp simple business terms, nor understand the different types of business out there. I know the devs on HN lavish you guys with praise because you are flavor of the month right now and have the mantra, by developers for developers. But honestly. You guys are a JOKE.
        atonse 10y ago
        This comment is so off base, I can only imagine it might be a sleazy competitor with a throwaway account, or the single most unlucky Stripe customer in the history of Stripe.
  - jerf 10y ago
    That list looks to me mostly like a list of things that are either scams, or that Stripe and the CC companies have perfectly Bayesian-rational reasons to believe are scams. Travel and tourism is the only one on there that strikes me as coming from CC agreements rather than that. "Personal computer technical support", for instance, is almost certainly referencing the scam where someone cold calls you and tries to explain that your computer is infected. There aren't a lot of legitimate businesses that could be called "personal computer technical support", and I suspect of the ones you may even be thinking of that Stripe may classify them differently. I imagine the mom & pop shops are classified as hardware vendors who happen to also offer services and the more serious versions of that business are "consulting". (And at that point, probably not using Stripe anyhow.)
    - throwaway987611 10y ago
      > That list looks to me mostly like a list of things that are either scams That's easy to say right? Oh it's a scam. I can't use Stripe because my business falls into the "Scam" area. Am I a scammer? No because otherwise my business would have failed years ago. I happily use another competitor. I haven't had any issues with them and since I am not a scammer, I don't foresee any either! Remember. One mans ITS A SCAM, HE'S A SCAMMER is another mans very successful business which people don't have a problem with.
      - pc86 10y ago
        It's hard to take this comment seriously if you're not using your main account and refuse to say what your business actually is.
      - jerf 10y ago
        In addition to pc86's point, my comment wasn't targeted at you personally. There are certainly businesses that will be in the Stripe exclusion set. However, I was arguing against the implication that they've got some sort of really extensive set of exclusions that lots of people will need to worry about. For all the entries on it, it's not truly that large. Mostly it's just the fact that while they need the "don't do illegal things" clause, it's way easier to exclude specific things and then tell people that they fall under that specific rule than to get into lengthy and fruitless arguments about whether or not a particular activity is legal.
  - rtpg 10y ago
    This is the list for Austria, most likely from whatever partner bank is helping their roll-out in Europe. https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses <-- US list is much more clear-cut

Bromskloss 10y ago

Developers, developers, developers, developers, …

atonse 10y ago

I just realized what stripe has done is now I always tell clients "payments are the least of your worries" thanks to stripe. Hard to understate that sea change.

phillc73 10y ago
Which is true, unless your business falls in their "Prohibited" list [1]. It's quite a long and wide ranging list, which would appear to restrict many businesses from accepting Stripe payments. For example, 51. Personal computer technical support and many things to do with travel and tourism: 13. Airlines, 23. Currency exchanges or dealers, 27. Cruise lines, 49. Timeshares, 50. Centralized travel reservation services or travel clubs [1] https://stripe.com/at/prohibited-businesses https://stripe.com/at/prohibited-businesses
- contingencies 10y ago
  I stopped recommending Stripe when they stopped accepting my card. Despite me pointing this out to them, nobody at the company has done anything concrete to fix it. Sadly, they are no longer a company by developers for developers. In addition, they are pretty useless in some regions where they do not support locally dominant payment methods.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    Perhaps you could elaborate on the card provider or what is unique about your card.
    - contingencies 10y ago
      Did that last week to no avail, emailed a responding employee, got nowhere.
  - edwinwee 10y ago
    Hey there, I work at Stripe. I'm sorry for trouble—could you email me at edwin.wee@stripe.com and we can look into this?
    - throwaway987611 10y ago
      Are you another support drone or a manager? I have contacted the support desk many times and you guys have lackluster support. Some of the support team don't seem to grasp simple business terms, nor understand the different types of business out there. I know the devs on HN lavish you guys with praise because you are flavor of the month right now and have the mantra, by developers for developers. But honestly. You guys are a JOKE.
      - atonse 10y ago
        This comment is so off base, I can only imagine it might be a sleazy competitor with a throwaway account, or the single most unlucky Stripe customer in the history of Stripe.
- jerf 10y ago
  That list looks to me mostly like a list of things that are either scams, or that Stripe and the CC companies have perfectly Bayesian-rational reasons to believe are scams. Travel and tourism is the only one on there that strikes me as coming from CC agreements rather than that. "Personal computer technical support", for instance, is almost certainly referencing the scam where someone cold calls you and tries to explain that your computer is infected. There aren't a lot of legitimate businesses that could be called "personal computer technical support", and I suspect of the ones you may even be thinking of that Stripe may classify them differently. I imagine the mom & pop shops are classified as hardware vendors who happen to also offer services and the more serious versions of that business are "consulting". (And at that point, probably not using Stripe anyhow.)
  - throwaway987611 10y ago
    > That list looks to me mostly like a list of things that are either scams That's easy to say right? Oh it's a scam. I can't use Stripe because my business falls into the "Scam" area. Am I a scammer? No because otherwise my business would have failed years ago. I happily use another competitor. I haven't had any issues with them and since I am not a scammer, I don't foresee any either! Remember. One mans ITS A SCAM, HE'S A SCAMMER is another mans very successful business which people don't have a problem with.
    - pc86 10y ago
      It's hard to take this comment seriously if you're not using your main account and refuse to say what your business actually is.
    - jerf 10y ago
      In addition to pc86's point, my comment wasn't targeted at you personally. There are certainly businesses that will be in the Stripe exclusion set. However, I was arguing against the implication that they've got some sort of really extensive set of exclusions that lots of people will need to worry about. For all the entries on it, it's not truly that large. Mostly it's just the fact that while they need the "don't do illegal things" clause, it's way easier to exclude specific things and then tell people that they fall under that specific rule than to get into lengthy and fruitless arguments about whether or not a particular activity is legal.
- rtpg 10y ago
  This is the list for Austria, most likely from whatever partner bank is helping their roll-out in Europe. https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses https://stripe.com/us/prohibited-businesses <-- US list is much more clear-cut