EDIT: "The Bancorp Bank", the bank Simple farms out the actual banking to, has been around since 2000[0]. Simple _might_ have an excuse for screwing up like this if this was all their own system, but an established bank doesn't.
Edit: it's exactly like trying to reinvent Twitter by consuming their APIs, and we've all seen how that goes
Bancorp is a closer analog to EC2; they let Simple get off the ground quickly without having to build and harden their own banking systems and transaction networks. Also like EC2, Simple gets to take the heat equally if Bancorp screws up.
That said, this is pretty bad, but if Simple had built their own network and left a glaring security hole open, they'd be utter toast.
No doubt you already see where I'm going with this.
They also don't deserve any special 'slack' just because they use other companies services. You wouldn't accept that excuse from Bank of America.
Allowed: scheduled downtime announced ahead of time for reporting, unscheduled downtime with localized effect due to 'acts of god'. Not allowed: customers can't access their funds when they should be able to.
When you disrupt the banking industry you especially should be doing at least as good as the established parties do in the reliability department.
Let's hope they have it fixed very quickly or it may well kill Simple.
Imagine being in a bar somewhere right now and having just bought a round finding out that you can't pay for it. You'll hear about that one for years.
Easy to say but I think it is unreasonable to expect a company that is couple years old to have as much reliability as ones who have had decades to figure it out.
I think the Simple customers have every right be absolutely pissed. For some, they may even realize that the downside of going with Simple isn't justified by the upside. Hopefully, for the majority of Simple users the upside will make the rare downtime bearable.
My view would change if this becomes a regular occurrence with Simple. But that does not seem to be the case.
Payment systems have an impact that is unlike any other system.
It's very well possible that lives depend on your system working. You may never know about it but you should definitely build as though they do.
You can't build financial software the same way that you build some CRUD site or the latest social fad.
No one is arguing that you should be able to do that. And it is kind of insulting to imply that that is how the folks at Simple look at development without some source.
Systems break for many reasons, and you can't simply assume the cause to be a social fad attitude of the dev team.
If Simple is used the way they intend you to use them those scenarios are playing out right now. You really can't shift the blame for that onto those that believed the Simple proposition and acted as though simple was going to deliver.
Ordinary everyday people do not do single-point-of-failure analysis on their wallet, they simply expect it to work.
I don't see any marketing claim on the Simple site that they'll have fewer outages than the Rabobanks/BofAs of the world. (Where do you see that claim, or actual delivered level of service, from any actual existing bank?)
'get ready to leave your bank'
'unmatched security and support'
'replace your bank'
'use the simple card for all your purchases'
Those set the stage for some pretty high expectations, they make it plain simple expects to be your sole provider.
Rabobank fucked up once in 20 years, and then only on a peripheral part of their service (ATM and point-of-sale still worked). If they had dropped the ball on either I'd be out of there for sure.
Almost four hours isn't brief. And I've never had a point-of-sale or ATM outage like that, ever. (other than the power blackout a few years back in the North-East, but not being able to pay for stuff was the least of your problems back then. By the way, our gas station was the only one running for 75 miles around because I had actually thought through how we'd operate in a situation like that).
It looks as if we hold our payment service providers to different standards. I expect mine to be there when I need them, you're ok with whatever your definition of 'brief outages' is.
It makes me wonder what it would take for you to start wondering if you've got your money parked with the right institution.
For me not being able to get at it when I need it is the one thing that would do it.
Anyway, great for 'simple' that they have it resolved, this will likely slow their adoption for a bit (though sync is on the ball in this thread and turning lemons into lemonade) and it will hopefully cause some serious introspection inside simple to make sure stuff like this will never happen again.
And maybe I'm wrong and old fashioned in my attitude towards payment services and we should just cut all those banks some slack and accept periodic outages. But my mid 80's bosses would fire my ass very quickly if I displayed that attitude on the job and I think it is too far ingrained in me to let go of.
Doesn't worry me in the least.
For example, in surrounding tweets @Skroob jokes about paying with Bitcoin, mentions his dining party has other options, and then despite some disappointment concludes with sympathy for @Simplify. He further says that Simple's "company policy of ignoring the s* out of HN, especially during outages" is something that "just makes me love you guys more".
So: while non-customer HNers with crazy-high standards whinge, real customers can laugh about the situation (and even laugh about HN's negativity-bias).
My current setup is a cash-back credit card, with the bills for it paid from a high-yield savings account. I net close to 2% cash back on the card, and around .8% APR on the savings account, and pay exactly $0 in fees. Based on the language on Simple's site, I'm guessing the APR on their savings is closer to .25% or so, and they definitely don't offer cash back on the use of their card.
Sure, the tools they offer are nice, but my credit card provider also has pretty nice spending analysis tools (that don't require an iOS device), and lots of other providers are adding or improving spending tools as well.
What am I missing?