Tend to agree but I don't think a card is that big of a deal as in this case it's less Stripe owned as it's a Visa card so pretty sure you'd have some additional protection there.
Let’s say you have an issue because stripe suddenly you’re business is fraudulent (read: you got great coverage on HN and suddenly have 1000 extra customers)
Stripe flags you and blocks your account. Done. Now your income and money to spend depends on their customer service.
Many people have had the same with PayPal, and some with regular banks.
So yes, take the card, but also take 5 other cards.
I work at Stripe. Prior to doing so, I fed my family out of a Stripe account for 6+ years.
We're keenly aware of the importance of not messing with our customers' finances in this fashion, not the least because startups are both a core customer segment to us and the heart of what we do. Our policies are tuned around the realities of startups; we get launch days.
If anyone on HN ever feels like we’re slipping, I will do anything in my power to fix that; my email address is my HN handle at stripe.com
Stripe has been receiving a suspicious amount of praise from HN. Really beginning to wonder if this is all organic at this point. Obviously lots of employees in the comments which they are not hiding that fact. But still makes me want to dig deeper than the surface (as everyone should).
If you've ever had to setup an ecommerce site before Stripe was around you'd understand why they get so much praise. Your only options were either navigating the complex and expensive world of merchant accounts or dealing with PayPal's horrible API and customer service.
Stripe almost always receives a lot of praise from HN. That makes perfect sense: it's a YC success story, but more than that, it's a service many of us can relate to, it's a service many of us use or have used ourselves, and probably quite a few of us have been here from its early days and watched it grow.
That doesn't mean the near-universal praise is always justified, of course. The Stripe of today is to some extent a victim of its own success, and the clean API, excellent documentation and first rate customer service that it was famous for in its early days are all sadly shadows of their former selves today.
That in turn doesn't mean Stripe is bad relative to its competitors, of course. It's just not as good as it used to be.
A potential issue that might be overlooked, that also exists when dealing with your bank and depends on the T&Cs, is a right of set off over the whole relationship.
This is a right to recover money you owe on one account from another account you have with them.
It's likely (though I have not read the T&Cs) that they have a clause that they can recover money you owe on this credit card from your Stripe payment account.
Many people have had the same with PayPal, and some with regular banks.
So yes, take the card, but also take 5 other cards.