4 ms·

I'm not sure I like this idea. Braintree is a legit competitor to Stripe. I'm guessing they have some informal agreement to keep transaction fees about the same

by nickjj 3mo ago

I'm not sure I like this idea. Braintree is a legit competitor to Stripe. I'm guessing they have some informal agreement to keep transaction fees about the same but if they become 1 company, what's to stop Stripe from raising fees even more? I'm not a fan of either to be honest, PayPal once told me I was wrong with something related to taxes and a bunch of different reps told me what I was saying and reported was impossible. Their tax division specialists also replied by email with big bold red letters outlining how it's not possible and that I'm wrong multiple times. They were contacted through support cases I opened with other reps on the phone since they aren't directly accessible on phone. Then I said I was canceling my account with them if this wasn't resolved since it would have resulted in me needing to pay $400 to have my taxes amended. Long story short, after being ghosted for 3 months they replied to me saying I was right and they indeed had the impossible problem, then fixed their tax forms a week before taxes were due. It's really bad that a random person on the internet discovered a huge issue with one of their partners and their instinct was to require ~10 hours of back and forth phone calls, multiple emails, me giving them the likely problem and solution on day 1 only to be lead on and ignored for months until the very last second.

dfunckt 3mo ago
The dystopia that PayPal is we’re cheering and paying trillionaires to bring forward faster. Can’t wait.
novia 3mo ago
Paypal offshored all of their support staff.
- geden 3mo ago
  They've been abysmal and borderline criminal since the start. They randomly withheld £20k from a business I was involved with for no stated reason and no direct means to talk to a human about it. It took months to resolve. And as for their actual website...
  - peterspath 3mo ago
    Why would you keep any money on PayPal. It’s just a pass-through to your bank account, accepting payments without giving your bank details to strangers on the internet.
    - mholm 3mo ago
      Once you start doing frequent business through PayPal, they begin 'holding' some of your money to form a buffer against chargebacks and fraud. This doesn't happen often at the consumer level, but dominates within the small business world.
      - Alupis 3mo ago
        This just isn't true. PayPal isn't a bank. They're a processor. People run afoul when they keep large amounts in their processor account instead of doing free nightly sweeps. They also run into trouble when they do weird things - like new accounts receiving large funds from international sources, etc. PayPal (and all processors) are required to investigate those instances until you have an established relationship with them - and they'll temporarily hold the suspicious funds while that happens. Business accounts have predictable, established patterns. 99% of the horror stories you hear fall into one of these categories, or both: 1) New Account 2) Unusual Account Activity PayPal processed millions in annual payments for my previous company, without any issues.
        lotsofpulp 3mo ago
        >People run a fowl when they keep large amounts in their processor account instead of doing free nightly sweeps. Bird law in this country is not governed by reason.
  - KronisLV 3mo ago
    > They randomly withheld £20k from a business I was involved with for no stated reason and no direct means to talk to a human about it. It took months to resolve. If only there was a regulatory framework to turn that into an extremely simple court case, and to also punish attempts of PayPal to ban users who stand up for access to their money. If they’re a near-monopoly they shouldn’t be allowed to set their own rules.
paytonjjones 3mo ago
> informal agreement to keep transaction fees about the same This would be like, ridiculously illegal. It's also not practical; if you can steal customers, the incentive to undercut is very strong.
- bdcravens 3mo ago
  Of course, but that's the thing about "informal" agreements: presumably there's no record of it. Price collusion happens way more than most realize. I was at a trade show for my employer when a competitor walked up to our booth and out loud proposed that we should all fix our prices. We didn't of course, but the brazenness of saying something like that out in the open like was what surprised me.
  - stavros 3mo ago
    The good thing about price collusion is that it's hard to coordinate. If even one competitor defects (and they have every advantage to, as they'll win big), then the cartel falls apart.
    - tough 3mo ago
      sounds like an org prisonner's dilemma
      - stavros 3mo ago
        Exactly.
    - PunchyHamster 3mo ago
      That assumes that * it instantly brings them a ton of consumers * they have capacity to serve those customers if they don't competitor can just keep higher price (especially if it is just small middleman fee most people might not care that much about) And even if both of those are true worst possible case is them expanding to handle influx of customers and then competition following in few months, making their investment moot
gigatexal 3mo ago
But there are many competitors no? Adyen at least comes to mind.
benmorris 3mo ago
Braintree was a legit competitor, last time I checked they won't even onboard you if you don't have an established business grossing over 100k/yr.
- selfmodruntime 3mo ago
  Braintree also is and isn't compatible with the legacy PayPal stack, of which there are 3 layers, depending on whom you ask.
- tempest_ 3mo ago
  I remember about 10 years ago I switched our billing / subscription code from paypal to braintree. Braintree was better than paypal but that wasnt saying much. Then paypal bought Braintree and started fucking around with it, asking for conference calls because they wanted us off one of their old flows so they could get us on webhooks that preformed worse and were a pain to implement. Anyway we switched to stripe. Don't love stripe and they take a big cut but I hate paypal.
  - jamesfinlayson 3mo ago
    Same thing happened to me - got stuck on some old Braintree flow and ended up on what was essentially a sales call to switch to some other thing.
carlosjobim 3mo ago
> what's to stop Stripe from raising fees even more? There's a big amount of competitors for card processing. Just because they aren't well known within tech circles doesn't mean they don't exist.
- account42 3mo ago
  There are many card processors but how many of them provide services equivalent to stripe?
  - dewey 3mo ago
    Adyen has a big overlap and they are huge (https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/ https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/).
  - carlosjobim 3mo ago
    There are many burger chains, but do any of them serve Big Macs like McDonald's? No, so that means McDonald's can charge 500 dollars for a burger, or does it?

by nickjj 3mo ago

dfunckt 3mo ago

The dystopia that PayPal is we’re cheering and paying trillionaires to bring forward faster. Can’t wait.

novia 3mo ago

Paypal offshored all of their support staff.

geden 3mo ago
They've been abysmal and borderline criminal since the start. They randomly withheld £20k from a business I was involved with for no stated reason and no direct means to talk to a human about it. It took months to resolve. And as for their actual website...
- peterspath 3mo ago
  Why would you keep any money on PayPal. It’s just a pass-through to your bank account, accepting payments without giving your bank details to strangers on the internet.
  - mholm 3mo ago
    Once you start doing frequent business through PayPal, they begin 'holding' some of your money to form a buffer against chargebacks and fraud. This doesn't happen often at the consumer level, but dominates within the small business world.
    - Alupis 3mo ago
      This just isn't true. PayPal isn't a bank. They're a processor. People run afoul when they keep large amounts in their processor account instead of doing free nightly sweeps. They also run into trouble when they do weird things - like new accounts receiving large funds from international sources, etc. PayPal (and all processors) are required to investigate those instances until you have an established relationship with them - and they'll temporarily hold the suspicious funds while that happens. Business accounts have predictable, established patterns. 99% of the horror stories you hear fall into one of these categories, or both: 1) New Account 2) Unusual Account Activity PayPal processed millions in annual payments for my previous company, without any issues.
      - lotsofpulp 3mo ago
        >People run a fowl when they keep large amounts in their processor account instead of doing free nightly sweeps. Bird law in this country is not governed by reason.
- KronisLV 3mo ago
  > They randomly withheld £20k from a business I was involved with for no stated reason and no direct means to talk to a human about it. It took months to resolve. If only there was a regulatory framework to turn that into an extremely simple court case, and to also punish attempts of PayPal to ban users who stand up for access to their money. If they’re a near-monopoly they shouldn’t be allowed to set their own rules.

paytonjjones 3mo ago

> informal agreement to keep transaction fees about the same This would be like, ridiculously illegal. It's also not practical; if you can steal customers, the incentive to undercut is very strong.

bdcravens 3mo ago
Of course, but that's the thing about "informal" agreements: presumably there's no record of it. Price collusion happens way more than most realize. I was at a trade show for my employer when a competitor walked up to our booth and out loud proposed that we should all fix our prices. We didn't of course, but the brazenness of saying something like that out in the open like was what surprised me.
- stavros 3mo ago
  The good thing about price collusion is that it's hard to coordinate. If even one competitor defects (and they have every advantage to, as they'll win big), then the cartel falls apart.
  - tough 3mo ago
    sounds like an org prisonner's dilemma
    - stavros 3mo ago
      Exactly.
  - PunchyHamster 3mo ago
    That assumes that * it instantly brings them a ton of consumers * they have capacity to serve those customers if they don't competitor can just keep higher price (especially if it is just small middleman fee most people might not care that much about) And even if both of those are true worst possible case is them expanding to handle influx of customers and then competition following in few months, making their investment moot

gigatexal 3mo ago

But there are many competitors no? Adyen at least comes to mind.

benmorris 3mo ago

Braintree was a legit competitor, last time I checked they won't even onboard you if you don't have an established business grossing over 100k/yr.

selfmodruntime 3mo ago
Braintree also is and isn't compatible with the legacy PayPal stack, of which there are 3 layers, depending on whom you ask.
tempest_ 3mo ago
I remember about 10 years ago I switched our billing / subscription code from paypal to braintree. Braintree was better than paypal but that wasnt saying much. Then paypal bought Braintree and started fucking around with it, asking for conference calls because they wanted us off one of their old flows so they could get us on webhooks that preformed worse and were a pain to implement. Anyway we switched to stripe. Don't love stripe and they take a big cut but I hate paypal.
- jamesfinlayson 3mo ago
  Same thing happened to me - got stuck on some old Braintree flow and ended up on what was essentially a sales call to switch to some other thing.

carlosjobim 3mo ago

> what's to stop Stripe from raising fees even more? There's a big amount of competitors for card processing. Just because they aren't well known within tech circles doesn't mean they don't exist.

account42 3mo ago
There are many card processors but how many of them provide services equivalent to stripe?
- dewey 3mo ago
  Adyen has a big overlap and they are huge (https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/ https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/).
- carlosjobim 3mo ago
  There are many burger chains, but do any of them serve Big Macs like McDonald's? No, so that means McDonald's can charge 500 dollars for a burger, or does it?