[sudo-discuss] Gratipocalypse

[danarauz at gmail.com]

Someone in IRC #Sudoroom posted:
"does sudo still rely heavily on Gratipay?"
 "if so https://medium.com/gratipay-blog/gratipocalypse-42fd0ec0d9e8 is
very relevant"


Anyhow, a paste of the article (Published on May 7):

Gratipocalypse
------------------------------

Three weeks ago, we announced
<https://medium.com/gratipay-blog/balancedshutdown-3a9fdb32e9c6> that our
payment processor, Balanced Payments, is going out of business. At the
time, we said that, “we will have to change Gratipay in some
yet-to-be-fully-understood fashion in order to survive the transition away
from Balanced, and it will be hard.” We’re now beginning to understand the
changes we have to make, and they couldn’t be harder.

Balanced is directing their customers to Stripe, and Stripe rejected us
because they believe our model “qualifies as money transmission
<https://github.com/gratipay/gratipay.com/issues/3245#issuecomment-91112973>.”
They followed up to specify changes
<https://github.com/gratipay/gratipay.com/issues/3324#issuecomment-93562216> we
would need to make in order to use their service. These changes are drastic
enough, but the suggestion that Gratipay might be regulated as a money
transmitter is even more serious.

As soon as Stripe notified us of this possibility, we immediately
beganresearching
the issue <https://github.com/gratipay/gratipay.com/issues/3321>, and we
quickly hired a lawyer
<https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/193> to help us
understand our situation. Yesterday, we concluded that the concerns Stripe
raised are real, and that therefore it would be both imprudent and immoral
for us to continue processing payments as we have been. Unfortunately, we
were unable to change course in time for this week’s payment cycle, and so,
after 152 weeks of continuous operation, *we are for the first time today
skipping Gratipay’s weekly payment cycle*.

Our intention is to quickly implement a revised model
<https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/192> that is true
to ourmission <http://inside.gratipay.com/big-picture/mission> and
compliant with regulations, and resume processing payments. However, *a
revised model will almost certainly exclude some of you who have been
receiving money on Gratipay in the past*. Simultaneously, we will work with
regulators to resolve any past noncompliance, a process we’ve already
initiated.

This really sucks for you, our users, especially those who have come to
depend on the income you’ve been receiving through Gratipay. We’re deeply
sorry for not discovering and handling this situation sooner, and we look
forward to processing payments again as soon as possible.

If you have any questions please contact us privately via email
<support at gratipay.com>, or publicly on this GitHub issue
<https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/192>.
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