Ideas for the future of Bubble

Meta
1

Okay, so, a really interesting idea came up regarding potential revenue growth and platform enhancement that would dovetail with the move to AI. The suggestion is to explore implementing Payment Facilitation as a Service, or PayFac, directly within the Bubble platform. Essentially, this means integrating a marketplace and native payment processing capabilities.

This idea also directly aligns with something Josh mentioned at the first BubbleCon. He talked about exploring ways for Bubble to correlate the value with the upside their customers were experiencing. This PayFac concept is a potential avenue for that.

The core concept is that by handling payments directly, Bubble could capture a portion of the existing transaction fees, similar to what platforms like Stripe charge. We’re talking about a potentially significant revenue increase here, with estimates suggesting a possible 10 to 100 times growth.

But it’s not just about revenue. It’s also about providing a more streamlined and valuable experience for our users. Some key advantages we’d be looking at include:

  • Aligning revenue with customer success: Bubble can pareticipate in the value being create’ applications.
  • Simplifying development: Developers wouldn’t have to deal with complex, third-party payment integrations, making their lives easier.
  • Accelerating product delivery: Building marketplace and e-commerce apps would become faster and more efficient.
  • Potentially reducing costs for end-users: This could allow developers to offer more competitive pricing.
  • Creating a more comprehensive platform: Imagine a truly all-in-one solution for building and monetizing applications.

Of course, there are complexities to consider. We’d need to thoroughly analyze the necessary infrastructure, compliance requirements, and potential partnerships. But the potential benefits are definitely worth exploring.

2

No don’t bother with any kind of payments. Way off base for what is needed, especially since there are already so many payment providers to choose from and integrations are easy, bubble should not attempt to reinvent themselves again as a payments processor.

4 Likes
3

I was not suggesting they become a payment processor, but integrate a payment processor into the AI so that AI knows how to build a marketplace from the jump.

4

oh, okay…i just assumed from the idea of them taking a cut from the payments as a way to boost their income implied you wanted them to become something like Stripe, rather than just enabling the AI to integrate with Stripe or other payment processors.

Based on my experience with Bubble, stripe and AI, this is likely not an easy feat to ensure accuracy, and when it comes to money and financial data, accuracy is necessary. There are also so many different ways to integrate based on business needs or monetization strategies that it will be very difficult to get an AI to do the prompted implementation properly…also, Bubble built stripe plugin has been the worst of the bunch, so Bubble track record of knowing how to integrate to Stripe properly is not the best. But don’t worry, there will be ways to get the specific integration necessary easily and quickly soon enough, I just don’t think bubble will be the provider of choice for it (as in not Bubble but community member built products)

5

Hi all, moved this to its own topic as it was off-topic for adding questions for the AMA thread