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Competition from other digital payments, specifically Apple Pay and specifically not Square, has taken low-fraud users out of PayPal, raising their costs. It's

Competition from other digital payments, specifically Apple Pay and specifically not Square, has taken low-fraud users out of PayPal, raising their costs. It's ironic that competition in payments lead to PayPal raising its fee though. The industry is zero-sum.

user3939382 5y ago
Hopefully it’s the first step in a death spiral for PayPal, although they have so much momentum it would take a long time if at all. From what I’ve observed over the last 15 years, they have a culture of horrible corporate ethics and deserve to disappear.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  While I'm no big fan of PayPal (I receive 95% of my income via them), it seems relevant to me to quote the entry from the Ardour FAQ about why we use PayPal: ----------- WHY PAYPAL? The Ardour project receives the vast majority of the revenue it generates in the form of small payments (less than US$10, and most of them around US$1). PayPal has a micropayments system that saves us nearly US$0.23 on every US$1 transaction. As far as we know, no other payment company offers this (and to be honest, we worry that PayPal may remove it at any time). This has huge consequences for us in terms of the fees we have to pay, and thus the actual revenue we receive when you do pay. In some jurisdictions PayPal allows people to create subscriptions without having a credit card. This is also something that is not offered by any other subscription-offering service that we are aware of. PayPal also handles the largest number of countries around the world, unlike many newer online credit card-based services that have limited their current offerings to North America and Europe (at best). Since Ardour is used in over 140 countries around the world, this seems respectful of our worldwide base of users/supporters.
AmericanChopper 5y ago
How could you reasonably believe that the market for payments is zero sum? The entire market grows every day.

user3939382 5y ago

Hopefully it’s the first step in a death spiral for PayPal, although they have so much momentum it would take a long time if at all. From what I’ve observed over the last 15 years, they have a culture of horrible corporate ethics and deserve to disappear.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
While I'm no big fan of PayPal (I receive 95% of my income via them), it seems relevant to me to quote the entry from the Ardour FAQ about why we use PayPal: ----------- WHY PAYPAL? The Ardour project receives the vast majority of the revenue it generates in the form of small payments (less than US$10, and most of them around US$1). PayPal has a micropayments system that saves us nearly US$0.23 on every US$1 transaction. As far as we know, no other payment company offers this (and to be honest, we worry that PayPal may remove it at any time). This has huge consequences for us in terms of the fees we have to pay, and thus the actual revenue we receive when you do pay. In some jurisdictions PayPal allows people to create subscriptions without having a credit card. This is also something that is not offered by any other subscription-offering service that we are aware of. PayPal also handles the largest number of countries around the world, unlike many newer online credit card-based services that have limited their current offerings to North America and Europe (at best). Since Ardour is used in over 140 countries around the world, this seems respectful of our worldwide base of users/supporters.

AmericanChopper 5y ago

How could you reasonably believe that the market for payments is zero sum? The entire market grows every day.