Whenever there is an upgrade or new feature in WordPress or WooCommerce, there are the critics. That is the nature of technology. But sometimes I feel it can be short-sighted. Often people are only focused on the smaller picture—their own needs, their clients’ specific needs— not the WooCommerce community.
With WooCommerce 4.1, the new WooCommerce payments powered by Stripe dropped in.
I shared my post in a Facebook group. But the first and only comment that came in was this:
Worth also mentioning that with woopayments you cannot use your existing stripe account. You have to create a whole new one for what is really no benefit.
Often I ignore these because haters will hate. Or they will always find something to complain about. But this time I replied.
That’s right, it’s an Express account. Can be run concurrently with your existing account for various reasons. But the biggest advantage of this is for new people setting up Woo sites and not having to hassle with setting up a payment gateway. This is a heck of a lot easier to do than setting it up via the plugin they currently have. So yes, there is a benefit to it as an option for new users, which is why it was done this way.
And I waited, then this was added (note that it wasn’t in relation to my comment).
as long as you live in the US…
Mmmmmm, well, I couldn’t leave it at that.
For now.. also it only works with manual payments and not subscriptions. This is a huge endeavor to bring in their own payment gateway to make it easier for users, so heck, baby steps.
The person never came back.
This brings me back to what I was saying before about short-sightedness. The comment, You have to create a whole new one for what is really no benefit, is directly related to anyone who may have a store and is currently using Stripe. But what about everyone else? The new users?
Not every new feature that comes out in WooCommerce core is going to affect you directly. And it may not affect your clients. Most importantly, never make an assumption.
You are not alone in this WooCommerce community and understanding different user needs is a good start toward showing some empathy.
In the end, this really goes beyond WooCommerce, even beyond WordPress. It’s technology. Changes happen that we find cumbersome or annoying. And for the life of us, we cannot figure out why it was changed. It may actually make more sense to the new user and it’s hard to grasp as a seasoned user.
Face it, it’s a hard balance.
