5 ms·

It could be just a publicity stunt. Announce an unbelievable thing, get ton of attention and then figure it out later.

SilasX 8y ago
So, like the Chase Sapphire Card model: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16056408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16056408
- pmart123 8y ago
  The mass promotion of the Chase Sapphire card coincidentally corresponded with the roll out of Apple Pay. Perhaps this could have been complete luck, but part of me wonders whether JP Morgan isn't given enough credit for this given its a huge advantage if you become someone's default credit card in Apple Pay.
dunpeal 8y ago
They got negative attention. Would you trust a company with your life savings, after they didn't bother making a phone call to SIPC to ensure something as basic as the insurance status on your accounts? The timing was also terrible, right after their big crash earlier in the week. Every single interview addressed that. Where trust is involved, bad publicity can be worse than no publicity.
- freediver 8y ago
  Besides "all attention is good", simply compare the amount of media attention for the original news vs this "negative" one. It still looks like one of the most successful announcements from branding ROI perspective.
  - morpheuskafka 8y ago
    Further, no trust was ever requested or place. IIRC they didn't even have a waitlist or anything. They just announced that they were going to launch a product in the future and now are redesigning it some more. Furthermore, this fits into their narrative of disruption. Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again."
    - jljljl 8y ago
      They did have a waitlist. They also had a referral system where referring your friends would bump up your place in the waitlist.
    - eropple 8y ago
      I guess I'm not their target audience, then, as a 25-34-year-old tech worker with disposable income and a desire to care about the ROI of my checking account. Because not only will I not use them for this, I closed my account entirely 'cause this is the sign of a disreputable company.
    - jnwatson 8y ago
      They did indeed have a waitlist. I was number 215000 or so to sign up, according to them.
      - solarkraft 8y ago
        > number 215000 I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's a lie.
    - rchaud 8y ago
      > Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again." That's a pretty small target audience, and those people are heavy into crypto and gold. Robinhood needs customer growth, and a nice, safe interest-bearing chequing account would have been a good way of doing it.
- Derek_MK 8y ago
  To be fair, they only got negative attention among the people who wouldn't have used Robinhood anyway. Their business model is going after people who don't know better.
- bduerst 8y ago
  That's not how negative press works in 2018. One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time. While a disastrous launch, most people who heard about this Robinhood checking already knew about the app. I don't think it's going to affect their brand much but will have driven app downloads to check it out, or re-acquisition of churned users. Referral events like this end up driving more core activity, which for Robinhood is making more deposits and trades (not signing up for checking).
  - jnwatson 8y ago
    I have a single datum that contradicts your last premise. My father asked me about Robinhood after the announcement, and he hadn’t heard about the company before. After I sent him the memo from the SIPC, he now associates Robinhood with other fly-by-night internet companies. Robinhood got a lot of press from this, well beyond their existing target market.
    - rchaud 8y ago
      Makes sense to me. News like "trade crypto on Robinhood" wouldn't mean anything to someone not interested in that sector, but everybody understands the value of high interest chequing account. And now that they realize it's not happening, they are right to feel that the company is a fly by night operation. The fact that they announced this before confirming it with regulators smacks of CEO arrogance in the "Funding Secured!" vein.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      What you just said supports my comment, since your father had never heard of it before and isn't the target market From my comment: >One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time.
  - aeternus 8y ago
    Google trends shows a significant spike: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=robinhood https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&ge...
novia 8y ago
I get 3% interest on my checking account at LMCU (up to a balance of $15K). Because of this, I didn't find robinhood's product unbelievable. https://www.lmcu.org/personal/banking/checking-accounts/max-checking/ https://www.lmcu.org/personal/banking/checking-accounts/max-...
- astura 8y ago
  The reason why Robinhood was venturing into "too good to be true" territory was they required no minimum balance, no minimum activities (direct deposit, debit card purchases), no maximum balance for the high interest rate., plus ATM reimbursements. In contrast, for LMCU: Maximum of $15,000 for the 3% interest rate, most people with houses and/or families are going to want to have an emergency fund greater than $15,000, I spent almost $10,000 on emergency house repairs a couple weeks ago. If you're saving for a major purchase (car, down payment on house, major purchase, etc.) you're probably going to have more than $15,000. There is ZERO interest paid over $15,000!!! The following are required to earn the 3% interest: Direct deposit (self employed need not apply) Minimum 10 debit card purchases per month (this alone should be a dealbreaker, one should almost always be using a credit card over a debit card if you're going to use plastic) Minimum 4 logins to home banking per month Requires eStatements You're only getting an extra $12.50 a month over if you're keeping $15,000 in an Ally or Discover Savings account, and if you spend a modest $500/month on your debit card you're leaving at least $10 on the table in credit card cash back, not to mention the other benefits that come with using a credit card (extended warranty, price protection, purchase protection, travel insurance, etc. - depending on your card)
  - novia 8y ago
    >if you spend a modest $500/month on your debit card you're leaving at least $10 on the table in credit card cash back, not to mention the other benefits that come with using a credit card I use a credit card and then pay it off with the money in my LMCU checking account, the day after the interest hits :) I only do the minimum number of transactions with the debit card and I use them on low cost purchases. >You're only getting an extra $12.50 a month over if you're keeping $15,000 in an Ally or Discover Savings account Savings accounts have restrictions on the amount of times you can move money in and out of them. Checking accounts do not have that restriction. I'm sure I could find a savings account with better interest, but in my current life position I need a checking account. I am unemployed right now, but I am meeting the direct deposit requirement with my monthly dividend from a stock I own, O. They also accept things like transfers from PayPal towards the direct deposit requirement. If I were instead a homeowner with a family, I could get my spouse to make a separate checking account to double up on the amount emergency reserve money kept in a checking account. But again, it makes way more sense for emergency reserve money to be kept in a savings account. That's what they're made for. IM(potentially uninformed)O, if your family is keeping more than $30K in a checking account, then you should probably be investing in stocks or bonds or mutual funds at that point anyways. It's not like you can't sell off investments to pay for emergency costs.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tootie 8y ago
Finance is such a massively studied, optimized and engineered business. There are zillions of people working day and night for literally centuries trying to squeeze another penny out every type of deal. It's just unbelievable that they thought they could just say "technology!" and find some huge loophole to make big profits for nothing.
coryfklein 8y ago
The Klein effect strikes again! > I need to coin a term for this concept, I see it on every Hacker News thread once it reaches a certain size. It is the attribution of the topic to some nefarious intention of a dude in marketing. Once you start noticing it you can't unsee. > Intel fires their CEO? It's a PR stunt. > Startup abandons Europe due to GDPR? PR STUNT! > AlphaZero beats professionals at Dota 2? You guessed it, it's just PR for oligarchy parent Alphabet. > I see this so often now it's becoming humorous. As if some how this being all about PR explains everything. It doesn't explain anything! Although I'm sure Bill over in marketing loves that he has subsumed the historical role of deity in explaining the unknown. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17499447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17499447
- CPLX 8y ago
  Indeed. Combine that with the HN tendency to assume literally every single story that runs in the press is a "submarine" story (also known as PR) that's essentially the same as an advertisement, and you have an impressive collective delusion that all of perceivable reality stems from the mind of a few ingenious communications professionals.
- lawrenceyan 8y ago
  That was OpenAI who did the Dota 2 competition just as an FYI. AlphaZero is DeepMind created used for playing chess, shogi, and go with no affilitation to Dota 2 whatsoever.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
commandlinefan 8y ago
Never attribute to malice what can equally be explained by stupidity.

So, like the Chase Sapphire Card model: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16056408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16056408

pmart123 8y ago
The mass promotion of the Chase Sapphire card coincidentally corresponded with the roll out of Apple Pay. Perhaps this could have been complete luck, but part of me wonders whether JP Morgan isn't given enough credit for this given its a huge advantage if you become someone's default credit card in Apple Pay.

dunpeal 8y ago

They got negative attention. Would you trust a company with your life savings, after they didn't bother making a phone call to SIPC to ensure something as basic as the insurance status on your accounts? The timing was also terrible, right after their big crash earlier in the week. Every single interview addressed that. Where trust is involved, bad publicity can be worse than no publicity.

freediver 8y ago
Besides "all attention is good", simply compare the amount of media attention for the original news vs this "negative" one. It still looks like one of the most successful announcements from branding ROI perspective.
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  Further, no trust was ever requested or place. IIRC they didn't even have a waitlist or anything. They just announced that they were going to launch a product in the future and now are redesigning it some more. Furthermore, this fits into their narrative of disruption. Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again."
  - jljljl 8y ago
    They did have a waitlist. They also had a referral system where referring your friends would bump up your place in the waitlist.
  - eropple 8y ago
    I guess I'm not their target audience, then, as a 25-34-year-old tech worker with disposable income and a desire to care about the ROI of my checking account. Because not only will I not use them for this, I closed my account entirely 'cause this is the sign of a disreputable company.
  - jnwatson 8y ago
    They did indeed have a waitlist. I was number 215000 or so to sign up, according to them.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      > number 215000 I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's a lie.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    > Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again." That's a pretty small target audience, and those people are heavy into crypto and gold. Robinhood needs customer growth, and a nice, safe interest-bearing chequing account would have been a good way of doing it.
Derek_MK 8y ago
To be fair, they only got negative attention among the people who wouldn't have used Robinhood anyway. Their business model is going after people who don't know better.
bduerst 8y ago
That's not how negative press works in 2018. One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time. While a disastrous launch, most people who heard about this Robinhood checking already knew about the app. I don't think it's going to affect their brand much but will have driven app downloads to check it out, or re-acquisition of churned users. Referral events like this end up driving more core activity, which for Robinhood is making more deposits and trades (not signing up for checking).
- jnwatson 8y ago
  I have a single datum that contradicts your last premise. My father asked me about Robinhood after the announcement, and he hadn’t heard about the company before. After I sent him the memo from the SIPC, he now associates Robinhood with other fly-by-night internet companies. Robinhood got a lot of press from this, well beyond their existing target market.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    Makes sense to me. News like "trade crypto on Robinhood" wouldn't mean anything to someone not interested in that sector, but everybody understands the value of high interest chequing account. And now that they realize it's not happening, they are right to feel that the company is a fly by night operation. The fact that they announced this before confirming it with regulators smacks of CEO arrogance in the "Funding Secured!" vein.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    What you just said supports my comment, since your father had never heard of it before and isn't the target market From my comment: >One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time.
- aeternus 8y ago
  Google trends shows a significant spike: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=robinhood https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&ge...

novia 8y ago

I get 3% interest on my checking account at LMCU (up to a balance of $15K). Because of this, I didn't find robinhood's product unbelievable. https://www.lmcu.org/personal/banking/checking-accounts/max-checking/ https://www.lmcu.org/personal/banking/checking-accounts/max-...

astura 8y ago
The reason why Robinhood was venturing into "too good to be true" territory was they required no minimum balance, no minimum activities (direct deposit, debit card purchases), no maximum balance for the high interest rate., plus ATM reimbursements. In contrast, for LMCU: Maximum of $15,000 for the 3% interest rate, most people with houses and/or families are going to want to have an emergency fund greater than $15,000, I spent almost $10,000 on emergency house repairs a couple weeks ago. If you're saving for a major purchase (car, down payment on house, major purchase, etc.) you're probably going to have more than $15,000. There is ZERO interest paid over $15,000!!! The following are required to earn the 3% interest: Direct deposit (self employed need not apply) Minimum 10 debit card purchases per month (this alone should be a dealbreaker, one should almost always be using a credit card over a debit card if you're going to use plastic) Minimum 4 logins to home banking per month Requires eStatements You're only getting an extra $12.50 a month over if you're keeping $15,000 in an Ally or Discover Savings account, and if you spend a modest $500/month on your debit card you're leaving at least $10 on the table in credit card cash back, not to mention the other benefits that come with using a credit card (extended warranty, price protection, purchase protection, travel insurance, etc. - depending on your card)
- novia 8y ago
  >if you spend a modest $500/month on your debit card you're leaving at least $10 on the table in credit card cash back, not to mention the other benefits that come with using a credit card I use a credit card and then pay it off with the money in my LMCU checking account, the day after the interest hits :) I only do the minimum number of transactions with the debit card and I use them on low cost purchases. >You're only getting an extra $12.50 a month over if you're keeping $15,000 in an Ally or Discover Savings account Savings accounts have restrictions on the amount of times you can move money in and out of them. Checking accounts do not have that restriction. I'm sure I could find a savings account with better interest, but in my current life position I need a checking account. I am unemployed right now, but I am meeting the direct deposit requirement with my monthly dividend from a stock I own, O. They also accept things like transfers from PayPal towards the direct deposit requirement. If I were instead a homeowner with a family, I could get my spouse to make a separate checking account to double up on the amount emergency reserve money kept in a checking account. But again, it makes way more sense for emergency reserve money to be kept in a savings account. That's what they're made for. IM(potentially uninformed)O, if your family is keeping more than $30K in a checking account, then you should probably be investing in stocks or bonds or mutual funds at that point anyways. It's not like you can't sell off investments to pay for emergency costs.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tootie 8y ago

Finance is such a massively studied, optimized and engineered business. There are zillions of people working day and night for literally centuries trying to squeeze another penny out every type of deal. It's just unbelievable that they thought they could just say "technology!" and find some huge loophole to make big profits for nothing.

coryfklein 8y ago

The Klein effect strikes again! > I need to coin a term for this concept, I see it on every Hacker News thread once it reaches a certain size. It is the attribution of the topic to some nefarious intention of a dude in marketing. Once you start noticing it you can't unsee. > Intel fires their CEO? It's a PR stunt. > Startup abandons Europe due to GDPR? PR STUNT! > AlphaZero beats professionals at Dota 2? You guessed it, it's just PR for oligarchy parent Alphabet. > I see this so often now it's becoming humorous. As if some how this being all about PR explains everything. It doesn't explain anything! Although I'm sure Bill over in marketing loves that he has subsumed the historical role of deity in explaining the unknown. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17499447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17499447

CPLX 8y ago
Indeed. Combine that with the HN tendency to assume literally every single story that runs in the press is a "submarine" story (also known as PR) that's essentially the same as an advertisement, and you have an impressive collective delusion that all of perceivable reality stems from the mind of a few ingenious communications professionals.
lawrenceyan 8y ago
That was OpenAI who did the Dota 2 competition just as an FYI. AlphaZero is DeepMind created used for playing chess, shogi, and go with no affilitation to Dota 2 whatsoever.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

commandlinefan 8y ago

Never attribute to malice what can equally be explained by stupidity.