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Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

Shopify not being willing to fight battles to keep supporting stores that other people don't want them to isn't exactly the same as them choosing what you can sell... Though I guess I see some similarity.

> I’m trying to get him to switch to an open-source alternative.

Well if you want an argument in favor between terrible support, glitchy software, huge price hikes, and so on we aren't particularly happy with Shopify either...

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> Shopify not being willing to fight battles to keep supporting stores that other people don't want them to isn't exactly the same as them choosing what you can sell...

It is the same.

Or rather the latter is inclusive of the former.

Exactly, Shopify as a business can do what it wants. But I will never let software manage my business that I don’t have control over.

> I will never let software manage my business that I don’t have control over.

I can't imagine this is actually possible in 2026 unless your business is a something like a cash-only lemonade stand.

Opensource is the only way to free sellers from propeitary SaaS and marketplace middlemen. I’m actually working on building an opensource Shopify for every vertical from restaurants to gyms to hotels.

How are you handling payments? Cash and crypto only?

There’s an adapter system and we have Stripe and PayPal adapters but some users have created one for Solana Pay and Coinbase. Essentially it’s up to the seller what payments they want to support. Create the adapter functions once and you’re good.

There are self-hosted options for almost everything (e.g. WooCommerce).

EXCEPT payments. (Unless you do crypto, which has been used for purchases by <2% of US adults.)

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And the restrictions are not theoretical.

Most payment providers either outright prohibit (PayPal, CoinBase) or restrict (Stripe) legal gun transactions.

Hateful content is virtually universally banned by processors (see: Gab).

Even if you have your own stack for software, you still need someone for payments, and that's where it hits you. Shopify was letting Kanye sells nazi merch, they don't give a crap for most things unless it's trademark issues.

So... They're not choosing what you can sell. They're letting arbitrary third parties choose what you can sell? That seems worse.

Indeed it's worse, and apparently Valve/Steam is the only one who seems to care about something resembling freedom to sell legal things, even if we might subjectively disagree.

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