[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company? ___________________________________________________________________ Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company? I have been searching for a solution to e-sign some lease agreements. It is something that I need to do maybe once a year and the only thing I need is a legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF. I do not need any fancy features. I was doing research, and it seems like most document signature companies all charge monthly subscription fees! This does not work for me as I am not using the platform on a monthly basis. Are there free, open source alternatives to Docusign? If so, why do more companies not use them? Author : akouri Score : 32 points Date : 2021-11-27 21:47 UTC (1 hours ago) | codingdave wrote: | > legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF. | | IANAL, but the idea that a signature is what makes a contract | legally binding is not exactly true. It is a symbol of the | acceptance of the contract, but legal acceptance can take many | forms - so whether you use a service to signify acceptance, or | just sign it using acrobat or Adobe's site, or even just a verbal | agreement... those are all valid acceptance, legally speaking. | | DocuSign's use case is not the signing, but the management of | those documents and signatures - tracking which documents are | sent, which have been read (yes, the doc owner can get notified | when you even look at a Docusign document), which have been | signed, and being able to store copies of signed docs. It is | mostly for the companies sending you contracts, not for you as | the signer. | dsizzle wrote: | I've signed PDFs digitally overlaying a digital version in | Preview on a Mac, which is free -- for all parties. I'm not | sure if there's more legal wiggle room for that version vs | Docusign or not. | | But yes, as noted, DocuSign has other features. | cyanydeez wrote: | id also bet their backend does all kind of fingerprinting of | who/what signs a document to ensure they can make the | electronic signature defensible. | arrakis2021 wrote: | Enterprises generally don't want or care about open source | software. | Seanambers wrote: | I just use the PDF sign feature which basically adds a picture of | my signature to the document. | | No one has noticed so far :=) | SavantIdiot wrote: | Because the market is batshit insane right now. Been investing | for 30 years (started right after the Savings and Loan Scandal | bust in the late 80's), and the insanity dwarfs the Dot Com | bubble. People who don't understand the basics of investing | always joke about how it is a casino, and that was always a | little true, but now it is massively true. | roeschger wrote: | First a disclaimer: I am no lawyer, but I am one of the co- | founders of Skribble[0], an e-signature provider from | Switzerland. | | I don't want to go into details but depending on which country | you need your signatures to be legally binding and the type of | contract you are signing, you might need a higher signature | standard than the one you get from DocuSign. | | At Skribble we offer all 3 signature standards defined by the | European law. The lowest standard is very similar to what you get | from DocuSign. | | Also, at Skribble you get 2 signatures per month for free and a | pay-as-you-go model for individuals. | | I'd be happy if you give it a try at [1]. | | [0] https://www.skribble.com/en-eu/ [1] | https://my.skribble.com/signup/ | revorad wrote: | I use https://www.signwell.com. It works really well and the free | tier is enough for infrequent use. | tylermenezes wrote: | Most of the documents people e-sign are related to business deals | (contracts, NDAs, etc) or HR (offer letters) which are such high | dollar value transactions that the cost of e-signing is | negligible. | | Your use case unfortunately is just not worth it to them in | comparison. | brianwawok wrote: | Sign a piece of paper and scan it. No cost. | ipince wrote: | Who has scanners (and printers) these days? And going to Fedex | to print/scan is a cost too. | throwaway2048 wrote: | take a picture of it | nwatson wrote: | Docusign and other services like it do more than send out forms | to collect signatures. There often are other fields / data | collected, alternative forms of documents presented depending | on target party's profile, etc. If you take the sign/scan/send | form, the receiving company still needs to do all the work to | put that form in the right place and perhaps extract further | data for further steps in some data pipeline. Docusign et al | will presumably integrate straight into your document flow, | much simpler in the long run with fewer people. | | Just to put one alternative company into the fray, there's | Docsmore (https://client.docsmore.com/features.html), a local | startup (North Carolina) that offers document management / | signing / document flow as a service. I'd imagine it would be | hard to go up against a giant like Docusign unless there are | compelling additional features. | | The Docsmore founders seem to have more recently used the | service as a jumping-off point for a separate insurance claims- | processing automation company, Benekiva | (https://www.benekiva.com/) (Iowa/North Carolina). That seems | even more lucrative than straightforward document signing/data- | collection. | | EDIT: I have no relation to the company, I've met some of the | founders before | vsenko wrote: | Now really sure that it'll help you, but in Kazakhstan digital | signatures can be legally significant (have equal significance as | hand-written signatures) in case if several requirements are met. | | One of the requirements is that certificate has to be issued by | accredited CA. And there is one such CA - National CA | (https://pki.gov.kz/), it issues such certificates for free. | | Also there is a service that allows anyone to sign any file using | a certificate issued by National CA - https://sigex.kz, thus | making it legally significant. It's free for use (except for | heavy RPS enterprise users and the ones, how need support). | | So in Kazakhstan you can do e-docs signed by e-signs totally for | free. | | P.S.: Pardon, but the links are in Russian. | DyslexicAtheist wrote: | The KZ government PKI has had quite the history: | | - Kazakhstan man-in-the-middle attack | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan_man-in-the-middle_a... | | - "Certificate cannot be trusted" warning in Kazakhstan | https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/certificate-cannot-be-t... | | - Kazakhstan Attempts to MITM Its Citizens | https://www.f5.com/labs/articles/threat-intelligence/kazakhs... | tibbetts wrote: | Because there is a natural monopoly in being a trusted provider | of legal transaction services. Both for integrations and for the | fact that no one wants to risk their job saving a few dollars on | digital signatures. And no one wants to explain to a future | acquirer / legal inquiry / judge / whatever that they are using | some weird alternative. "We process the contracts with Docusign" | is a safe thing to say. If that wasn't good enough, a whole lot | of other people would also be in trouble, so the collective | hallucination that is our legal system will support it. | runnr_az wrote: | 100% agree. We looked at sourcing different providers for a | project, but for things involving trust, the known brand is an | easy choice. | programmarchy wrote: | esignatures.io could be a nice solution. I've used them for | client projects and they have a simple API, too. They have a | $0.49 per contract pricing model. | funstuff007 wrote: | A Docusign hack would be downright amazing. Among other things, | you'd probably get to see how much big oil pays direct to | dictators, or (more likely) the entities they control. | salade_pissoir wrote: | It seems unlikely that a big oil company would rely on Docusign | for serious skulduggery. They'd send couriers and the like for | that. | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: | My guess - DocuSign has a hard to penetrate moat: It's known and | accepted in courts. Everything else doesn't really matter. | | Imagine you're a legal department. You have to choose between | DocuSign, which you know the court will accept, or a competitor. | DocuSign costs 10x as much as the competitor. But that's nothing | compared to the cost of litigation, or worse, the cost of losing | litigation. So you will likely choose DocuSign anyways. | rightisleft wrote: | Unrelated to open source, but DocuSign is literally one of the | examples i list when explaining why the tech sector is over | bought. They've tripled their market cap since the beginning of | the pandemic, and while there is some merit to work from home, | their moat is laughable. There are plenty of alternatives to | DocuSign that should make share holders terrified... Adobe Sign, | Panda Docs, HelloSign - i wouldn't even bet against notarize.com | | Someone is going to roll a decentralized ID system on blockchain | and tank this whole sector... | mtlynch wrote: | I haven't found free, open-source solutions, but HelloSign[0] is | a decent solution if you only need to sign documents a few times | per year. Their free tier supports three documents per month. | They make it look like they only have paid plans, but you can | sign up without a credit card for a free tier. | | [0] https://www.hellosign.com/ | GDC7 wrote: | Oh it's a long story...where to begin? | | It all started in 2006 when the economy grew at 6.6% in Q3 and | the Fed still claimed that not tightening was a great insurance | policy. | | Fast forward: | | Subprime crisis | | Bernanke says "subprime is contained" | | Subprime was not contained | | Wheels come off in 2008 | | Everybody runs away like chicken with their heads cut off | | Everybody goes back to Bernanke asking for solutions | | Bernanke proposes QE, something that he claims "works in | practice, but not in theory" | | Slow recovery | | More panic | | More QE | | Temper Tantrum | | More QE | | 13 years of regular QE | | 2 years of QE on steroids due to COVID | | Asset prices only go up | | Everything bubble | | And here we get to the current scenario where scam companies are | worth trillions and Docusign is worth 50B | smcl wrote: | What scam companies are worth trillions? | teeray wrote: | A zoom recording with a witness involved maybe? | xn wrote: | I don't know what's legally binding in your jurisdiction, but in | the US, scribbling on a PDF will suffice for most purposes. | xournal++ is a free tool that will support this. | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: | I paid for DocuSign's annual fee the year I bought my house | because it was just that much easier to sign everything | electronically. The only documents I signed in person were at the | closing. Everything else was done electronically, which was | beautiful. | | I have to admit, over the past two years I've run into two pieces | of professional software that made me think, dang, this thing | actually works and is a material improvement on the old state of | affairs. One was Fusion 360 and one was DocuSign. (I say this as | a casual user of both relevant categories of software.) | 960design wrote: | The US has had an Electronic Signature law since 2000: | https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-106publ229/pdf/PLAW... | | tl dr; Typed signatures are legal in a digital form if the form | states this is a signature block. There is no need for a third | party such as docusign. | | Further verification standards have been adopted, but not | required, to identify typed signatures. The most common is the | leading "//". So my legal signature would look like this: | | //William Hagan | potatolicious wrote: | As with many situations with enterprise software vs. roll-your- | own solutions (FOSS or otherwise): reliability, responsibility, | and liability are the reasons. | | Most enterprise software is purchased to do something the company | requires, but is not within the company's actual line of | business. Payroll, tax calculations, identity verification, etc. | | In these cases "cheap" is not very important so long as the | solutions are cheap _enough_ relative to the value of what the | company 's business. This is also why companies routinely | contract out vast amounts of work to highly-paid lawyers - paying | someone six figures to do work on a deal that's worth 9 figures | is a rounding error, and is not a cost worth optimizing. | | More importantly, the third party provides two important pieces: | responsibility and liability. Docusign is on the hook if they | fail to validate the signers' identity, and if anything goes awry | Docusign is on the hook for fixing it. These are features, not | bugs, to enterprises who need a function performed but really do | not want the liability or responsibility around it. | | This is similar to why tech companies outsource to cloud services | rather than run on their own metal. | ineedasername wrote: | _> and is not a cost worth optimizing._ | | Well, it's kind of like plumbing. Once established, you don't | think about it much until something goes wrong. Maybe someone | notices, "Hey, our annual maintenance is $x, but I think the | normal rate is only $x-y." | | But unless it's time for a lot of belt tightening, making that | change is pure risk if the system mostly works, problems are | fixed quickly, etc. Because maybe you change plumbers, and | there's a catastrophic failure _that would have happened | anyway_ , but now via the magic of post-hoc fallacies it looks | like the change is what caused the problem. (And maybe it did! | who knows?) | | So there are many things in any organization that only get | optimized/updated (or even just simple maintenance) when they | become a noticeable problem. The old adage about not fixing | what isn't broken-- you need to really be able to show a likely | failure in order to make a preemptive change. | ineedasername wrote: | As a side note, this can be a good thing. When a certain | amount of change aversion isn't maintained, you get change | for change's sake. Organizationally, you get every new | manager trying to "make their mark" on things. Individually, | you get developers trying to add "migrated product to $X | shiny new framework" to their resume for their next job hop | in 2-3 years. | | But many/most of us have probably also worked in environments | that were far too conservative about changes, so that may be | the more common problem. | kosolam wrote: | So why is it 50b company? | [deleted] | niftylettuce wrote: | Working on an open source alternative, email me at | niftylettuce@gmail.com if you want to try the beta. | | We're the team behind https://forwardemail.net | | Everything 100% transparent, open-source, privacy-focused, with | fair pricing ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-27 23:00 UTC)