7 ms·
I'm weird but I feel like cash is superior for those applications and doesn't require me to hand my credit card number out to yet another company.
by RankingMember 11y ago
I'm weird but I feel like cash is superior for those applications and doesn't require me to hand my credit card number out to yet another company.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- untog 11y agoBut it does require you to walk to the nearest ATM, withdraw the nearest round amount to the amount you need, then somehow try to get change from your friend (or just call it even) then walk around with the remainder. I get what you're saying, but it isn't difficult to see why people find Venom a better option. What is exactly that bad about Venmo having your credit card number? You're protected from fraud anyway.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoWrite check, friend deposits with mobile check deposit app. Everyone has a bank of some sort, I have yet to meet anyone who is using Venmo.
- HaloZero 11y agoYou then have to write out a check to the right person, the amount, the other person has to sign it and then take two pictures. Venmo just reduces all of that to. Send $10 to X
- toomuchtodo 11y agoPerfect example of the HN bubble.
- mojowo11 11y agoYep, I bet Venmo processed $1.6 billion in transactions in the last quarter of 2014 entirely from Hacker News users. EDIT: Oh, apparently we're going to talk about their business model now instead. Jeez, it's hard to keep up.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago$1.6 billion in transactions, and they're still not profitable (backstopped by Paypal's profits). Good luck with that long term!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- morgante 11y agoYou're the on in the bubble. Young people don't write checks. Full stop.
- avn2109 11y agoAgreed. I am a millenial and I was super pissed when I discovered my new landlord required me to pay by check. Mostly because this required me to figure out how to get checks from the bank.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoWhy would you be super pissed? Accepting credit cards costs the merchant 3%, a substantial amount for the amount charged by a landlord. Which is why check payments dominate larger transactions. Merchant fees are expensive compared to an ACH check fee (25 cents tops).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
- bronson 11y agoWho carries checks everywhere anymore?
- Vraxx 11y agoI don't know about all banks, but my bank has a flat fee on that service, which seems like it would make it significantly worse for paying back small sums (of which the flat fee is a greater percentage of).
- protomyth 11y ago"Everyone has a bank of some sort" I think we've had quite a few articles on HN that show that isn't true.
- Jtsummers 11y agoIt's friction. If you have two entities providing the same service (money exchange), but one is easy to use and one is much harder to use, the easier one will win (all other things being equal. Check method: Needed items: Payer - checkbook, pen Payee - phone Steps: Payer Payee Write check Give check Receive check Sign check Use app to photograph and submit check Venmo method: Needed items: Payer - phone Payee - phone Steps: Payer Payee Send $x to Payee A similar occurrence in the financial field, mobile banking. Depositing checks via phone is easier than going to an ATM which was easier than making it to a physical branch of the right bank during business hours. Cash is a better equivalence to Venmo, but only works when you're physically collocated. And then requires one or both parties to carry around cash (and it's not as easy to be precise, if you care about getting it right down to the penny).
- toomuchtodo 11y agoHow do you handle someone who won't install Venmo and sign up for their service? Not pay them back?
- Jtsummers 11y agoSwitch back to cash, check or another transfer mechanism. Or have them buy the next round at the bar and call it good.
- superuser2 11y agoI have yet to meet anyone under 30 who knows where their checkbook is.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoMeet "the Venmo line": http://qz.com/277509/read-what-happens-when-a-bunch-of-over-30s-find-out-how-millennials-handle-their-money/ http://qz.com/277509/read-what-happens-when-a-bunch-of-over-... Your kid's school doesn't take Venmo for field trips. Or school lunch programs. Or extracurricular activities. That's just to name a few "adult" things Venmo doesn't support, and requires a checkbook. Great, you can pay friends back for rent, drinks, or eating out. #millenialproblems
- Jtsummers 11y agoIt seems more like #twentysomethingproblems, not #millenialproblems. As a GenXer this was stuff I dealt with far more in college and just after than I do these days. I imagine it was similar for my Boomer parents.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI think that's my point. Once you get older, this problem drops away. You probably don't have roommates (no need to split rent or utilities) and you probably eat out less often (and when you do, you can split the check). If you're a parent, you're paying for things that require a check or cash. The check then become's "frictionless" as you already require it.
- Jtsummers 11y agoThis is true. And I had a longer, but more rambling reply, saying that. I can still see situations where I'd prefer this (or similar) to cash. For covers at bars ("oops, forgot to hit the ATM! Can you get me?"), for buying tickets to shows (to ensure we're seated near each other), and other situations. But they're still infrequent compared to a decade ago for me.
- morgante 11y ago> I have yet to meet anyone who is using Venmo. And I have never written a check. I doubt the people in Venmo's demo even know where their checkbook is, if they have one at all.
- DanBC 11y agoWhen you say cheque I think "fax", or "betamax" or "pager number".
- toomuchtodo 11y agoUnfortunately, America hasn't reached the same level of financial sophistication as the UK regarding money transfers. It will eventually, obsoleting hacks like Venmo.
- pkamb 11y agoWhat is the sophisticated UK alternative to Venmo?
- toomuchtodo 11y agohttps://www.vocalink.com/ https://www.vocalink.com/ http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episode-489-the-invisible-plumbing-of-our-economy http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episo... is a Planet Money episode that goes into details of how it works.
- phormat 11y agohttps://tilt.com https://tilt.com
- RankingMember 11y agoI think services like Venmo are the way of the future, but there's something the minimalist in me really likes about the completely analog transfer of paper money. There's an app for everything and they all require mental overhead (the least of which is remembering which silly oft-nonsensical app name translates to the real-world thing you want it to do). I'm not a Luddite, but simplicity to me is not 100 different apps for 100 different everyday tasks they handle.
- bshoemaker 11y agoWe just don't carry cash much - we always have our phones
- jewel 11y agoIt's pretty easy to use venmo without giving them your banking information. That's how I've been using it for years. You just have to be willing to carry a balance. What I did is went to a coworker who has venmo and gave him $50 in cash, and in return he transferred $50 to my venmo. That wouldn't work so well if you were always receiving money or always sending it, but if you have a pretty even mix then it works great.
- superuser2 11y agoIt's surprisingly hard to settle a dinner bill between 8 people who only have $20 bills, and no one actually goes inside the bank branch to get other denominations (or buys anything with cash to get change).
- wil421 11y agoIts not very hard to ask for change from a restaurant or get change from a bar later on in the night. If everyone got $20 from the ATM earlier what's to stop them from using their debt card to pay the bill? I was a server for many years and splitting the bill is standard for most younger people.
- sithadmin 11y ago>Its not very hard to ask for change from a restaurant or get change from a bar later on in the night. If everyone chips in a $20 or two, but there's a wide spread in min and max spend per person, getting the correct increments of change to distribute to each diner in the party becomes an efficiency nightmare. Nevermind the fact that it's just plain stupid when reasonable alternatives (Venmo, Square Cash, etc.) exist. >splitting the bill is standard for most younger people There are many food and drink establishments with a "no splitting of bills, ever" policy. This is more prevalent in some cities than others.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoWe differ greatly in our definitions of "nightmare," "stupid," and "reasonable." But that's ok.
- mojowo11 11y agoLet's take a specific example, then. Last week I ordered ~$140 worth of pizza for a party at our office. I paid with my credit card on the website of the pizza joint. Everyone owed about $12-13 in the end (yeah I know, it's an expensive local pizza chain). Getting paid back with cash would've been a nightmare. Instead I opened Venmo, put in $150, entered the names of my colleagues who were partaking, and hit request. Venmo did the math and requested each person's portion with a push notification. They each confirmed, and I was paid back in full in a few minutes, without even needing to talk directly to most of the people involved. There are so many situations like this. "But you could do it another more inconvenient way instead" or "you could continue to deal with recouping for hours afterward" aren't especially compelling arguments once you've had the convenience.