1) Their customer service has been good. However, I've never had to use it for anything serious

2) Their API is awesome

3) Their level of complexity is slowly increasing. This is something very dangerous for them and they need to look into it. Their biggest advantage is/was - super simple to set up everything

4) Like many others, not happy that costs are slowly increasing.

5) Perhaps I'm the only person who falls into the camp that Stripe doing things like Atlas and Stripe Capital is somewhat unnecessary and takes away from their focus on Payments

6) Don't really understand why they are doing the whole Platform of Platforms thing i.e. Stripe customers can now offer stuff like Bank Accounts to their customers

Seems like adding needless risks and complexity

7) Anyways, I miss having Stripe be really simple and really focused on one thing. Hope they can at least be like Apple and Microsoft where they keep laser sharp focus on their money makers/core competencies and have dedicated teams and the best people on it

and they don't shift over their best people to pie in the sky stuff like Platform of Platforms

I've experienced EXACT same thing on a much larger scale

Step 1: You start paying for Ads

Step 2: You start making a certain amount of money from Ads

Ratio is very good. So it is a win win

Step 3: They drop the quality of ads/quality of traffic

Step 4: It's not worth it to you any more, so you turn off the Ads

Step 5: They kill your organic traffic

Step 6: They switch it to someone willing to pay a lot for ads

3 Problems

A) Organic Traffic is allocated based on who is willing to pay the highest extortion fee

not on quality

B) If you start growing/prospering without their ads and without their organic traffic, then they don't just let you go

Then they start pollluting your search results

When people search for you they show every @#$#$ negative thing they can

They try to kill your traffic which was ALREADY coming to you

they also kill your reach on Youtube etc

They also start putting your email newsletters into wrong folders so your email list also gets hit. Only for gmail. Yahoo, outlook etc are fine. Only gmail starts dropping your emails

C) If you are still doing fine

then astroturfing starts

People make completely nonsense false claims about you

Then it becomes #1 search result when people are searching for you

If you start paying, all of it disappears and business as usual

If you stop paying, suddenly it all restarts

*

I am getting the popcorn out. Google especially and also Amazon and Facebook are going to get really @#$@#$ if there is a proper anti trust case

these companies instead of building newer businesses and better products (like Apple and Microsoft) focused all their energy on screwing over their competitors and even their partners

when two railroads were in competition and it was killing profits, they would sign a silent partnership and one would take upstate NY and the other would take NYC to other parts of NY

both made profits

Read the biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt

he did a lot of this

I'll add a few (while including a couple from this thread)

Let's see

1) Google Facebook - why was Google+ ignored and shut down

2) Why has Facebook never launched a search engine

3) Amazon + Google

Why has Google completely ignored books and not done anything?

They grew Chrome into #1 browser using Search dominance

Why the heck have they ignored books?

Why did they buy Oyster (the first ebook subscription service for Apple devices) and immediately shut it down

paving the way for Kindle Unlimited to become the dominant

4) Why did Amazon shut down A9 its search engine? Every other area they are willing to throw billions of dollars. In search engines they didn't even try

5) Amazon + Google

why is Google ignoring Shopping

why did Google buy one of the biggest AFfiliate Networks and then close it down

6) Amazon + Google

Why is Amazon so high up in search results for every single @##$ product review and product

Does it have to do with amount of money Amazon spends on Google Ads (which would also be illegal)

or a secret/silent agreement (even more illegal)

7) When companies or organization get attacked (such as corporate organizations) how is it that it is always a PINCER attack and always at the same time i.e.

Google will 'demonetize' the site at the same time as Youtube demonetizes the ads (Youtube is still owned by Google) as Paypal will kick out the site (separate company, acts in concert) as Twitter will block accounts

So 3 separate companies and 4 separate divisions all decide on EXACT SAME DAY to go after a company or a site

This playbook is used to attack both

a) republican/conservative sites

b) companies that are growing very fast

to that throw in Facebook

8) Why do fast growing companies that are a threat to ONE out of

Amazon, Google, Facebook

all suddenly face shadow bans AT THE SAME TIME from all three companies i.e.

products dropped in Amazon Store search

organic traffic from Google drops

Facebook reach drops

*

There is someone/something

World X Council or something

And some companies are apart of it

They have divided out parts of the Internet

And when someone is a threat to grow too big

ALL companies attack that fast growing companies

They have a hitlist of

10,000 or 5,000 companies to keep an eye on

and

500 biggest threats

and they go after these IN CONCERT

Same for

Amazon closing down A9 search

Google buying up Affiliate Networks and closing one down and basically banning affiliate from most of Google Search and

doing @#$#$-all with Google Shopping

100% Division between

Amazon - shopping Google - search Facebook - social

with outward illusion of 'rivalry'

Bezos is 4th angel investor in Google

Qunicy Jones in an interview says he used to have a weekly dinner with

Elon Musk, Google founders, Bezos

It's Qunicy Jones so no idea how reliable. But wouldn't that be interesting - if Google and Amazon founders were doing dinner every week or every other week

stuff like

astroturfing

click fraud

fake submissions on forms

etc

They basically operate completely recklessly

We are getting a lot of attacks from Google. I took screenshots just today of them doing fake submissions and they don't even hide it. From Google servers

*

Basically, their modus operandi is

A) Silent Agreement between Amazon, Google, Facebook and a few other companies (not sure which) to divide internet among themselves

B) Use any and all method to slow down any company growing fast

Usually this is 'plausible deniability' methods such as removing apps from app stores, kicking you off your payment processor, dropping you in organic search, shifting your adwords to 90% fake clicks, etc

C) If above methods don't work then they start using illegal methods i.e.

modifying search results when people search for you hacking attacks using gmail to hide your emails to customers and/or not deliver your invoices to new customers click fraud on other ad networks (Bing, etc) fake submissions

Contrast the HUGE number of enterprise side and B2B companies that are going public

now compare with how few customer to business companies are doing the same

*

It's not random

any customer facing company that is begining to do well has to face

Google disappearing them from Search Facebook disappearing them from Facebook and Instagram attacks from a few other Silicon Valley Companies

There is going to be A LOT of candy in the sofa

It's going to be Snowden level stuff

There will be a list of

Top 10,000 companies to kill off

and also

Top 500 threats

And there will be a playbook of all the methods to use to wipe them out

There will be even totally crazy stuff like

sending spy employees Trojen Horse VC Investments

etc

They sent millions of 'complaints from users' which turned out to be all the exact same template

They are a special kind of scum

Waiting for when they realize there is a silent agreement between Amazon + Google + Facebook

and that they do coordinated attacks against their rivals

and also against any company that is growing quickly

Reference: Amazon lawsuit against Pentagon for Azure contract

Reference: Amazon lawsuit against Future Retail

etc

etc

it is interesting to see all the justifications people are giving for Tesla's completely irrational valuation

Solar Roof/Solar Energy -> Solar City was going bankrupt and had to be bought by Tesla to save Musk's cousins (Rive) and his ownership stake in Solar City

Electric Cars -> Check out what is happening on Europe. People keep saying Tesla is doing very well in China, without understanding that Tesla has a very small share of China and BYD is the largest EV maker in China

Battery Storage -> So something that is a very small share of Tesla revenues will magically one day become a massive business?

It's one thing to say - It will add $50 billion to the company Completely different thing to say it will add half a trillion

Self Driving and Robotaxis - This has been the dream for the last 5 years Tesla said 1 million robotaxis by end of Dec 2020

Where are they?

The combination of messianic leader who claims he is doing it only to save the planet and the human race

combined with Fed printing money like its going out of fashion and investors desperate for returns

Is a very dangerous combination

There are lots of artists who are very good at sales and marketing

Don't fall for the trap that you have to be a starving artist who dies penniless and then 50 years later people realize how great your work was

In today's day and age if you do superb work it gets recognized pretty quickly

2) Sales & Marketing are skills. The more you practice it the better you will get

3) Helpful to low income people? How do you make money from low income people

Most people who make income from low income people do it by exploiting them

So it is not a good market

4) I don't know what time poor means

5) Paywall works very well if done right

6) donations? Asking for donations from low income people? That doesn't make sense

7) book sales? $1,000 per year

8) I can't understand any of what you are saying as you have not talked about

what your service is

how many people use it

website. If you can't share give some idea

9) how do you know your service is 'best in class'

if it doesn't make money either it isn't best in class or you are a sucker who is giving value to people without charging money

There was an article about this guy who had an 'airline deals' newsletter

With ads for free people No ads for $5 per month subscribers

think about something like that

10) Marketing people to generate traffic?

No, Marketing and Sales has to generate money/profits

Hire people to sell things toe xisting customers and make money from them

Not to add more 'low income and time poor' people who make you no money

This: am also suspecting that the level-off will happen one layer higher. I.e. the economic relevance of the current incumbents within the US economy will not drop, but the global relevance of the US will. For a perspective, you can look at the German economy that is dominated by companies founded 100+ years ago.

Because US government is getting in bed with Amazon, Google, Facebook

it is causing a double effect

A) They are letting them keep growing their monopolies in return for surveillance of Americans and non Americans

Which makes them stronger

B) US innovation is slowing down

For Example: Now most of US technology is around showing ads, surveillance, and basically treating people like stupid ATMs

They might be able to make it work for another 10 to 30 years, and then there will be big breakdowns

A good example is what is happening to Amazon in countries like China and India

In particular -> It occurred to me that in some situations, it might actually be more efficient _not_ to batch. The complexity of attempting to batch at the warehouse must be very high, and take up quite a bit of warehouse space, and slow down dispatch significantly.

agree completely with you

The only LOGICAL reason to go from a format that works to such a terrible format, is that it can make ads work better

claiming YouTube and Instagram are the two best acquisitions in modern tech history is one heck of a claim

Android instantly beats them both COMBINED

That being said they would definitely be in theTop 10