Beyond pc explicitly admitting that they made the mistake you're saying they didn't, Stripe and other payment processors, especially internet payment processors, are extremely sensitive to economic forecasts. I can think of three obvious reasons that current market conditions would tell them to prepare for a macroeconomic downturn:
1) The housing market is the largest asset base in the world's wealthiest country and changes in that market reliably predict macroeconomic downturns (1).
2) E-commerce transactions are supported more than the economy as a whole by discretionary income. Interest rates drastically change consumers' spending habits; when rates rise, discretionary spending drops as consumers save more (2). You can infer that the GDP of e-commerce decreases at a rate higher than the larger economy because of that drop in spending.
3) Stripe has a very high retention rate for its customers. That counterintuitively increases the volatility of its stock because of increasing interest rates (3)
Beyond the appeal to intuition you made around tech companies assuming that post-COVID demand would remain, there are plenty of reasons that a payment processor that primarily services e-commerce would need to downsize. They are simply more sensitive to macroeconomic conditions.
1) The housing market is the largest asset base in the world's wealthiest country and changes in that market reliably predict macroeconomic downturns (1). 2) E-commerce transactions are supported more than the economy as a whole by discretionary income. Interest rates drastically change consumers' spending habits; when rates rise, discretionary spending drops as consumers save more (2). You can infer that the GDP of e-commerce decreases at a rate higher than the larger economy because of that drop in spending. 3) Stripe has a very high retention rate for its customers. That counterintuitively increases the volatility of its stock because of increasing interest rates (3)
Beyond the appeal to intuition you made around tech companies assuming that post-COVID demand would remain, there are plenty of reasons that a payment processor that primarily services e-commerce would need to downsize. They are simply more sensitive to macroeconomic conditions.
[1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4535186-how-to-predict-a-re... [2] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/071715/how-do-chang... [3] https://whoisnnamdi.com/high-retention-high-volatility/