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I'm impressed by his scientific endeavors, but I have a hard time forgiving him for Paypal.

by phaus 13y ago

jotm 13y ago
You mean the payment system that revolutionized online transactions between individuals and small companies? Remember how hard it was to pay a freelancer/individual/small company for a service or product online before Paypal? It was very hard since banks would not approve merchant accounts for every bum that walked into their office :-), and don't even start on international transactions. The fact that people started abusing them in unimaginable ways (prompting the draconian security measures) is not exactly Musk's fault, and the frozen account issues of the past years might be over once the competition finally gets its shit together (or at least there's other options now)...
IsaacL 13y ago
Common lore has it that PayPal's problems began largely after eBay bought them - half their initial staff left after the first year. Early PayPal was very elitist and performance-driven, wheras eBay is famously bureaucratic.
unepipe 13y ago
It seems you are trying to be cute/follow the meme that it's good to hate on PayPal because of the account freezes and stuff as of late. However, before PayPal it was so hard to make a payment or transfer money to someone. They deserved the success they had for a groundbreaking product. Hating on Musk for decisions the company has made more recently is pure folly.
- phaus 13y ago
  >It seems you are trying to be cute/follow the meme... Because no one that's capable of independent thought will come to a different conclusion than you did right? There's no need to be condescending just because you don't agree with me. Paypal is a shitty company because it fails to support sellers in any meaningful way. Part of this stems from the fact that it isn't a financial institution, so it will always lose to industry standard financial institutions if it tries to fight fraudulent charge backs. Unfortunately this renders the service close to useless for anyone trying to sell anything that's worth more than about $20. It works great if you want to buy something, because you have a 100% chance of getting your money back if the seller doesn't come through. Unfortunately, people committing fraud against sellers also have a 100% chance of getting their money back, because Paypal doesn't even attempt to investigate these situations properly.
  - phaus 13y ago
    Instead of silently down-voting, why don't you counter with information that supports the opposite? Perhaps you know someone who has a good experience as a vendor that uses Paypal. Sadly, I myself know multiple dealers that shut their accounts down after they got tired of losing money to thieves.
    - unepipe 13y ago
      Again... not Musk.

I'm impressed by his scientific endeavors, but I have a hard time forgiving him for Paypal.

by phaus 13y ago

I'm impressed by his scientific endeavors, but I have a hard time forgiving him for Paypal.

jotm 13y ago

You mean the payment system that revolutionized online transactions between individuals and small companies? Remember how hard it was to pay a freelancer/individual/small company for a service or product online before Paypal? It was very hard since banks would not approve merchant accounts for every bum that walked into their office :-), and don't even start on international transactions. The fact that people started abusing them in unimaginable ways (prompting the draconian security measures) is not exactly Musk's fault, and the frozen account issues of the past years might be over once the competition finally gets its shit together (or at least there's other options now)...

IsaacL 13y ago

Common lore has it that PayPal's problems began largely after eBay bought them - half their initial staff left after the first year. Early PayPal was very elitist and performance-driven, wheras eBay is famously bureaucratic.

unepipe 13y ago

It seems you are trying to be cute/follow the meme that it's good to hate on PayPal because of the account freezes and stuff as of late. However, before PayPal it was so hard to make a payment or transfer money to someone. They deserved the success they had for a groundbreaking product. Hating on Musk for decisions the company has made more recently is pure folly.

phaus 13y ago
>It seems you are trying to be cute/follow the meme... Because no one that's capable of independent thought will come to a different conclusion than you did right? There's no need to be condescending just because you don't agree with me. Paypal is a shitty company because it fails to support sellers in any meaningful way. Part of this stems from the fact that it isn't a financial institution, so it will always lose to industry standard financial institutions if it tries to fight fraudulent charge backs. Unfortunately this renders the service close to useless for anyone trying to sell anything that's worth more than about $20. It works great if you want to buy something, because you have a 100% chance of getting your money back if the seller doesn't come through. Unfortunately, people committing fraud against sellers also have a 100% chance of getting their money back, because Paypal doesn't even attempt to investigate these situations properly.
- phaus 13y ago
  Instead of silently down-voting, why don't you counter with information that supports the opposite? Perhaps you know someone who has a good experience as a vendor that uses Paypal. Sadly, I myself know multiple dealers that shut their accounts down after they got tired of losing money to thieves.
  - unepipe 13y ago
    Again... not Musk.