5 ms·

I don't grant your premise that crowdfunding constitutes "presales." Crowdfunding is an inherently speculative activity, a way to invest in a team with the hop

by _pius 13y ago

I don't grant your premise that crowdfunding constitutes "presales." Crowdfunding is an inherently speculative activity, a way to invest in a team with the hopes that they will create a product that you'd like to see in the world. Trying to fit Indiegogo into a presales model to justify PayPal's outrageous behavior here is a Procrustean approach that helps no one.

jessedhillon 13y ago
That's even worse than engaging in presales! It's practically fucking gambling the way you describe it, why the fuck would Paypal be enticed by that subtle shift in framing?
- _pius 13y ago
  Yeah, it's "gambling" the way donating to an artist you like is gambling. And who's trying to entice them? Again, if doing business with Indiegogo projects is incompatible with Paypal's risk profile they shouldn't do business with Indiegogo projects. That seems straightforward. Bizarre to think we should be sympathizing with, enticing, or otherwise fellating PayPal in this situation.
  - jessedhillon 13y ago
    Bizarre to think we should be sympathizing with, enticing, or otherwise fellating PayPal in this situation. While I understand how easy it is to sympathize with the merchant here, as none of us will ever be payment processors, the reality is that the sum of your suggestions or assertions, if explored just as a thought experiment, quickly lead to a world where nobody can do payment processing without imposing absurdly high fees. Of course we can all see how unfair it seems to have all this money promised by seemingly wide-eyed and clear-minded open source software supporters. But Paypal has millions of clients and has to act in a way that generalizes across all of them, and which requires the least amount of trust to be placed in those clients. The only argument that Mailpile has is "but we're not evil," which is true, but still insufficient.
    - likeclockwork 13y ago
      The thing is... ...nothing is being sold.
      - llimllib 13y ago
        Which, presumably, would not stop people filing chargebacks if Mailpile fails to deliver on their promises.
      - gtirloni 13y ago
        The other thing is, things don't work like that in the real world. If you go to court over this, the judge will check the material evidence (for example, that MailPile's page says they will deliver a beta by Jan2014) and will want to know if that was delivered.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  Because there are no legitimate chargebacks if a gamble falls through. The presale risk is gone.
smackfu 13y ago
>Crowdfunding is an inherently speculative activity, Crowdfunding is only popular because it's got a high success rate though. If only 50% of projects succeeded and provided rewards, and 50% took your money and ran, how many supporters do you really think would be left?

by _pius 13y ago

jessedhillon 13y ago

That's even worse than engaging in presales! It's practically fucking gambling the way you describe it, why the fuck would Paypal be enticed by that subtle shift in framing?

_pius 13y ago
Yeah, it's "gambling" the way donating to an artist you like is gambling. And who's trying to entice them? Again, if doing business with Indiegogo projects is incompatible with Paypal's risk profile they shouldn't do business with Indiegogo projects. That seems straightforward. Bizarre to think we should be sympathizing with, enticing, or otherwise fellating PayPal in this situation.
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  Bizarre to think we should be sympathizing with, enticing, or otherwise fellating PayPal in this situation. While I understand how easy it is to sympathize with the merchant here, as none of us will ever be payment processors, the reality is that the sum of your suggestions or assertions, if explored just as a thought experiment, quickly lead to a world where nobody can do payment processing without imposing absurdly high fees. Of course we can all see how unfair it seems to have all this money promised by seemingly wide-eyed and clear-minded open source software supporters. But Paypal has millions of clients and has to act in a way that generalizes across all of them, and which requires the least amount of trust to be placed in those clients. The only argument that Mailpile has is "but we're not evil," which is true, but still insufficient.
  - likeclockwork 13y ago
    The thing is... ...nothing is being sold.
    - llimllib 13y ago
      Which, presumably, would not stop people filing chargebacks if Mailpile fails to deliver on their promises.
    - gtirloni 13y ago
      The other thing is, things don't work like that in the real world. If you go to court over this, the judge will check the material evidence (for example, that MailPile's page says they will deliver a beta by Jan2014) and will want to know if that was delivered.
Dylan16807 13y ago
Because there are no legitimate chargebacks if a gamble falls through. The presale risk is gone.

smackfu 13y ago

>Crowdfunding is an inherently speculative activity, Crowdfunding is only popular because it's got a high success rate though. If only 50% of projects succeeded and provided rewards, and 50% took your money and ran, how many supporters do you really think would be left?