Scrollstack a Substack Alternative for Indian Writers

I wrote this article which is my most widely read article on medium. The article on the problems of monetising on Substack articulates the frustration of writers from India and other countries where Stripe has no support.

I had successfully connected my 2017 created Stripe with Substack and I was under the impression everything was going fine. Until one day a subscriber complained she was trying to become the founder member and her credit and debit card wouldn’t process.

I thought perhaps it was the extra verification needed for Indian payments, so I tweaked the setting and added the 3D secure stuff. Then I informed my patron again, that she could try again. She again said the payment won’t get through.

I was frustrated and decided to find alternative ways I could monetise my writing. Meanwhile, now Substack displayed a notice saying that there was a problem with my Stripe account and that I might need to do some extra verification. I also got an email from Stripe to verify.

I tried to verify, but nothing seemed to work, so I wrote an email to Stripe. A few days later I got a reply, saying that since my account had been dormant for a long time, they had discontinued my account and If I wanted to get on Stripe, I would need to request an invite from someone who has an existing Stripe Business account.

I am not a startup and don’t see any need for a Business account. The reply from Stripe was rather generic and it felt…