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Until Stripe came to Japan, there was really only one solution to accept USD or EUR there: PayPal. The local equivalents were all JPY only. But for Tomotcha, si

by Xixi 8y ago

Until Stripe came to Japan, there was really only one solution to accept USD or EUR there: PayPal. The local equivalents were all JPY only. But for Tomotcha, since we are targeting an audience outside of Japan, we really wanted USD and EUR. The day I heard that Stripe was coming to Japan I started to harass them every few weeks to know when it was going to be ready... Conclusion: it did reshape things quite a bit on this side of the planet.

manigandham 8y ago
Seems like Paypal already changed things for you... and you just didnt use them?
dmix 8y ago
If you're non-American Stripe was indeed 'revolutionary' in a product/market sense. There literally were no good options before Stripe, even here in Canada. Braintree was okay but limited to the US (at least early on, idk now). The other options were absolutely awful in a technical and even often business sense. But that doesn't mean it 'democratized' anything. If anything it centralized the market merely by being the only good option in a market run by "MBAs" which was in desperate need of real software/design talent. Nothing wrong with greatest from pure market dominance by delivering real value to customers. Besides Stripe apparently isn't purely free and open (ie, not holding strong values outside of the purely commercial marketplace) to everyone, when they are declined services to Gab.ai unless they stop 'serving adult content' which is lawyer speak to attack them for allowing unsavoury people to exercise free speech. As bad as some Gab users are I don't think it's the payment processors place to enforce some terms of service or speech policy on their customers. As long as Gab deletes illegal content (which they claim they do) then I dont see why they shouldnt be allowed to run a service with a legitimate free speech policy.
- Hermitian909 8y ago
  Besides Stripe apparently isn't purely free and open (ie, not holding strong values outside of the purely commercial marketplace) to everyone, when they are declined services to Gab.ai unless they stop 'serving adult content' which is lawyer speak to attack them for allowing unsavoury people to exercise free speech. As bad as some Gab users are I don't think it's the payment processors place to enforce some terms of service or speech policy on their customers. As long as Gab deletes illegal content (which they claim they do) then I dont see why they shouldnt be allowed to run a service with a legitimate free speech policy. You can't really put this on stripe, a big part of how good their product is is that they hammered out contracts with everyone who provides debit/credit card services. Those some companies have been blocking payments to the sex industry for years, as well as other groups they consider unsavory (recall Visa blocked donations to wikileaks). The financial institutions involved did not give up that clout when they signed on with stripe.

by Xixi 8y ago

manigandham 8y ago

Seems like Paypal already changed things for you... and you just didnt use them?

dmix 8y ago

If you're non-American Stripe was indeed 'revolutionary' in a product/market sense. There literally were no good options before Stripe, even here in Canada. Braintree was okay but limited to the US (at least early on, idk now). The other options were absolutely awful in a technical and even often business sense. But that doesn't mean it 'democratized' anything. If anything it centralized the market merely by being the only good option in a market run by "MBAs" which was in desperate need of real software/design talent. Nothing wrong with greatest from pure market dominance by delivering real value to customers. Besides Stripe apparently isn't purely free and open (ie, not holding strong values outside of the purely commercial marketplace) to everyone, when they are declined services to Gab.ai unless they stop 'serving adult content' which is lawyer speak to attack them for allowing unsavoury people to exercise free speech. As bad as some Gab users are I don't think it's the payment processors place to enforce some terms of service or speech policy on their customers. As long as Gab deletes illegal content (which they claim they do) then I dont see why they shouldnt be allowed to run a service with a legitimate free speech policy.

Hermitian909 8y ago
Besides Stripe apparently isn't purely free and open (ie, not holding strong values outside of the purely commercial marketplace) to everyone, when they are declined services to Gab.ai unless they stop 'serving adult content' which is lawyer speak to attack them for allowing unsavoury people to exercise free speech. As bad as some Gab users are I don't think it's the payment processors place to enforce some terms of service or speech policy on their customers. As long as Gab deletes illegal content (which they claim they do) then I dont see why they shouldnt be allowed to run a service with a legitimate free speech policy. You can't really put this on stripe, a big part of how good their product is is that they hammered out contracts with everyone who provides debit/credit card services. Those some companies have been blocking payments to the sex industry for years, as well as other groups they consider unsavory (recall Visa blocked donations to wikileaks). The financial institutions involved did not give up that clout when they signed on with stripe.