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Random Chat, Thoughts, Posts, and/or Rants Thread

Black_Dragon43

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Is it just me or 3% in stripe transaction fees seems outrageous
I think it's decent to be honest. If you had to create your own payment gateway, it would be very complicated, as there are a lot of regulations you have to follow + approvals you need to obtain. Stripe fees are also lower than PayPal, which charges something around 5-6%. So Stripe simplifies the entire process for you and everyone involved, at relatively low costs. I'm actually thinking of removing PayPal as a payment option for my business, and keep just Stripe.

I also used to think Upwork fees are outrageous to freelancers, BUT, if you think about it, it actually makes sense. You pay $100/client + 10% of revenues (all of these being higher in case you're from the EU due to VAT), but you don't really have to bother with finding your own clients. I was speaking to one of my designers, and he mentioned that if you do work and you work consistently after the initial push of applying, Upwork just sends you interviews, and you do almost 0 of your own marketing. And if you focus on becoming top of the niche freelancer, they give you special badges, and access to Fortune 1000 companies who reach out to you. So the question is, if you asked someone else to find you clients and bring them to your door, would you be happy to pay $100/client + 10% of revenues? Most people say yes.

But when you think of it as a "fee/tax" that you have to pay to play, then you're not that happy to pay it anymore. Of course, when you focus on it under this frame (due to focus bias / the immediacy effect), you forget about the difficulty of finding your own clients, and all the time you have to spend doing that instead of working and earning. Many one-man show freelancers who do their own marketing tell me that they spend 80% of their time finding clients, and 20% actually doing the work. Think about that... in that 20% time, you need to win enough for 100% of your time. So essentially you're asking 20% of your time to pull the work of 100%.

Someone who makes $10,000 on Upwork from 10 clients in 80 hours will net $10,000- $100*10 - ($10,000-$500*10)*10% = $8,500 => $106/hour. Whereas making the same money by yourself would require you to charge the equivalent of $531.25/hour -> literarily 5x as much since you only work 20% of the time. And that's not to mention making sure you get paid outside of Upwork... because you many not in all cases.

Can you, as a freelancer, charge 5x outside of Upwork? Imo, it's getting harder and harder. Back 4 years ago, most freelancers I worked with worked outside of Upwork. Today, 2/3 of them work on Upwork. Why? Most people who employ freelancers are getting smarter, and heading straight to those platforms. And it's not necessarily the lowest price that they're looking for... but lower risk/uncertainty. If you hire on Upwork, you know that your review can really set someone back. If you hire outside, you pay, and who knows if the work will be up to standards. In addition, you get variety, which is hard to get outside. So as an independent freelancer you're actively competing with Upwork, which in the long run seems to be a losing battle.

It's a question of marketing & framing. And I feel in many ways Upwork's marketing is not very effective towards freelancers. They should pay me to give them a hand :rofl:
 

Raja

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I think it's decent to be honest. If you had to create your own payment gateway, it would be very complicated, as there are a lot of regulations you have to follow + approvals you need to obtain. Stripe fees are also lower than PayPal, which charges something around 5-6%. So Stripe simplifies the entire process for you and everyone involved, at relatively low costs. I'm actually thinking of removing PayPal as a payment option for my business, and keep just Stripe.

I also used to think Upwork fees are outrageous to freelancers, BUT, if you think about it, it actually makes sense. You pay $100/client + 10% of revenues (all of these being higher in case you're from the EU due to VAT), but you don't really have to bother with finding your own clients. I was speaking to one of my designers, and he mentioned that if you do work and you work consistently after the initial push of applying, Upwork just sends you interviews, and you do almost 0 of your own marketing. And if you focus on becoming top of the niche freelancer, they give you special badges, and access to Fortune 1000 companies who reach out to you. So the question is, if you asked someone else to find you clients and bring them to your door, would you be happy to pay $100/client + 10% of revenues? Most people say yes.

But when you think of it as a "fee/tax" that you have to pay to play, then you're not that happy to pay it anymore. Of course, when you focus on it under this frame (due to focus bias / the immediacy effect), you forget about the difficulty of finding your own clients, and all the time you have to spend doing that instead of working and earning. Many one-man show freelancers who do their own marketing tell me that they spend 80% of their time finding clients, and 20% actually doing the work. Think about that... in that 20% time, you need to win enough for 100% of your time. So essentially you're asking 20% of your time to pull the work of 100%.

Someone who makes $10,000 on Upwork from 10 clients in 80 hours will net $10,000- $100*10 - ($10,000-$500*10)*10% = $8,500 => $106/hour. Whereas making the same money by yourself would require you to charge the equivalent of $531.25/hour -> literarily 5x as much since you only work 20% of the time. And that's not to mention making sure you get paid outside of Upwork... because you many not in all cases.

Can you, as a freelancer, charge 5x outside of Upwork? Imo, it's getting harder and harder. Back 4 years ago, most freelancers I worked with worked outside of Upwork. Today, 2/3 of them work on Upwork. Why? Most people who employ freelancers are getting smarter, and heading straight to those platforms. And it's not necessarily the lowest price that they're looking for... but lower risk/uncertainty. If you hire on Upwork, you know that your review can really set someone back. If you hire outside, you pay, and who knows if the work will be up to standards. In addition, you get variety, which is hard to get outside. So as an independent freelancer you're actively competing with Upwork, which in the long run seems to be a losing battle.

It's a question of marketing & framing. And I feel in many ways Upwork's marketing is not very effective towards freelancers. They should pay me to give them a hand :rofl:
Fair point.
My goal was to have less than 5% in expenses, guess i was too optimistic
 
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theag

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Is it just me or 3% 4.3% in stripe transaction fees seems outrageous
Where did you get the 4,3%? I see 2,9% on their site right low, which I guess is going to be lower with volume.

1634983370737.png

Stripe fees are also lower than PayPal, which charges something around 5-6%.

Not really. I think it has been 3,5% for a pretty long time.

1634983436946.png

These inaccuracies aside, yes they are all expensive. Depending on your AOV, the fixed fees also hit hard. We do high volume, low AOV, and are therefore actually close to the 5%.

Payment processing is a nice racket if you are on the right side of it.

I think Stripe is the most expensive. They have nice marketing. And they need to finance a lot of additional products and the usual corporate virtue signalling besides actual payment processing. Somebody has to pay for that.

View: https://twitter.com/moizali/status/1450469287647395845
 

Raja

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Where did you get the 4,3%? I see 2,9% on their site right low, which I guess is going to be lower with volume.

View attachment 40460



Not really. I think it has been 3,5% for a pretty long time.

View attachment 40461

These inaccuracies aside, yes they are all expensive. Depending on your AOV, the fixed fees also hit hard. We do high volume, low AOV, and are therefore actually close to the 5%.

Payment processing is a nice racket if you are on the right side of it.

I think Stripe is the most expensive. They have nice marketing. And they need to finance a lot of additional products and the usual corporate virtue signalling besides actual payment processing. Somebody has to pay for that.

View: https://twitter.com/moizali/status/1450469287647395845
I am from india, for international transection it's 4.3%
 
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Black_Dragon43

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Not really. I think it has been 3,5% for a pretty long time.
Maybe inside the US. I do international transactions and most of them are charged somewhere between 5-6%. I'm telling you because I'm back-calculating based on the fee they charge me.

My Stripe though is the same as yours... 2.9%.

I think Stripe is the most expensive. They have nice marketing. And they need to finance a lot of additional products and the usual corporate virtue signalling besides actual payment processing. Somebody has to pay for that.
It is, but it also looks the nicest, and the experience is the best imo, including ease of integration. All the other payment providers refused to accept my business, apart from PayPal and Stripe (even BrainTree refused!). Stripe is also trusted a lot more than the others, so it gives you an advantage with consumers.
 
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Raja

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Why? What's the motivation?
Conversion and purchasing power.

Spending 1000 USD won't be much in the us but when it converts to Indian rupees its my monthly salary which is relatively above average for india.

Even if it makes 100k I will prefer to keep my expenses low.

As of now, i can make a saas for 0 to 30$ which could easily support 100-200+ users so that 5% is just hiring expenses.

TLDR: I can make the product for almost nothing including hosting. So if I could keep my expenses low then I could reinvest everything in sales and marketing
 
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WillHurtDontCare

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"Acclimatising the global population for the cybernetic mediation of social and professional relationships and an inevitable progression towards transhumanism by depersonalising, disconnecting and alienating individuals from free and spontaneous social interactions due to social distancing"

 

Antifragile

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WillHurtDontCare

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If you feel like seeing red:


""Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive," White Coat Waste said."

"White Coat Waste claims that 44 beagle puppies were used in a Tunisia, North Africa, laboratory, and some of the dogs had their vocal cords removed, allegedly so scientists could work without incessant barking."

https://thehill.com/changing-americ...artisan-legislators-demand-answers-from-fauci
 
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Kak

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If you feel like seeing red:


""Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive," White Coat Waste said."

"White Coat Waste claims that 44 beagle puppies were used in a Tunisia, North Africa, laboratory, and some of the dogs had their vocal cords removed, allegedly so scientists could work without incessant barking."

https://thehill.com/changing-americ...artisan-legislators-demand-answers-from-fauci
“Science”
 

GPM

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Quick! Someone make a documentary about how amazing Fauci is and how we all need him in our lives.... Oh wait...
 

Antifragile

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"The bottom line is that life is one big mind game. The only person you are playing against is yourself. Stick with this process and soon what you thought was impossible will be something you do every F*cking day of your life." (David Goggins, Can't Hurt Me)
 
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Kak

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“Democracy is overrated.

It’s not like the consensus of a bunch of friends agreeing to see the same movie. Most often, it boils down to a kinder and gentler variety of mob rule, dressed in a coat and tie. The essence of positive values like personal liberty, wealth, opportunity, fraternity, and equality lies not in democracy, but in free minds and free markets where government becomes trivial. Democracy focuses people’s thoughts on politics, not production; on the collective, not on their own lives.”
-Doug Casey

Focus on YOUR circle of influence. Create the life YOU want. I was talking to @Antifragile about how downright tragic it is how many people spend hours upon hours per day watching “the news” to become “educated voters,” when all they are doing is looking for confirmation bias, and NOTHING they consume will change their minds anyway… All to push a stupid button every 4 years. Let me ask everyone something… How much has any politician changed your life for the better?

Putting hours a day into “supporting” one brand of them does YOU, as an individual, almost no good. While YOU using that massive chunk of your limited time on this earth for something amazing, that YOU choose, almost certainly will change your life for the better. Forget d bag politicians. Focus on running your life instead spending YEARS of your life “choosing” someone to run it for you.
 
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Thoelt53

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“Democracy is overrated.

It’s not like the consensus of a bunch of friends agreeing to see the same movie. Most often, it boils down to a kinder and gentler variety of mob rule, dressed in a coat and tie. The essence of positive values like personal liberty, wealth, opportunity, fraternity, and equality lies not in democracy, but in free minds and free markets where government becomes trivial. Democracy focuses people’s thoughts on politics, not production; on the collective, not on their own lives.”
-Doug Casey

Focus on YOUR circle of influence. Create the life YOU want. I was talking to @Antifragile about how downright tragic it is how many people spend hours upon hours per day watching “the news” to become “educated voters,” when all they are doing is looking for confirmation bias, and NOTHING they consume will change their minds anyway… All to push a stupid button every 4 years. Let me ask everyone something… How much has any politician changed your life for the better?

Putting hours a day into “supporting” one brand of them does YOU as an individual almost no good. While YOU using your limited time on this earth for something amazing, that YOU chose, almost certainly will change your life for the better. Forget d bag politicians.
Politicians have become celebrities; people choose sides like they’re picking their favorite sister in Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Public office is no longer public service. Hasn’t been for a long time.
 

Raoul Duke

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FdGHvrq.jpg

KNRMX0r.jpg
 
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Madame Peccato

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“Democracy is overrated.

It’s not like the consensus of a bunch of friends agreeing to see the same movie. Most often, it boils down to a kinder and gentler variety of mob rule, dressed in a coat and tie. The essence of positive values like personal liberty, wealth, opportunity, fraternity, and equality lies not in democracy, but in free minds and free markets where government becomes trivial. Democracy focuses people’s thoughts on politics, not production; on the collective, not on their own lives.”
-Doug Casey

Focus on YOUR circle of influence. Create the life YOU want. I was talking to @Antifragile about how downright tragic it is how many people spend hours upon hours per day watching “the news” to become “educated voters,” when all they are doing is looking for confirmation bias, and NOTHING they consume will change their minds anyway… All to push a stupid button every 4 years. Let me ask everyone something… How much has any politician changed your life for the better?

Putting hours a day into “supporting” one brand of them does YOU as an individual almost no good. While YOU using that massive chunk of your limited time on this earth for something amazing, that YOU chose, almost certainly will change your life for the better. Forget d bag politicians.


"Political actors, including voters, activists, and leaders, are often ignorant of basic facts relevant to policy choices. Even experts have little understanding of the working of society and little ability to predict future outcomes. As a result, the best advice is often to stop trying to solve social problems, since solutions not based on precise understanding are likely to do more harm than good."

Also, collectivism is wrong by default. There is no way something bad for an individual becomes good for multiple individuals just because they band together. And yet, democracy thrives on the notion of the collective being better than the single person.
 

MitchC

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Incredible idea, problem is, it would only be promoted (and get billions in FREE PR) if it is was executed by a "woke bootlicker" -- our service is only for vaxinated patrons. Otherwise, there would be no mainstream support, no free pr, no tech crunch articles, nothing... without the wokeness, it'd end up being the Parler of healthcare. Hard to gain widespread adoption when every powerful media organization would work to seal your failure.
Couldn’t this actually be an awesome way to get millions of dollars in free PR

“unvaxinated people are now ordering dangerous unvaxinated doctors to thier house with this new app”
 

Ing

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Every kind of Government is the domination of one bigger part of the people by a second, smaller part.
Monarchy, democrathy or what ever its called only fixes the rules of the game.

Though I m quite happy to have the rules of democracy!
 
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Antifragile

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"“Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air, and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.”" (Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question)

@Kak - reminds me of Think Bigger.
 
G

Guest-5ty5s4

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"“Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air, and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.”" (Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question)

@Kak - reminds me of Think Bigger.
This is my motivation. Some life experiences are locked until you level up.
 

Andy Black

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Whaaaa??

Seen in a toy shop:

9BBE20DB-1120-4095-83E4-7104F48A8703.jpeg
 
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Andy Black

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Selling shovels! Genius!
I love it too. It shows how kids aspire to become producers as well as being consumers.

Many kids just watch YouTube, and kids being kids they want to emulate those they follow.

I’ve watched my kids flawlessly mimic the intros from their favourite YouTube gamers. Us adults as so tangled up by worries about what people will think, and perfectionism, that we wouldn’t dream of hitting record never mind publish.
 

MJ DeMarco

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I was talking to @Antifragile about how downright tragic it is how many people spend hours upon hours per day watching “the news” to become “educated voters,” when all they are doing is looking for confirmation bias, and NOTHING they consume will change their minds anyway… All to push a stupid button every 4 years. Let me ask everyone something… How much has any politician changed your life for the better?

RoAdS anD BrIDgeS!

Anyhow, your comment reminds me of something...

Every afternoon/early evening, the wife and I take the dog for a walk at a nearby park.

One of the houses has this HUGE bay window where you can see inside to the home, which on the back wall, is a huge flat screen TV. It is so big, I can be standing 3 football fields away and see what is on the TV.

So in the last two dozen visits to the park, every single day/night the television is on.

Every.
Single.
Day.
Every.
Hour.

Not only is it on, but it is tuned to FOX NEWS where I can see Hannity arguing with people via the split screen. Or, it is Tucker, or some other character. It was even on Sunday night.

I found it terribly sad that no matter what time I'm at the park, whether it be 2PM or 7PM, that damn TV is on, and tuned to FoxNews. The wife and I first found it pretty amusing, now we find it sad.

I'm sure it has to be a retired person.

Imagine that... you worked 50 years of your life only to retire to your living room watching Fox News for the rest of your life. I can't imagine how angry, sad, and regretful that person's life must be. And of course, this isn't an attack on FOX, it could be CNN or NBC News. It doesn't matter -- the point is, this person is willfully participating in the greatest mass media operation in history, and wasting their life doing so.

I wonder, has consuming 3,100 hours of mainstream news made your life any better?

OR worse?

Sad, sad, sad...
 
G

GuestUser4aMPs1

Guest
I don't know who needs to hear this, but Gyms are a joke and you've been played.

Never been bigger/stronger in my life, and you know what I did?

Lifted Rocks.

No Stronglifts, Starting Strength, PHUL, PHAT, Pounds, Sets, Reps, Musty Gyms, none of that.

1: Go outside, find a heavy rock.

2: Do compound movements with it. No time limit, the only rule is to push yourself.
(only caveat is stop when you can't safely lift the rock).

Then, come back the next day and repeat.

Is it lighter?

If Yes, Good. It's Working.

Find a heavier rock and start over.

Here's a real picture from yesterday:

lift-f768e8cc483324696063887c52d1d8aa06542c44-s1200.jpeg
 
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