I asked Stripe back in 2018 if we could expect their unexplained same-region limitation on transfers to be lifted. They said it would be lifted soon. It's 2025, the limitation still exists and I still don't know why.
That really sucks. I'm sorry you went through that. What you are doing looks really great and if I get off my arse and start coding I'll probably start using your services.
If I have your ear, I'll ask you a quick question if you don't mind. I notice that you only allow donations rather than payment for some service. I'm wondering if that's due to regulatory issues for you or something else.
Quick background: I want to explore the idea of people paying for software/services in the same way that they might do with an unattended farm box in the country side. In other words, farmers often put produce in a box on the side of the road and people can freely take the produce, putting the money in a slot. There is nothing at all stopping people from just taking the produce and not paying (literally nobody but the unpaid farmer would notice), but there is a social stigma to doing so. I think there is a general understanding in the public that if you take the produce and don't leave the money that eventually the farmer will stop offering the produce. If you were starving, though, I don't think anyone would hesitate from grabbing some carrots or fruit at the side of the road (nor do I think anyone would mind overly much if it only happened occasionally).
Anyway, I want to try to recreate that idea of a farm produce box for software. The idea is that I would write some software (probably a game in my case) and make a web page. On the web page you would have 2 links: pay for software and download software. The two are not connected in any way except that the link would say "Download super game (costs $2)" or whatever.
The idea is to explicitly assign a price to the software and then just not enforce it if people don't pay. I might also have an option in the software that says something like "Pay for super game (costs $2)" which just opens the web browser to the box page. I wish to write free (as in freedom) software, so people might download the software from a different location.
I suspect that this would run afoul of your rules, so it might not be possible to use your service. Any ideas?
Edit: I should point out that in the case of LibrePay, it's a recurring weekly cost, but the idea is that the user is paying $X for a year's worth of my development, potentially paid weekly.
Some people dislike automatic charges, while others don't want to be bothered with renewals, so it's best to support both. For historical reasons related to payment processor limitations Liberapay was launched with only manual renewals, but we're working on implementing automatic charges now.
Thanks Chad, the feeling is mutual. I'm actually going to Lille again in 2 weeks, I can already say that it won't be the same without you and Jess there.
There is no perfect metric to determine how much a contributor deserves, but there is another simple solution: let each member choose how much of the project's income they take! This is how Liberapay teams work, and how they used to work on Gratipay (they're working on bringing that feature back).
