Mapquest was no google maps. Google had you in real time recommending restaurants and giving you directions with voice. You could see a streetview. It felt like a huge leap at the time to me. You may have a different viewpoint.
Not to mention mapping GPS receivers. Google maps was probably the most obvious use case for a smart phone after making phone calls and listening to music.
Was PayPal always evil, though? The concept of it wasn’t. People wanted an easier way to conduct transactions electronically. Something faster and more convenient than, say, a Western Union money transfer order.
Almost every country around the world has a free way of moving money between people without using an app or third party website. It’s just a standard part of banking. I haven’t looked into it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Paypal has bribed and lobbied to keep that kind of functionality out of the US. So, the US has a shittier, more expensive, less convenient, more privacy-invasive version of what everybody else takes for granted. Just like with medical care, taxes, etc.
To be fair, moving money between countries was not trivial before PayPal.
To use Europe as an example, SEPA became operative in 2008, about six years after PayPal first became available in Europe. Before that, all international money transfers had to go through SWIFT and the easiest way was probably to use a credit card (and good luck trying to send money to a someone who isn’t a company with that).
Even with SEPA (or for domestic transfers), PayPal offered superior comfort over entering the recipient’s IBAN into a homebanking software. Processing was faster, too.
Of course these days banks in Europe have to offer instant transfers, there’s a QR code standard to read invoice data into banking apps, and they’re working on a full-blown PayPal replacement to get the last comfort bits down as well. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out.
I mean, revolut is still a thing despite instant transfers, because being able to just send money to a phone number from your contact list is still hella more convenient than sharing QR codes or IBANs.
I would expect the American credit card companies and banks lobby just as hard if not harder to prevent that from being a free service in the US. Electronic Funds Transfers are an option at every bank in the US, but they’re not very easy for individuals and seem to always charge a fee to either the sender or receiver.
Yes, just like how tax preparation companies lobby to keep the IRS from just telling people what they owe in taxes. It keeps the tax prep companies in business.
We have Zelle in the US, but it’s not the same as PayPal. At its simplest PayPal is just a way to send money from one entity to another, but it does a lot more than that. It has escrow and fraud protection (debatable if they do a good job at it). With Zelle it’s much more like handing someone cash. There have been some instances of fraud resulting in reversed transactions but those are big deals not your everyday scams or unreliable sellers.
Because PayPal and Venmo has been shitty a lot, Zelle is gaining a lot of use. I pay my rent with Zelle. Buying or selling stuff on craigslist or marketplace I’ll use Zelle if it’s more than like 40 bucks. It’s nice as a seller because there is no way to reverse the transaction after the fact.
I think they had a couple of years where they weren’t evil, but pretty close to always. They own Ebay too, and they’re also evil.
I think other countries have payment systems where they’re not evil. It’s ran by the government I think? There are no fees and it just comes out of your account. I guess payment systems in the general sense would be a better mention.
Out of nowhere? MapQuest and printed out directions were a thing for many years.
Mapquest was no google maps. Google had you in real time recommending restaurants and giving you directions with voice. You could see a streetview. It felt like a huge leap at the time to me. You may have a different viewpoint.
Not to mention mapping GPS receivers. Google maps was probably the most obvious use case for a smart phone after making phone calls and listening to music.
Was PayPal always evil, though? The concept of it wasn’t. People wanted an easier way to conduct transactions electronically. Something faster and more convenient than, say, a Western Union money transfer order.
Almost every country around the world has a free way of moving money between people without using an app or third party website. It’s just a standard part of banking. I haven’t looked into it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Paypal has bribed and lobbied to keep that kind of functionality out of the US. So, the US has a shittier, more expensive, less convenient, more privacy-invasive version of what everybody else takes for granted. Just like with medical care, taxes, etc.
To be fair, moving money between countries was not trivial before PayPal.
To use Europe as an example, SEPA became operative in 2008, about six years after PayPal first became available in Europe. Before that, all international money transfers had to go through SWIFT and the easiest way was probably to use a credit card (and good luck trying to send money to a someone who isn’t a company with that).
Even with SEPA (or for domestic transfers), PayPal offered superior comfort over entering the recipient’s IBAN into a homebanking software. Processing was faster, too.
Of course these days banks in Europe have to offer instant transfers, there’s a QR code standard to read invoice data into banking apps, and they’re working on a full-blown PayPal replacement to get the last comfort bits down as well. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out.
I mean, revolut is still a thing despite instant transfers, because being able to just send money to a phone number from your contact list is still hella more convenient than sharing QR codes or IBANs.
I would expect the American credit card companies and banks lobby just as hard if not harder to prevent that from being a free service in the US. Electronic Funds Transfers are an option at every bank in the US, but they’re not very easy for individuals and seem to always charge a fee to either the sender or receiver.
Yes, just like how tax preparation companies lobby to keep the IRS from just telling people what they owe in taxes. It keeps the tax prep companies in business.
We have Zelle in the US, but it’s not the same as PayPal. At its simplest PayPal is just a way to send money from one entity to another, but it does a lot more than that. It has escrow and fraud protection (debatable if they do a good job at it). With Zelle it’s much more like handing someone cash. There have been some instances of fraud resulting in reversed transactions but those are big deals not your everyday scams or unreliable sellers.
Because PayPal and Venmo has been shitty a lot, Zelle is gaining a lot of use. I pay my rent with Zelle. Buying or selling stuff on craigslist or marketplace I’ll use Zelle if it’s more than like 40 bucks. It’s nice as a seller because there is no way to reverse the transaction after the fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia
I think they had a couple of years where they weren’t evil, but pretty close to always. They own Ebay too, and they’re also evil.
I think other countries have payment systems where they’re not evil. It’s ran by the government I think? There are no fees and it just comes out of your account. I guess payment systems in the general sense would be a better mention.