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They also reportedly shutdown Subscribe Star recently, when people started to use it instead of Patreon, in the wake of the Patreon banning of some prominent Yo

They also reportedly shutdown Subscribe Star recently, when people started to use it instead of Patreon, in the wake of the Patreon banning of some prominent You Tuber. This isn't working. The free market doesn't seem to work well in the tech world, where we have all powerfull monopolies controlling what we say, what we know and what we buy. We need new laws.

indigochill 8y ago
Can you expand on this line of reasoning a bit? Specifically, what's stopping a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? They have a majority market share now, but disruption still seems a possibility. Often it seems would-be disruptors get bought by the goliaths, but that's on the owners of the disruptors making their company purchasable such as through accepting investor money. On the flip side, if we did get new laws, why would the goliaths not use their country-size budgets to lobby for the laws to just ensconce them as the government-approved monopoly (maybe not directly, but for example by throwing up legislative barriers to entry against would-be competitors)?
- marcinzm 8y ago
  >Specifically, what's stopping a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? There's already regulations (or industry rules) regarding money laundering, credit card processing, credit card charge backs, international money transfers, etc, etc. That alone creates a decent barrier to entry. Then there's other issues such as merchants lying, customers lying, refunds, stolen accounts, etc. PayPal closes accounts (and so on) as a consequence of trying to deal with all these issues. I'd posit that PayPal does not suck because it's PayPal but because of the product itself and anyone who tried to fully replicate it would run into the same issues (and thus suck just as much).
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Gee, if it’s that easy to find a new payment processor when Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Stripe and four others all drop you on the same day SubscribeStar should have a new payment processor by now. They don’t. It’s been three weeks. No member of the payment processing cartel will touch you if MasterVisa won’t because then they’ll get you cut off. https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s... Long twitter thread on the relation between MasterCard, Visa and Patreon and how the credit card cartel is attempting to minimise political risk.
- michaelt 8y ago
  Specifically, what's stopping a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? Perhaps being a payment processor is actually difficult, and Paypal is doing a tolerably good job? I only hear people bitching about their paypal account being locked once or twice a year, whereas I assume paypal deal with hundreds of attempts at credit card fraud, chargebacks, complaints about ebay goods and suchlike every day.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    Oh, they deal with it. But always on terms favorible to them. I sold off inventory to my old CoLo and they froze all my funds for 6 months until lawyers got called, and somehow their fraud investigation magically vanished. They are no better than mafia.
- outoftheabyss 8y ago
  Paypal relies heavily on mastercard and visa to process payments, if these companies refuse to play ball with a competitor (which I would say is incredibly likely given the cosy relationship these companies have) then what chance does a competitor have? Merely being usable is in Visa and master card's hands, let alone eating into any marketshare
- zarkov99 8y ago
  Others comments have addressed the difficulties with creating a PayPal alternative. New laws would be vulnerable to corruption, yes, of course, but that is not a new problem and there are mechanisms to fight it. As things stand now we are fast and sleeply sliding back to the Rober Baron times as more and more of our lives are gated by a handfull of players.
conanthe 8y ago
What free market are you talking about? There is no free market in the financial sector. Everything is regulated and licensed.
qeternity 8y ago
> They also reportedly shutdown Subscribe Star recently, when people started to use it instead of Patreon, in the wake of the Patreon banning of some prominent You Tuber. This isn't working. The free market doesn't seem to work well in the tech world, where we have all powerfull monopolies controlling what we say, what we know and what we buy. We need new laws. This is not what a "free market" means. Paypal is not remotely a monopoly, nor is Patreon.
- Tehnix 8y ago
  MasterCard and Visa are though. If you note elsewhere in the thread, it’s basically on their request that a lot of people have been banned.
  - briandear 8y ago
    However, sites could accept IBAN transfers, Diner’s Club, Bank drafts, Amex, Discover, JCB, Apple Pay (Apple Pay Cash)... People could even use Transferwise. The are a lot of ways to not have to accept MC or Visa.
    - Tehnix 8y ago
      That's about as real an alternative as if I said you could just send me a mail instead of sending me an email. > IBAN transfers...Transferwise Obviously incredibly slow and a lot of work. > Diner’s Club, Amex, Discover, JCB Haven't seen these in Europe. > Apple Pay (Apple Pay Cash) Limited to banks that support it. In e.g. Denmark, that's only two of the minor ones, meaning far from the majority of people.
      - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        You haven't seen AMEX in Europe? I've had one for years and used it all over Europe with zero problems whatsoever.
        prepend 8y ago
nkkollaw 8y ago
I don't know if we need new laws. We need more competitors, for sure. Jordan Peterson (if you know him) has partnered to solve the problem of PayPal and Patreon deplatforming people, and is starting a competing service that doesn't depend on traditional payment circuits. No one knows much about how it will work, but it might prove to be a good alternative to avoid being at the mercy of these companies.
- zarkov99 8y ago
  For some reason, perhaps that they traffic in information, which is cheaply duplicated, perhaps because of network effects, tech businesses seem more prone to generate giant, seemingly invincible monopolies. Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Paypal, Youtube. Most people wouldn't be able to name a competitor to any of these, let alone use it. I do not know if competition, as is possible today, can work.
  - nkkollaw 8y ago
    Sure, but Patreon is for a small group of people. Meaning, the mass audience goes there because a small group of creators told them that's how they can support them. If that small group of creators finds a better alternative, and tells their audience to support them at the alternative rather than Patreon, they will go there. SubscribeStar was enjoying a good amount of success as a Patreon alternative once a few users who got banned move to it, (but then PayPal cut SubscribeStar off). Only time can tell.
    - zarkov99 8y ago
      If the payment processors are really who is behind the Patreon/SubscribeStar debacle, which certainly seems to be the case, then short of bitcoin, which is a horrible solution, how can a Patreon competitor do any better?
      - nkkollaw 8y ago
        No idea! Maybe they'll be a middleman for Bitcoin. We have to wait and see.

indigochill 8y ago

Can you expand on this line of reasoning a bit? Specifically, what's stopping a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? They have a majority market share now, but disruption still seems a possibility. Often it seems would-be disruptors get bought by the goliaths, but that's on the owners of the disruptors making their company purchasable such as through accepting investor money. On the flip side, if we did get new laws, why would the goliaths not use their country-size budgets to lobby for the laws to just ensconce them as the government-approved monopoly (maybe not directly, but for example by throwing up legislative barriers to entry against would-be competitors)?

marcinzm 8y ago
>Specifically, what's stopping a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? There's already regulations (or industry rules) regarding money laundering, credit card processing, credit card charge backs, international money transfers, etc, etc. That alone creates a decent barrier to entry. Then there's other issues such as merchants lying, customers lying, refunds, stolen accounts, etc. PayPal closes accounts (and so on) as a consequence of trying to deal with all these issues. I'd posit that PayPal does not suck because it's PayPal but because of the product itself and anyone who tried to fully replicate it would run into the same issues (and thus suck just as much).
barry-cotter 8y ago
Gee, if it’s that easy to find a new payment processor when Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Stripe and four others all drop you on the same day SubscribeStar should have a new payment processor by now. They don’t. It’s been three weeks. No member of the payment processing cartel will touch you if MasterVisa won’t because then they’ll get you cut off. https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s... Long twitter thread on the relation between MasterCard, Visa and Patreon and how the credit card cartel is attempting to minimise political risk.
michaelt 8y ago
Specifically, what's stopping a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? Perhaps being a payment processor is actually difficult, and Paypal is doing a tolerably good job? I only hear people bitching about their paypal account being locked once or twice a year, whereas I assume paypal deal with hundreds of attempts at credit card fraud, chargebacks, complaints about ebay goods and suchlike every day.
- justtopost 8y ago
  Oh, they deal with it. But always on terms favorible to them. I sold off inventory to my old CoLo and they froze all my funds for 6 months until lawyers got called, and somehow their fraud investigation magically vanished. They are no better than mafia.
outoftheabyss 8y ago
Paypal relies heavily on mastercard and visa to process payments, if these companies refuse to play ball with a competitor (which I would say is incredibly likely given the cosy relationship these companies have) then what chance does a competitor have? Merely being usable is in Visa and master card's hands, let alone eating into any marketshare
zarkov99 8y ago
Others comments have addressed the difficulties with creating a PayPal alternative. New laws would be vulnerable to corruption, yes, of course, but that is not a new problem and there are mechanisms to fight it. As things stand now we are fast and sleeply sliding back to the Rober Baron times as more and more of our lives are gated by a handfull of players.

conanthe 8y ago

What free market are you talking about? There is no free market in the financial sector. Everything is regulated and licensed.

qeternity 8y ago

> They also reportedly shutdown Subscribe Star recently, when people started to use it instead of Patreon, in the wake of the Patreon banning of some prominent You Tuber. This isn't working. The free market doesn't seem to work well in the tech world, where we have all powerfull monopolies controlling what we say, what we know and what we buy. We need new laws. This is not what a "free market" means. Paypal is not remotely a monopoly, nor is Patreon.

Tehnix 8y ago
MasterCard and Visa are though. If you note elsewhere in the thread, it’s basically on their request that a lot of people have been banned.
- briandear 8y ago
  However, sites could accept IBAN transfers, Diner’s Club, Bank drafts, Amex, Discover, JCB, Apple Pay (Apple Pay Cash)... People could even use Transferwise. The are a lot of ways to not have to accept MC or Visa.
  - Tehnix 8y ago
    That's about as real an alternative as if I said you could just send me a mail instead of sending me an email. > IBAN transfers...Transferwise Obviously incredibly slow and a lot of work. > Diner’s Club, Amex, Discover, JCB Haven't seen these in Europe. > Apple Pay (Apple Pay Cash) Limited to banks that support it. In e.g. Denmark, that's only two of the minor ones, meaning far from the majority of people.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      You haven't seen AMEX in Europe? I've had one for years and used it all over Europe with zero problems whatsoever.
      - prepend 8y ago

nkkollaw 8y ago

I don't know if we need new laws. We need more competitors, for sure. Jordan Peterson (if you know him) has partnered to solve the problem of PayPal and Patreon deplatforming people, and is starting a competing service that doesn't depend on traditional payment circuits. No one knows much about how it will work, but it might prove to be a good alternative to avoid being at the mercy of these companies.

zarkov99 8y ago
For some reason, perhaps that they traffic in information, which is cheaply duplicated, perhaps because of network effects, tech businesses seem more prone to generate giant, seemingly invincible monopolies. Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Paypal, Youtube. Most people wouldn't be able to name a competitor to any of these, let alone use it. I do not know if competition, as is possible today, can work.
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  Sure, but Patreon is for a small group of people. Meaning, the mass audience goes there because a small group of creators told them that's how they can support them. If that small group of creators finds a better alternative, and tells their audience to support them at the alternative rather than Patreon, they will go there. SubscribeStar was enjoying a good amount of success as a Patreon alternative once a few users who got banned move to it, (but then PayPal cut SubscribeStar off). Only time can tell.
  - zarkov99 8y ago
    If the payment processors are really who is behind the Patreon/SubscribeStar debacle, which certainly seems to be the case, then short of bitcoin, which is a horrible solution, how can a Patreon competitor do any better?
    - nkkollaw 8y ago
      No idea! Maybe they'll be a middleman for Bitcoin. We have to wait and see.