Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

I love the quote from John Collison:

"This is digital migration in a very compressed period of time, for both businesses and customers," Collison adds. "My mom recently asked me if I'd heard of 'this Instacart thing.' Yeah mom, I have."

Sadly, it’s also likely one of the largest and fastest transfers of wealth from small businesses to large corporations. As Amazon hires 100,000+ workers how many small businesses are shuttering for good?

Stripe is one of the “good” tech companies in this respect by helping to level the playing field for smaller businesses, but it’s not going to be enough.

I don't understand this idolization of small over large (or vice versa for others). The thing that matters most is that businesses best satisfy their customers, whether they are small or large.

There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company.

I buy from small companies all the time and many of those that I do will likely survive because they provide better goods and services than any large company.

> There's no benefit to having a small business that provides inferior products or inferior service relative to a large company.

Sure there is - in terms of where the profit goes. The profit in a small business goes to the owner(s), who usually live somewhere in the local community, and in turn that money stays within the community to be spent on other businesses there.

When a Walmart comes along, the profits all move up the chain to a corporation that is nowhere nearby, effectively sucking the wealth out of small towns in exchange for slightly reduced costs thanks to efficient logistics.

The happy medium would be to find a way to have logistics as good as Walmart without having to actually be Walmart.

I'm not so sure about the tremendous benefits of having locally-wealthy people instead of remotely-wealthy people. As I've gotten more involved in local politics, I've discovered that local small business owners have a quite toxic influence on local politics. Who funds the campaigns opposing density? Often it's small business owners. In Seattle, the city was trying to create spaces where addicts could safely use needle drugs (and get services and be off the street). Who opposed this? Small business owners.

Additionally, because they fly under the radar and are less efficient, small businesses can be some of the most exploitative workplaces. Small businesses are also often exempted from pro-worker regulations, for example they do not have to provide healthcare to their employees. Several small businesses in cities I've lived in have waged years-long union-busting campaigns.

The point isn't that small businesses are worse than large ones, I just think they have a progressive halo which is often undeserved.