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UPDATE 2: My Stripe account is back! Thank you so much! inter.tube will remain online, but open source from now on! Update: I have reached out to the nice Stri

by grose 3y ago

UPDATE 2: My Stripe account is back! Thank you so much! inter.tube will remain online, but open source from now on! Update: I have reached out to the nice Stripe employee who volunteered their email, let's see what happens. It's been pointed out a few times that my marketing says the site won't die, and me killing it would be very ironic. This is 100% true, and I have decided to leave the site up even if Stripe decides to ultimately close my account. Luckily, our infrastructure costs are very low (<$5 month currently). I created this site when Google Play Music went down and lots of people were complaining about Google killing yet another product. I don't want to do the same thing to my users. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to plug a similar service that I am completely unrelated to. I saw its author post on HN and they seem like they are also a one-man-shop: https://asti.ga https://asti.ga This service is different in that it lets you hook it up to your own cloud storage. I am only now realizing why this is such a brilliant idea.

m00dy 3y ago
[flagged]
- retrocryptid 3y ago
  Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
  - m00dy 3y ago
    I'm a messenger of the invoker.
    - retrocryptid 3y ago
      THE INVOKER HAS SPOKEN.
Kelteseth 3y ago
So Hackernews is once again the only way to truly get proper stripe support?
- dimgl 3y ago
  This is actually really concerning at this point.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    As they grow, it will become like google - even willing employees helpless to escalate internally
- xuki 3y ago
  I'm just happy to be in an exclusive club that can request stripe support on demand.
  - civilitty 3y ago
    There's a 2016 cutoff unfortunately. Anyone joining after that date does not get the premium HN VIP support package. Our messages go to /dev/null with the rest of the plebs.
    - noSyncCloud 3y ago
      And those of us who recycle our social media accounts routinely are just SOL.
    - SergeAx 3y ago
      What exact date of 2016 we are talking here?
      - civilitty 3y ago
        September 13, 2016 when sama became president of YC Group.
jytechdevops 3y ago
happy to hear it worked out and that other users have provided some great options other than going straight to OS(ing) it. best of luck on your future.
subhro 3y ago
One thing I would strongly recommend. GET OFF STRIPE. Talk to a proper bank like USBank or Chase. It is not hard to integrate with their payment processor. They WILL send you through proper underwriting and will have your back. At least they had and continues to have mine with a firearms business. Let me be also very clear. When you are going through underwriting, you will feel at times that this was a colossally bad idea, but it pays off its trouble in gold.
- rexreed 3y ago
  What tech do you use to integrate it with your apps? Especially ones that seem to greatly prefer Stripe? Chase has been a solid bank for us but I'd like to not mix my payment processor and bank in case things go south. What are your rates? Do you have to pay monthly gateway fees or minimums? How long did the underwriting process take and what were the major headaches?
  - subhro 3y ago
    My web store runs WooCommerce and there are multiple plugins maintained by the processor that makes the payment processing seamless. They also provide SDKs for many popular frameworks for the integration. Rate wise, I pay about 2.8% + 0.15c. Obviously different mechanisms (dipped vs typed vs internet) have different rates. There are no monthly gateway fees. The underwriting took about 3 weeks, but again I was very prompt in answering followup questions. I did not feel any additional headaches that I already did not anticipate due to the underwriting process. They did ask for a lot of documentation (that I totally expected them to ask and in my opinion is very relevant), licensing and such but again I am operating in a VERY regulated industry. They did want some clarification of business processes since they were not 100% familiar with selling guns online and in person. But I will say, they were very interested in understanding my requirements and help me do things according to the published laws and guidelines. Feel free to write to me at my hn_username at 80386 dot org if you want to chat. I would love to help with this if you are interested. You do not need to mix your bank and payment processor. For example, my credit/debit card stack is USBank + Elavon but I bank with Navy Federal. I don't even have a checking account with USBank.
dangravell 3y ago
Thanks very much for mentioning Astiga. I am the 'author' you mention, but I only just saw this because I only consume HN via Hacker Daily, so I'm a day behind. When I saw your headline though, I almost choked on my coffee. We use Stripe too, but as you mention we aren't a locker, we just connect to the user's pre-existing cloud storage (including self hosted if you have that Internet accessible). That said these kind of corporate decrees are often pretty unsubtle and we could easily get caught up in this. I've had enough "policy" nightmares with Paypal and Google to instill a sense of dread when these black box titans change their mind about something and expect you to dance to their tune. > This service is different in that it lets you hook it up to your own cloud storage. I am only now realizing why this is such a brilliant idea. I should mention it's not my idea originally - I purchased the service almost two years ago from this guy: https://koenvh.nl/en/ https://koenvh.nl/en/ . Funny story really: https://community.asti.ga/discussion/378/astigas-new-owner https://community.asti.ga/discussion/378/astigas-new-owner

by grose 3y ago

m00dy 3y ago

[flagged]

retrocryptid 3y ago
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
- m00dy 3y ago
  I'm a messenger of the invoker.
  - retrocryptid 3y ago
    THE INVOKER HAS SPOKEN.

Kelteseth 3y ago

So Hackernews is once again the only way to truly get proper stripe support?

dimgl 3y ago
This is actually really concerning at this point.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  As they grow, it will become like google - even willing employees helpless to escalate internally
xuki 3y ago
I'm just happy to be in an exclusive club that can request stripe support on demand.
- civilitty 3y ago
  There's a 2016 cutoff unfortunately. Anyone joining after that date does not get the premium HN VIP support package. Our messages go to /dev/null with the rest of the plebs.
  - noSyncCloud 3y ago
    And those of us who recycle our social media accounts routinely are just SOL.
  - SergeAx 3y ago
    What exact date of 2016 we are talking here?
    - civilitty 3y ago
      September 13, 2016 when sama became president of YC Group.

jytechdevops 3y ago

happy to hear it worked out and that other users have provided some great options other than going straight to OS(ing) it. best of luck on your future.

subhro 3y ago

One thing I would strongly recommend. GET OFF STRIPE. Talk to a proper bank like USBank or Chase. It is not hard to integrate with their payment processor. They WILL send you through proper underwriting and will have your back. At least they had and continues to have mine with a firearms business. Let me be also very clear. When you are going through underwriting, you will feel at times that this was a colossally bad idea, but it pays off its trouble in gold.

rexreed 3y ago
What tech do you use to integrate it with your apps? Especially ones that seem to greatly prefer Stripe? Chase has been a solid bank for us but I'd like to not mix my payment processor and bank in case things go south. What are your rates? Do you have to pay monthly gateway fees or minimums? How long did the underwriting process take and what were the major headaches?
- subhro 3y ago
  My web store runs WooCommerce and there are multiple plugins maintained by the processor that makes the payment processing seamless. They also provide SDKs for many popular frameworks for the integration. Rate wise, I pay about 2.8% + 0.15c. Obviously different mechanisms (dipped vs typed vs internet) have different rates. There are no monthly gateway fees. The underwriting took about 3 weeks, but again I was very prompt in answering followup questions. I did not feel any additional headaches that I already did not anticipate due to the underwriting process. They did ask for a lot of documentation (that I totally expected them to ask and in my opinion is very relevant), licensing and such but again I am operating in a VERY regulated industry. They did want some clarification of business processes since they were not 100% familiar with selling guns online and in person. But I will say, they were very interested in understanding my requirements and help me do things according to the published laws and guidelines. Feel free to write to me at my hn_username at 80386 dot org if you want to chat. I would love to help with this if you are interested. You do not need to mix your bank and payment processor. For example, my credit/debit card stack is USBank + Elavon but I bank with Navy Federal. I don't even have a checking account with USBank.

dangravell 3y ago

Thanks very much for mentioning Astiga. I am the 'author' you mention, but I only just saw this because I only consume HN via Hacker Daily, so I'm a day behind. When I saw your headline though, I almost choked on my coffee. We use Stripe too, but as you mention we aren't a locker, we just connect to the user's pre-existing cloud storage (including self hosted if you have that Internet accessible). That said these kind of corporate decrees are often pretty unsubtle and we could easily get caught up in this. I've had enough "policy" nightmares with Paypal and Google to instill a sense of dread when these black box titans change their mind about something and expect you to dance to their tune. > This service is different in that it lets you hook it up to your own cloud storage. I am only now realizing why this is such a brilliant idea. I should mention it's not my idea originally - I purchased the service almost two years ago from this guy: https://koenvh.nl/en/ https://koenvh.nl/en/ . Funny story really: https://community.asti.ga/discussion/378/astigas-new-owner https://community.asti.ga/discussion/378/astigas-new-owner