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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

The Stripe CEO was on HN before stripe was even a thing. This comment is disgusting on so many levels. In other companies the CEO wouldn't even give you the time of day whereas with Stripe if something goes wrong in their processes, which given the size of that company is by now inevitable there is at least one way in which you can try to correct this.

Obviously, it would be great if nothing ever went wrong. It would be better still if Stripe had a couple of thousand people manning the phones over Christmas. But automation can and does fail and I figure that by now anybody that decides to farm out a critical portion of their business to a large company is able to figure out for themselves that such a dependency has risks as well as benefits.

It still sucks for the OP, but your characterization, using a novelty account at that, is below the belt, especially on a one-sided story that appears to have plenty left out.

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Why is the comment so unfair though? It's true that for many companies, customer support is a joke in poor taste compared to the profits brought in by said customers. And "appeal through HN" often seems like the only solution that will get you unstuck.

I think this event, and many others (and Stripe is very far from being the worse of the lot - looking at you Apple & Google) shows that these companies simply do not value their customers' peace of mind and are perfectly happy to send automated notices and perform automated takedowns without a (relevantly informed & powerful enough to act) human in the loop, and without the possibility of a meaningful appeal (that gives actual reasons and not "you have violated policies").

Automation can fail, but this begs the question of why this is automated in the first place, given the consequences. This is also not a business bringing in 100$ per month (though I will argue they also deserve respect, but I understand if they're not giving quite the same care as business bringing in hundreds of thousands or millions).

> This comment is disgusting on so many levels.

“Disgusting” is a hilariously strong word to use against someone trying to hold a 100B+ company to a little heat and get attention to their cause.

“Assume positive intent” is a facade for “don’t assume negative intent” - but that doesn’t mean we should dip into the good-will bucket for every company spokesperson here.

No, but for the Collison brothers I'll be happy to make an exception, I have yet to see any interaction between them and others where they did not go out of their way to make things right and they come across as super nice, both before and after their success.

If you want to go after the CEOs of other 100B+ companies be my guest, they usually are jerks. But in this very specific case that is not so.

Then make it for HN comments and posters.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> I figure that by now anybody that decides to farm out a critical portion of their business to a large company is able to figure out for themselves that such a dependency has risks as well as benefits.

This is a disingenuous argument in general. If cars were much more unsafe than they are, would you also blame car crash victim for driving a car knowing what the risks are?

We can certainly blame a person for using an unsafe mode of transport. Is that up for debate?

My point is mostly that it shouldn't be used to argue against increased security for that mode of transportation.

The pattern is as follows:

- A: I had a really bad accident, we should make these vehicles more secure. - B: No, you had to be aware that it was risky.

- A: Stripe jeopardized our business, they really should have better customer support for these cases. - B: No, you had to be aware it was risky to use them.

It's a non-sequitur: the plight for increased security/customer support is in no way hampered by the fact that the buyer had to be aware of the risk (which I guess he had, but ... so what?).

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