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Hi! I'm sorry to be dense, but could you explain what encompasses PayPalism? I'm guessing you're referring to: -Excessively complex user agreements -Ability t

Hi! I'm sorry to be dense, but could you explain what encompasses PayPalism? I'm guessing you're referring to: -Excessively complex user agreements -Ability to arbitrarily suspend accounts -Ability to void credited funds Are there any other aspects that you (or anyone else) feel should be included?

ceejayoz 16y ago
The inability to reach and speak to a person, as well.
- patio11 16y ago
  FYI, you actually can reach Paypal support, and it is not a Markov machine.
  - tallanvor 16y ago
    True, although in my experience, Paypal support is worthless at actually resolving issues.
  - iwwr 16y ago
    No, but English is not a strong point in support people, to put it mildly.
vladd 16y ago
I'd define PayPalism as businesses with a significantly risk of fraud as a result of conducting financial activities and transactions with "online" customers. Such businesses take huge risks since they are dealing with money and their bad phenomenons (tax evasion, credit-card/identity abuse, money laundry) without having real face-to-face contact and customer identification. Therefore, in order to stay competitive and manage their risk, they have in their agreements termination clauses which enable them to disable suspicious accounts unilaterally without providing explanations. For both AdSense and PayPal, sustainable competition at feature-parity failed to appear. There aren't any agencies that allow a guy with only a few thousand impressions per month to earn a buck with a pay-per-click model, or any banks that allow you to open an account with them just by providing an email address. Which leads me to believe that the account closures are just part of the business model assumption which allows PayPalism corporations to manage their risk and survive. But maybe I'm wrong and something better will emerge. The trick is to improve interactions with legitimate accounts while keeping abuse detection algorithms secret. Which might be a very, very difficult problem to solve...
Natsu 16y ago
I'd simply say that you're doing business with a computer program, not a human being, because that's, basically, the root of it. And people are learning to adapt on both sides: e.g. people who sweep out their PayPal account constantly. Or those who have learned that you can hose a competitor if you make the programs think they're a fraudulent business.

ceejayoz 16y ago

The inability to reach and speak to a person, as well.

patio11 16y ago
FYI, you actually can reach Paypal support, and it is not a Markov machine.
- tallanvor 16y ago
  True, although in my experience, Paypal support is worthless at actually resolving issues.
- iwwr 16y ago
  No, but English is not a strong point in support people, to put it mildly.

vladd 16y ago

I'd define PayPalism as businesses with a significantly risk of fraud as a result of conducting financial activities and transactions with "online" customers. Such businesses take huge risks since they are dealing with money and their bad phenomenons (tax evasion, credit-card/identity abuse, money laundry) without having real face-to-face contact and customer identification. Therefore, in order to stay competitive and manage their risk, they have in their agreements termination clauses which enable them to disable suspicious accounts unilaterally without providing explanations. For both AdSense and PayPal, sustainable competition at feature-parity failed to appear. There aren't any agencies that allow a guy with only a few thousand impressions per month to earn a buck with a pay-per-click model, or any banks that allow you to open an account with them just by providing an email address. Which leads me to believe that the account closures are just part of the business model assumption which allows PayPalism corporations to manage their risk and survive. But maybe I'm wrong and something better will emerge. The trick is to improve interactions with legitimate accounts while keeping abuse detection algorithms secret. Which might be a very, very difficult problem to solve...

Natsu 16y ago

I'd simply say that you're doing business with a computer program, not a human being, because that's, basically, the root of it. And people are learning to adapt on both sides: e.g. people who sweep out their PayPal account constantly. Or those who have learned that you can hose a competitor if you make the programs think they're a fraudulent business.