6 ms·

I'm utterly perplexed that Venmo is even a thing. When I first started hearing about it maybe 5-6 years ago, I just figured, I already have PayPal and Square C

by rconti 8y ago

I'm utterly perplexed that Venmo is even a thing. When I first started hearing about it maybe 5-6 years ago, I just figured, I already have PayPal and Square Cash, I'm too old, nobody I know uses Venmo, why bother. I've mostly ignored that it existed except occasionally hearing (usually younger) folks talking about it. A couple of months ago I was telling some people at work that I'm too old for it, and Square Cash works well enough for me, and commented that I can't see how a newcomer could be any easier than just having the money go directly into my bank account. When a coworker informed me that Venmo payments stay in your account, my exasperated reply was "wait, it's WORSE than Square Cash? It's like going back to PayPal?" Well, you can imagine how incredulous I was when I found out that Venmo IS PayPal, just with different branding. For the past 5 years I've been assuming Venmo is something new and cool that "the kids" are using, but I'm too out of touch to bother, and suddenly I find out it's a rebranding of PayPal with all of the drawbacks of it. It blows my mind that something caught traction that is functionally worse than the competitor of the product it's a rebranding of!

triangleman 8y ago
Well it's PayPal without the fees.
- rconti 8y ago
  "Friends and Family" payments are also without fees. I can't think of any fees I've ever paid to PayPal other than for eBay transactions and the like -- though it's of course possible Venmo has different rate structures and thresholds.
- thirduncle 8y ago
  Is it? My understanding is that (other than the brand and parent ownership) as services they're quite different.
  - rconti 8y ago
    Maybe from a UI standpoint, but all of the competitors are pretty similar. Minus network effect, of course. Nobody in my network uses Venmo, for example, but apparently I'm an outlier. With all of them, you can find a way to use it for free. Eg, if the service you use doesn't support free bank transfers, you link it with a debit card for free transfers. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/paypal-vs-google-wallet-vs-venmo-vs-square-cash/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/paypal-vs-google-wallet...
milcron 8y ago
> Venmo IS PayPal, just with different branding They were a startup in 2010 but got bought by PayPal in 2013.
ajkjk 8y ago
I imagine my feelings about Venmo reflect a lot of peoples': Basically it was the first way to send money on mobile phones that wasn't miserable or charged fees so everyone started using it. By the time PayPal owned it it was already popular. Everyone wanted to easily send money for at least, like, 10 years before that. It was the first mainstream option and it still felt really late. (PayPal already existed but was... disliked. I think because of lots of horror stories about customer service, and maybe not having a convenient app interface, or requiring a bank account connection?) The competitors are all equivalent now (FB, Google, whatever), but I would never embrace using a FB or Google product exclusively so Venmo feels like a 'neutral third-party option' , at least to an extent, which we can use as the 'default' payments app. The Bank's versions (Zelle, etc) are way too coupled to banks and too big-corporation to be excited about. If there was, say, a startup that did exactly the same thing as Venmo but wasn't affiliated with a big company (PayPal), I think everyone would happily use it. If it was, like, a B-corp or non-profit that gives proceeds to charity, I think everyone would jump ship instantly. Basically I don't care at all about Venmo's social features, I just want to send money and prefer not to support a big corporation or give more data to FB or Google. I bet lots of people are of similar mind.
- bskap 8y ago
  So Square Cash then?
  - chillacy 8y ago
    At this point there are too many network effects around venmo, if you're splitting the BBQ with 5 people and 4 have venmo and you don't, it's not as convenient for the requester. That's why I got venmo initially, and now it's super easy to request money from friends and 2nd degree friends, since my network is all venmo. I know 1 person who uses square cash and he's over 40, and I know 2 or 3 less tech-literate friends who use paypal and refuse to try venmo. It's just a hassle to split costs with them because I have to do it in 2 apps instead of adding everyone to the same request in venmo.
    - tbrownaw 8y ago
tgb 8y ago
I use it for the fact that it's popular, of course. Worse than the fact that your balance stays in Venmo is that if you make a transaction larger than your balance, it gets paid exclusively from your bank account and doesn't clear out your balance first. Moreover, Venmo is garbage at the simplest thing of letting me find the person I'm paying. The only way to distinguish between all the many people of the same name (profile pictures being far too small to see in the selection list) is to have the person actually tell you their exact ID. The fact that I have previously done transactions with them or that they are a once-removed transaction friend from me isn't displayed.
CPLX 8y ago
Every generation throws their own hero up the pop charts.

by rconti 8y ago

triangleman 8y ago

Well it's PayPal without the fees.

rconti 8y ago
"Friends and Family" payments are also without fees. I can't think of any fees I've ever paid to PayPal other than for eBay transactions and the like -- though it's of course possible Venmo has different rate structures and thresholds.
thirduncle 8y ago
Is it? My understanding is that (other than the brand and parent ownership) as services they're quite different.
- rconti 8y ago
  Maybe from a UI standpoint, but all of the competitors are pretty similar. Minus network effect, of course. Nobody in my network uses Venmo, for example, but apparently I'm an outlier. With all of them, you can find a way to use it for free. Eg, if the service you use doesn't support free bank transfers, you link it with a debit card for free transfers. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/paypal-vs-google-wallet-vs-venmo-vs-square-cash/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/paypal-vs-google-wallet...

milcron 8y ago

> Venmo IS PayPal, just with different branding They were a startup in 2010 but got bought by PayPal in 2013.

ajkjk 8y ago

I imagine my feelings about Venmo reflect a lot of peoples': Basically it was the first way to send money on mobile phones that wasn't miserable or charged fees so everyone started using it. By the time PayPal owned it it was already popular. Everyone wanted to easily send money for at least, like, 10 years before that. It was the first mainstream option and it still felt really late. (PayPal already existed but was... disliked. I think because of lots of horror stories about customer service, and maybe not having a convenient app interface, or requiring a bank account connection?) The competitors are all equivalent now (FB, Google, whatever), but I would never embrace using a FB or Google product exclusively so Venmo feels like a 'neutral third-party option' , at least to an extent, which we can use as the 'default' payments app. The Bank's versions (Zelle, etc) are way too coupled to banks and too big-corporation to be excited about. If there was, say, a startup that did exactly the same thing as Venmo but wasn't affiliated with a big company (PayPal), I think everyone would happily use it. If it was, like, a B-corp or non-profit that gives proceeds to charity, I think everyone would jump ship instantly. Basically I don't care at all about Venmo's social features, I just want to send money and prefer not to support a big corporation or give more data to FB or Google. I bet lots of people are of similar mind.

bskap 8y ago
So Square Cash then?
- chillacy 8y ago
  At this point there are too many network effects around venmo, if you're splitting the BBQ with 5 people and 4 have venmo and you don't, it's not as convenient for the requester. That's why I got venmo initially, and now it's super easy to request money from friends and 2nd degree friends, since my network is all venmo. I know 1 person who uses square cash and he's over 40, and I know 2 or 3 less tech-literate friends who use paypal and refuse to try venmo. It's just a hassle to split costs with them because I have to do it in 2 apps instead of adding everyone to the same request in venmo.
  - tbrownaw 8y ago

tgb 8y ago

I use it for the fact that it's popular, of course. Worse than the fact that your balance stays in Venmo is that if you make a transaction larger than your balance, it gets paid exclusively from your bank account and doesn't clear out your balance first. Moreover, Venmo is garbage at the simplest thing of letting me find the person I'm paying. The only way to distinguish between all the many people of the same name (profile pictures being far too small to see in the selection list) is to have the person actually tell you their exact ID. The fact that I have previously done transactions with them or that they are a once-removed transaction friend from me isn't displayed.

CPLX 8y ago

Every generation throws their own hero up the pop charts.