Why is Stripe attacking litmags?
And why is Duotrope using their services exclusively?
As the operator of the humour site, Witcraft, which uses Duotrope to process submissions, I have just received a warning from Stripe, Duotrope’s exclusive payment processor, that they are planning to close my account because they have decided my site is a content creation platform. They define content creation platform as ‘a marketplace that hosts or distributes third-party content from multiple content creators and enables end users to provide payments to creators.’ My site, Witcraft, does not do that and only uses Stripe to accept donations and to accept entry fees for competitions. If that is in breach of Stripe's rules, let me suggest that would apply to hundreds of Duotrope customers and, if so, Duotrope needs to find a new payment platform. It would seem that would also apply to any litmag who uses Stripe’s services.
So why is Stripe making life difficult for small litmags? Why don’t you ask them and Duotrope as well. I certainly have and I’ll keep you posted.
We accept donations to our site too. At the moment they help cover costs, but we hope to use them to fund support for our writers in the future. I know some places have paid staff, but any mag accepting 'tip jar' payments is either covering costs or sharing with writers. I don't get why Stripe think that is a bad thing? Better than taking money for plastic tat, surely? Better than taking money for AI stories, or stolen content - seems weird that sharing money with contributors is deemed bad.
Well this sucks and is worrisome. Never easy, doing something worthwhile, is it?