So, where did Stripe go wrong?<p>It says in the article (and I've heard this in other places) you could start using Stripe "with only seven lines of code." Sounds like a JavaScript snippet you drop in, so the whole thing could be contained in one 15 line HTML page.<p>It's not like this now.<p>I recently set up Stripe and used AWS with a Lambda function, following a tutorial, to accept the token and the message back from the server and etc. You know the drill.<p>I mean it's not insanely hard but it's sure as hell not "seven lines of code." It is definitely hard enough to deter junior devs who can code up HTML+CSS and basic JS, and maybe even a simple React page. I can easily see someone reading about the API token and responding to the API token on your server and being like "oh shit" and dropping out.<p>So why can't it be like that anymore? It's funny, all these services say "we want payments to be easy" and eventually develop to a point where payments are no longer easy. It seems like either it's a credit card or it's complicated - nothing in between.
Since when has Stripe ever been even remotely "secretive"? They've been highly publicized in the tech community since the beginning. Just because they weren't mainstream in the beginning doesn't mean they're secretive.