Amazon-Stripe partnership

I worked on Amazon Payments systems for quite some time back in the day. We took pride in being the best payment processors. Had direct connections with card networks, banks and what not. We even launched a PayPal competitor[1]. They launched a Square like device for physical retailers[2]. They invested some serious money in building and maintaining all of that.

However going by this news seems like Amazon has more or less given up on their payments ambitions. Could be also due to recent layoffs. This is a big news. Maybe Amazon wants to focus on being good at few things instead of running hundreds of experiments.

Edit: References.

[1] https://pay.amazon.com

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/10/30/amazon-kills...

> Could be also due to recent layoffs.

Just a quick guess I am pulling out of my ass.

Did somebody high up do a cost analysis/breakdown that said: is this entire business org making the company money or can we just use Stripe for less money?

Does it boil down to that gross oversimplification or not?

I'm sure it isn't easy to quantify the intangibles (if there were any) on what edges Amazon had over Stripe and benefitted from by choosing to do it in house. I'm sure it might not seem like an apples-to-apples comparison, but I guess when you zoom out high enough (company spending $X money in, getting Y out) it's comparable to any other purchasable good/service?

> Did somebody high up do a cost analysis/breakdown that said: is this entire business org making the company money or can we just use Stripe for less money?

That would definitely be a factor, but also competitive strategy and product placement. Do they really want to try and take on Stripe, Apple Pay, Shopify, etc? What exactly are they offering that's unique? Is it a core competency? How does this work alongside existing business interests?

And more.

> Do they really want to try and take on Stripe, Apple Pay, Shopify, etc?

Is the answer "they did when the Federal Reserve had interest rates at 0.25%" and now that interest rates are currently are 4.5% headed toward potentially 5%+ and/or just staying in the 4-5% range for at least 6-12 months "no"?

Somebody (multiple people?) obviously signed off on investing resources into this in the first place. How long ago, I'm not sure. Could some clairvoyantly even back then that this would get scraped? No clue, I have no internal leg up/leak/data.

Why was the answer yes then (yes = invest in it) and now, when they have a finished-ish product, no (no = don't try to internally compete with Stripe)?

Low interest rates can mask poor business decisions, or make it cheaper to place bets on new products. Higher rates change the IRR calculation and perhaps overall business strategy too. So yea probably re: 0.25%