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The inverse of this is exactly why I'd cut them slack: there's no way for them to do business without partnering with the competition, in this case being solely dependent on them.

Edit: it's exactly like trying to reinvent Twitter by consuming their APIs, and we've all seen how that goes

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The Twitter comparison doesn't work here; Bancorp is explicitly a middleman. As long as Bancorp is getting paid, it's in their best interest (excuse the pun) for Simple to stay afloat.

Bancorp is a closer analog to EC2; they let Simple get off the ground quickly without having to build and harden their own banking systems and transaction networks. Also like EC2, Simple gets to take the heat equally if Bancorp screws up.

That said, this is pretty bad, but if Simple had built their own network and left a glaring security hole open, they'd be utter toast.

In the context of Wikileaks, Visa and Amazon were explicitly middlemen. As long as Visa and Amazon were paid, it was in their best interest <snip>

No doubt you already see where I'm going with this.

They are dealing with people's money, and should be held to the same standard as every other business in that space.

They also don't deserve any special 'slack' just because they use other companies services. You wouldn't accept that excuse from Bank of America.

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