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The thought of "middlebrow dismissals" came to mind when I saw the ensuing discussion. Now I don't think I fully understand what is meant by the term. Further g

The thought of "middlebrow dismissals" came to mind when I saw the ensuing discussion. Now I don't think I fully understand what is meant by the term. Further googling didn't bring up anything else, but if it's meant that I simply dismiss what Braintree is offering here, that is completely false. I welcome it. It's a good move. What I found issue with, and discussed at length was the wording of the post. It's not charity and I don't think anyone can disagree with that point. >The first point is plainly false. Braintree isn't "suffering." "suffering" may be a little colorful in choice of words, but I don't think it's strictly false, especially on HN where Stripe.com gets beaten in per-domain popularity only by the almighty domain-overlord himself, paulgraham.com >The third point is true, but cynical and obvious. I disagree that it's obvious. I think many people underestimate the potential cost of binding their entire business to a single platform, especially when that platform is payments, something that inherently people _do not_ under any circumstances try to mess with if it already works.

deleted 14y ago
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- kami8845 14y ago
  >It certainly doesn't cost 50,000$ to switch payment providers. Your argument is therefore invalid. Well, I certainly do apologize for "offending your intellect" and "wasting your time". But you seem to be missing that Braintree doesn't cut new startups a check over 50k. It's only the fees that are waived for the first 50k in revenue. As someone below calculated, new startups save about ~3k by signing up for this promotion. And yes, after a couple months of working on a code base, breaking your payments code apart just to fit the new API cant VERY quickly cost your 3k in dev cost. Half an hour payment downtime because you didn't plug things together just right? There go a few more k in revenue. And also if stating such isn't the deepest of insights, I don't really see a problem with that. You certainly felt that it wasn't a problem to state that startups can save 50k by signing up with Braintree, even though that is not only completely insane by any standard, it's also easily dis-proven by reading the above article.
enraged_camel 14y ago
>>The thought of "middlebrow dismissals" came to mind when I saw the ensuing discussion. Now I don't think I fully understand what is meant by the term It's a spin-off from the term "highbrow", which means "intellectually stimulating". http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/highbrow http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/highbrow A middlebrow dismissal means you are giving it only a half-thought before dismissing it, as opposed to critically thinking about it from multiple angles and offering an opinion that can result in a highbrow conversation.
- kami8845 14y ago
  Ah thanks! I knew there was some part missing to my full understanding of the term. If I were to criticize my original post, I'd say it's overly negative. My tone was dismissive and that's probably what most people found issue with. It's a good lesson. I can present the same content without come across as negatively. Though I do love a good controversy :)
- julien_c 14y ago
  Why middlebrow then, and not lowbrow? Honest question, from a non-native speaker.
  - natep 14y ago
    I first saw the term middlebrow in that thread, and I'm still not sure how i feel about the term, but "lowbrow" refers to completely non-intellectual things, and would not appeal at all to someone that values intellectual thinking. I hadn't heard the term until that comment thread, but apparently it has its own Wikipedia page, and has been around since 1925.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    Because middlebrow posts appear intellectual on their surface. They are not quite lowbrow. But they aren't highbrow either, for the reasons explained.

deleted 14y ago

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kami8845 14y ago
>It certainly doesn't cost 50,000$ to switch payment providers. Your argument is therefore invalid. Well, I certainly do apologize for "offending your intellect" and "wasting your time". But you seem to be missing that Braintree doesn't cut new startups a check over 50k. It's only the fees that are waived for the first 50k in revenue. As someone below calculated, new startups save about ~3k by signing up for this promotion. And yes, after a couple months of working on a code base, breaking your payments code apart just to fit the new API cant VERY quickly cost your 3k in dev cost. Half an hour payment downtime because you didn't plug things together just right? There go a few more k in revenue. And also if stating such isn't the deepest of insights, I don't really see a problem with that. You certainly felt that it wasn't a problem to state that startups can save 50k by signing up with Braintree, even though that is not only completely insane by any standard, it's also easily dis-proven by reading the above article.

enraged_camel 14y ago

>>The thought of "middlebrow dismissals" came to mind when I saw the ensuing discussion. Now I don't think I fully understand what is meant by the term It's a spin-off from the term "highbrow", which means "intellectually stimulating". http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/highbrow http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/highbrow A middlebrow dismissal means you are giving it only a half-thought before dismissing it, as opposed to critically thinking about it from multiple angles and offering an opinion that can result in a highbrow conversation.

kami8845 14y ago
Ah thanks! I knew there was some part missing to my full understanding of the term. If I were to criticize my original post, I'd say it's overly negative. My tone was dismissive and that's probably what most people found issue with. It's a good lesson. I can present the same content without come across as negatively. Though I do love a good controversy :)
julien_c 14y ago
Why middlebrow then, and not lowbrow? Honest question, from a non-native speaker.
- natep 14y ago
  I first saw the term middlebrow in that thread, and I'm still not sure how i feel about the term, but "lowbrow" refers to completely non-intellectual things, and would not appeal at all to someone that values intellectual thinking. I hadn't heard the term until that comment thread, but apparently it has its own Wikipedia page, and has been around since 1925.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  Because middlebrow posts appear intellectual on their surface. They are not quite lowbrow. But they aren't highbrow either, for the reasons explained.