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Comment by egorfine

10 hours ago

> Introducing PaymentIntents and PaymentMethods

Stripe will soon run out of names for their ever growing levels of abstractions.

I loved Stripe from the inception until about a year or two ago when their developers discovered the joy of AI. Now I dread every new Stripe SDK update, because it means more mental tax to me, more work for exactly zero value - all for the satisfaction of their architects.

It looks developer-friendly in the beginning (and it is), but once you cave in to the lure, you'll be hit with a flow of SDK updates with incredible type gymnastics.

9 comments

egorfine

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ralusek  5 hours ago

PaymentMethods = a specific credit card, debit card, etc. Payment Method is basically a term of art so ubiquitous that it's user-facing in UIs and has nothing to do with Stripe.

PaymentIntents is definitely a Stripe abstraction, however, but that's one that I like. It's been a while since I used it, but I remember liking that it allowed me to bundle up everything related to the payment, i.e. the amount, the payment method, etc, and pass it around between server, client, and different views in the client, such that you could really build the exact payment flow you want without touching PCI data.

The Stripe abstractions I have always felt are much clunkier are the distinctions between Products/Prices/Subscriptions/SubscriptionSchedules, etc. A lot of "what lives where?" with those; very clunky to work with.

  • egorfine  5 hours ago

    I'm pretty sure that all Stripe abstractions and layers they do have a merit. No doubt and I'm being serious here.

    However:

    PaymentIntent, InvoiceCreationIntent, InvoiceCreationSession, InvoiceCharge. InvoiceChargeIntent, InvoiceChargeSession, InvoiceChargeSessionIntent, InvoiceChargeSessionIntentSession, InvoiceChargeSucceed, InvoicePaid, InvoiceFinalized, and so on.

    All of those can absolutely be explained in a way that justifies their existence.

    But in the end systems end up incurring so much mental tax that no one wants to really have to do anything with it.

    Stripe began as a company to outsource complexity to and then grew to become a source of complexity itself.

    https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...

logicallee  9 hours ago

there are a lot of payment providers. what features do you like about Stripe that keeps you with Stripe?

  • SkiFire13  7 hours ago

    If you use them for subscriptions you are effectively locked with them. The cost of migrating to a different provider (including existing subscriptions AND payment methods) plus the risk of something breaking the renewals is too high for most companies.

    • echelon  3 hours ago

      Maintain two billing providers and migrate new subscriptions as they onboard. Then slowly migrate existing subscriptions.

      It's also a good bargaining chip.