Thanks for a thoughtful reply (upvoted), but have you looked at the library in question? The code is minified, but there is not much obfuscation going on: https://js.stripe.com/v3/
Most of your examples are quite low-level, but it's much harder to keep things hidden within the constraints of the browser sandbox when you have to interface with standard APIs which can be easily instrumented.
Interesting question, since the web used to exist and work just fine before online advertising. I'm not saying that we should go back in time, but claiming that ads are a requirement for the web to exist is a slight overstatement.
There's no need to rely on "security by obscurity". Stripe.js is just a thin client-side library everybody can analyse, so they might as well be fully transparent when it comes to data collection. I don't see the point of trying to obfuscate things, especially since the actual fraud-detection model works on the backend anyway.
Most debit cards in Poland are standard Visa or Mastercard and definitely work online, sometimes you just need to activate them before the first payment for security reasons, but you're right that Blik seems to be getting more and more traction recently.
IANAL, but couldn't you incorporate a wholly-owned US subsidiary using something like Stripe Atlas to handle USD payments and reduce your fees?
By the way, my company has the opposite problem. Our Stripe account is registered in the UK and even though we process payments for Australian customers in AUD their local banks still charge them an extortionate "foreign transaction fee". This means that we had to open a separate Stripe account registered in Australia just to avoid that.
You can do that using Stripe test environment and test cards without any fees. Refunds can take over a week to get processed by some banks, so testing on live data doesn't sound like a great idea. But even if you have to do a couple of live transactions I don't see how the cost of refunds could be significant.
I used to live in Poland (so just across the border from Germany) and now I'm a UK resident, and your question is really baffling, since in both of these countries people use (contactless) card payments for pretty much everything. Germany is definitely an outlier and your comment doesn't really explain why. Is this a cultural thing, regulatory issue, or maybe banks colluding to protect their interests?
In a way Wave had been that enabling technology by becoming a compelling demo of Operational Transformation that was later incorporated into many other products with much more focused workflows (e.g. Google Docs).
Enterprises love subscriptions for the same reasons why they prefer leases over capital expenditure. They look much better on the balance sheet and allow to spread the cost over time.
Do you really believe that Apple doesn't allow macOS on PCs because of "unpredictability"? I think it's pretty obvious by now that bundling is a great way to differentiate their hardware, charge a premium, and lock users in their ecosystem. Remember the people who complained about issues with the butterfly keyboard, but kept buying Macbooks just because of macOS?
Sure, that's the classic "it's been a wonderful journey" scenario where the whole product is sunset, but shutting down just a single platform is not as obvious.
Well, it's not like they suddenly replaced the whole team overnight, but I guess I get your point. I don't claim it could change anything, but I still believe that it's important to (respectfully) let the team know how their paying ex-customers feel about their decisions.
Let's not forget that it is/was a paid subscription on Android, so offering it for free on iOS and keeping paid on Android would still give them a significant edge. Somebody else in this thread mentioned that Shazam is still available on Android even after the acquisition, so it's definitely not as obvious as you suggest.
I'm sending an email to tell them how disappointed I feel as a long-time subscriber about them maliciously (since there is no other more generous explanation) shutting down the service for Android users: https://darksky.net/contact
I'm a self-diagnosed completionist and I hate the infinite scroll so much that I developed a mental habit that helps me work around it. When I visit a site with infinite scroll (e.g. YouTube or new Reddit) I immediately scroll down until the first loading spinner (e.g. by pressing the End key). At this point I stop and go back up processing the items in reverse order. This might sound silly, but it gives me a sense of completion and a natural exit point once I get back to the beginning.
I used to use this exact problem years ago when interviewing candidates at Google. At that time I thought it was a great question, but now I'm not that sure anymore if this approach to interviewing is the best way to assess candidates.
Don't assume that these sales people are so happy to work overtime. They probably rely on commission and/or need to hit that sales target. Sales teams are known for super-competitive, target-driven, and high-pressure culture. We software engineers have it easy in comparison.
Boats drop in value quickly because of maintenance. Sea can be a tough environment, sea water is really corrosive, you need to regularly anti-foul the hull, specialist gear is not cheap etc. You can keep the costs down if you have the time to learn and do some of the work yourself. Wooden boats are even more difficult to keep in good shape. Moreover, you need to rent a mooring for it, which can get really expensive depending on location.
That's the main reason why people half-jokingly say that the two happiest days for a boat owner are the day when they buy it and the day when they manage to sell it. Still it's worth all the effort if you have the time to sail it regularly. Otherwise, chartering (renting) a yacht for a period of time can be a much better option.
I understand the first two points, but I don't really get what this has to do with hobbies and sailboats in particular? As a sailor myself I guarantee that you could easily deliver many more boats if only there was demand for them. Sailing is considered by many as an elite hobby, but in reality you can buy a second-hand yacht cheaper than a decent car.
It's not factually correct to say that communist currency was "as good as US dollar" and you could freely "accumulate or spend" it.
Due to shortages many basic products were rationed and you simply couldn't buy them with cash. Having more money didn't make a difference unless you had the right rationing stamps (or connections to a high-ranking party official). This lead to a whole secondary market of people trading stamps with each other (e.g. cigarette stamps for meat stamps). When it comes to accumulation, periods of hyper-inflation and lack of investment opportunities made this much harder. Moreover, currency exchange rate was controlled by the government, which led to illegal underground currency trading.
This is based on experiences from Poland, but I'm sure many other communist countries had similar issues.
Competition is what should keep prices at bay, assuming no significant change in cost of production and market with no monopoly. Actually, more automation should in the long term reduce prices in real terms.
Sure, but it's a very different baseline when you can afford basic needs instead of being homeless and hungry. The fact that some other people might feel "less rich" as a result shouldn't really be considered an issue.
Graduating with a huge student debt that needs to be repaid doesn't encourage exploration and risk-taking, so that would be one of the areas to focus on.