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Who considers PayPal a sweetheart?! PayPal is by far one of the most heinous companies I have interacted with on a regular basis. Outside the US many banks off
by DarmokTanagra 2mo ago
Who considers PayPal a sweetheart?! PayPal is by far one of the most heinous companies I have interacted with on a regular basis.
Outside the US many banks offer simple QR payment options, the direct transfer difficulties US citizens encounter that make services like PayPal and Zelle necessary are entirely self imposed.
- chneu 2mo agoPayPal is Intuit of the payment processor world. Paypal has actively lobbied for legislation(or lack of) in ways that has hurt American consumers.
- jarym 2mo ago100%. They had a place back when banks barely knew what the internet was. But I think their time has passed.
- michaellee8 2mo ago[dead]
- AdamN 2mo agoAgree that nobody considers it a sweetheart but you're wrong on the ex-US issue. Paypal is big in Germany for instance and I literally know nobody who uses Paypal in the US (maybe for eBay stuff??)
- pimeys 2mo agoProbably not very long. Multiple companies, including Amazon, started supporting Wero for payments. And most banks already support it. You scan a QR code or open a link that opens your bank app, show your fingerprint, see the amount and which account and to who, and you approve. Very easy and costs nothing to the seller nor the buyer. Next year we'll get this in the physical stores...
- tetec1 2mo agoYou’re overestimating their ability to change. I still regularly have to pay in cash in many businesses here in Berlin. Wero is a great start but I suspect that PayPal will stay around for many more years.
- icantevenhold 2mo agoAt the same time you’re underestimating it. Before covid almost no small businesses would offer card payment; now it’s common. Sure there are some that are against digital payments and they won’t accept Wero neither, but I would argue the number is very small. And sure in bars/clubs/nightlife it’s cash only but that also won’t change - it’s for tax reasons. People don’t like PayPal and only use it for the lack of a better alternative. EC is widely used and I bet that Wero will be as well. Source: lived last 15 years in Berlin
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- sajithdilshan 2mo agoAs a principal I boycott places that only accepts cash in Berlin. There is absolutely no reason for them to accept money only in cash in 2026, except for tax evasion and money laundering
- Symbiote 2mo agoWhat about a principled stance that a payment should remain anonymous, without being logged by a domestic bank, let alone a foreign company. I used to go to a bar in Copenhagen with that principle.
- sajithdilshan 2mo agoRead my comment again. I said I boycott places that only accepts cash. They can absolutely accept both cards and cash and the only reason they do that is to not pay taxes. I would rather everyone pay taxes without any exceptions
- noxvilleza 2mo agoPart of this is just the banking here in Germany being so bad. Fast ('instant') transfers are relatively new for many banks, online banking has always been quite poor/limited, and many of the cards they used to offer were Girocard (or Maestro) and didn't work with online retailers. Paypal has always been a great buffer to those problems.
- MrGilbert 2mo agoWell, to be fair, even for many customers 'instant' transfers are new. Even if their bank offers them for months now. Some folks still consider 'online banking' a novelty.
- noxvilleza 2mo agoIn 2015 when I still lived in South Africa, you could do near-instant online transfers - but there is/was a cost involved (I think about $0.45 for transactions under $250). Online banking was super common then, I imagine it's become even more so in the last 10 years. I was quite shocked by how outdated the German banking system was, although it's definitely improved in many ways in the last decade.
- FireBeyond 2mo agoEven in 2006, in Australia you could do interbank transfers with near instant availability (certainly within 60s), usually for free.
- subpixel 2mo agoIn 1995 I could give anyone in Germany my PostBank konto number and they could “wire” me money by calling the bank. In 2026 I pay contractors working on my US house by logging into my bank and instructing it to mail a paper check. The only exception is Venmo which everyone expects will be enshittified.
- Philadelphia 2mo agoThat’s interesting, because every time there’s something about a money transfer service, there are a ton of posts saying “Oh, the United States is so backwards, in Europe you could do this forever.” Apparently, by Europe, they mean the particular place they happen to live in.
- franciscop 2mo agoWithin Spain it has virtually dropped to zero among my friends since transfering money is trivial now: - Bizum for national transfers, you just need someone's number (which you usually have through WhatsApp) representing 90% of instant payments - SEPA payments also make bank transfers free and trivial for your European friends
- pantulis 2mo agoThe euro payment scenario has changed drastically in the last few years and it's a good thing for customers: yesterday I was able to pay a US company with Bizum through Stripe.
- ricardobayes 2mo agoA tongue in cheek comment from me is that in Spain we have all this beautiful infrastructure but no money to send. I would rather have money to send via a slightly more inconvenient infrastructure.
- MachineMan 2mo agoEurope has Wero and India has UPI. Right now it is still good but it will get increasingly harder for private companies like Stripe and Paypal to operate as this becomes more embedded as a critical public service provided by governments.
- fodkodrasz 2mo agoCertainly, if your definition of Europe is Belgium, France and Germany. > Wero is a product of EPI Company SE > Available in Belgium, France and Germany. Greetings from the rest of Europe.
- MachineMan 2mo agoYou are right, however they are backed by the european payment initiative and the idea is that it becomes an eu wide standard. Whether they will succeed and how fast, we shall see.
- dgellow 2mo agoPaypal is huge in Germany, it’s pretty much the standard online payment method.
- rcxdude 2mo agoNo-one likes them, but they're pretty hard to replace if only due to network effects.
- dgellow 2mo agoFrom my personal experience PayPal is actually liked in Germany, people want PayPal for payment because they don’t want to give their bank details or don’t have a credit card. I’ve only ever seen people complain about the company online
- hvb2 2mo ago> because they don’t want to give their bank details What's the problem with sharing your bank details? I don't consider those a secret at all. And if they were, chances are they've been compromised somewhere anyway.
- AnthonyMouse 2mo agoThe banking system in some countries (including the US) does regard that information as secret. This is, of course, fully insane and the only reason it persists is that the regulatory institutions in those countries are too intransigent to switch from their >100 year old technology to some merely 50 year old technology like public key cryptography. Or even backward-compatible changes like requiring banks to give customers virtual account numbers that they can give to different merchants/people and turn on and off.
- hvb2 2mo agoThat's fine, but if I give you my IBAN and name on the account, you can only send money to me... Well and commit actual fraud/identity they by forging my signature maybe... But we don't see that happen on a large scale because it just isn't feasible/worth it. We would see it otherwise as I'm sure there are plenty of datasets with those pieces of info to be bought..
- charlieyu1 2mo agoI still remember the old days where Paypal was the only reasonable option to send money internationally
- Grazester 2mo agoPaypal? Never heard of such. Western Union seems to be the most reasonable especially for third "world countries" where some people don't have a bank account. Even with their fees
- conorcleary 2mo agolol only Peter & Elon do
- conorcleary 2mo ago....i'm referring to the university, the one that's oddly swallowing up other ones /s