I have no idea how companies like Stripe and to a great extent Revolut made it to forefront of banking. They are Uber of banking industry. And have done shady things. As the time passes and VC money runs out; these companies will implode
I think people forget how much effort it took to accept credit cards at the time Stripe launched, too. Not just technical, but having to get a merchant account, which would be through a bank, who'd want to sell you a rented point-of-sale and a contract for a minimum amount of fees per month, and a rate hike for being a "risky online business".
Yeah, I tried to leave the Stripe platform for lower fees and... well I'd give just about anything to go back in time and stop myself from doing something so stupid. Also in the end the %/per-transaction fees were barely lower AND they had a TON of hidden fees/charges.
The processor lied about fees/rates, API/docs were absolute shit (and they were on the better end of what else I've seen but compared to Stripe they sucked), and I had to go through 3-5 video calls before they gave me API keys for even the dev environment. Then you get to enter the world of monthly charges on your account, minimum fees (if you don't pay enough in fees you have to pay the difference, for me it was $35 in fees minimum which doesn't work well for seasonal things or in-house test accounts), PCI compliance (fuck that form), even worse service, and slimy sales people.
Even with Stripe's absolutely terrible customer support (that I've experienced first-hand multiple times) I'll stick with them over dealing with the alternatives.
> Like other payment processors, we periodically review your sales to assess the risk of payment disputes. In a recent review of your account, we determined that we have to hold a portion of your transfer in a reserve balance. Beginning <redacted>, 30% of each transaction on your Square account will be stored in your reserve balance, and will be released 120 days after the original transaction date.
Well, when it launched, but few years down the road Stripe was already in a class of his own on the topic of developer experience compared to their competitors.
I have a close friend, working for Uber since 5-6 years now. I don't think he ever expected company to engage in anything shady. SWEs are higher up than service counter staff but in the game of business they are not far from being expensive pawns. Sorry
So he started 5-6 years ago, after Uber was already caught doing shady shit? Does not compute.
I don't think Uber was ever particularly transparent, whereas I believe the other poster was implying that all Stripe employees can see revenue, profit margin, etc. plainly, which seems very uncommon for a non-public corp.
