5 ms·

I personally enjoyed the articles bombastic formatting and snarky tone, but I'm not sure the author says much of anything. The fact is, Dave's second assertion

I personally enjoyed the articles bombastic formatting and snarky tone, but I'm not sure the author says much of anything. The fact is, Dave's second assertion (that e-commerce/subscriptions is the new default startup business model) isn't based on more than speculation. He makes this second assertion with great conviction ("Get Dem Bitches to PAY You, G.") and I almost want to believe him--until I remember that most of both the media and content industries are still fumbling with whether or not selling subscriptions /digital content is a worthwhile business endeavor. Also, the idea that a service's success hinges on a user's ability to remember a password is preposterous. Seems as if it could be somewhat of an obstacle when a service is first launched (Dave's early Paypal), but come on. Passwords have become commonplace, and for the most part--especially when money's involved--people don't seem to forget them. They may have when e-commerce was in its absolute infancy, but with the rise of ebay, Paypal, online banking services the password has garnered undeniable legitimacy among the majority of people. I have no data to back this up, but this isn't too outrageous a claim. Right? Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle.

davemc500hats 17y ago
>> Paypal, online banking services the password has garnered undeniable legitimacy among the majority of people. >>I have no data to back this up, but this isn't too outrageous a claim. Right? nope, sorry you're wrong & yes you have no data to back this up. even with "100's of millions of account", it's likely PayPal has never been used by a large % of internet users -- perhaps even a majority -- and it's certainly not used frequently (ie, >1x / month) by more than tens of millions of users. even without me being there for 5 years i'm pretty sure any recent eBay quarterly stmt will back me up on that (note: accts != users != frequent users). trust me: "the forgotten password problem" is STILL a huge issue for PayPal today, as it is with almost every large site... even one as frequent as PayPal (or Amazon). if you think i'm mistaken, i suggest you talk to any major tech blog site that has switched to using Facebook Connect or Twitter oAuth for comment authentication, and the subsequent increase in comment activity. it's not too much of an extrapolation to draw a similar conclusion around 3rd-party auth integrated with payments (which is what PayPal has been doing for 10 years).

davemc500hats 17y ago

>> Paypal, online banking services the password has garnered undeniable legitimacy among the majority of people. >>I have no data to back this up, but this isn't too outrageous a claim. Right? nope, sorry you're wrong & yes you have no data to back this up. even with "100's of millions of account", it's likely PayPal has never been used by a large % of internet users -- perhaps even a majority -- and it's certainly not used frequently (ie, >1x / month) by more than tens of millions of users. even without me being there for 5 years i'm pretty sure any recent eBay quarterly stmt will back me up on that (note: accts != users != frequent users). trust me: "the forgotten password problem" is STILL a huge issue for PayPal today, as it is with almost every large site... even one as frequent as PayPal (or Amazon). if you think i'm mistaken, i suggest you talk to any major tech blog site that has switched to using Facebook Connect or Twitter oAuth for comment authentication, and the subsequent increase in comment activity. it's not too much of an extrapolation to draw a similar conclusion around 3rd-party auth integrated with payments (which is what PayPal has been doing for 10 years).