Venmo Halts New Developer Access To Its API

I agree that there might not have been concrete reasons for the API to exist (especially considering PayPal has their own API), but shutting down the API with no warning or migration plan was a mean move. Even if the only projects using it are small I still think the developers of them deserve some warning. They still worked hard on those projects and are probably proud of the work they did.

The biggest API integration I know of is Splitwise. Their Android app has 500K+ installs and it's probably the same ballpark on iOS, which puts them leagues above a college kid with 2 likes.

You dismiss the pizza thing but the PapaJohns website still has the Venmo stuff on it so that's at least one large business with a broken website.

I agree that the article's examples are great, but you don't need examples to convince me that a zero-warning API shut-off is a bad thing. Regardless of how many people are using the API (if it's non-zero), why not send them emails 3 months in advance? It costs you virtually nothing and almost certainly prevents this article from being written.

And this is why I never read TechCrunch articles. They are a tabloid, and as far as I can tell have no place on HN. The comments never seize to be amusing though.

Never the less, no notification or announcement is a pretty college kid move

Relevant Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/williamready/status/703349746992197632

I love that they're trying to pin this on Venmo, like it's somehow their problem and not a completely misleading article built on misinformation.

> Venmo seems to be confused. According to statement below from Venmo and the message on the developer site, the API is no longer available. But now Venmo tells me the API is still available to existing developers, but not to new ones, which can be a sign of an impending shut down. We’ll update with more info soon once Venmo figures itself out. Parts of this article have been changed for accuracy.

It's a lot easier than Paypal to make an account and send money. Your friends and contacts are already loaded via whatever social network you OAuth[orized] the app through.

It is quite literally as easy as typing a friends name and having it auto completed. Typing in a number and hitting send.

Paypal might have an app that does something similar and it likely came after Venmo gained popularity. For most of us, who have been using Paypal since the 2000s, it might not seem logical, but Paypal UI experience does seem like an archaic UI experience by comparison even to me.

The fact that everyone has it and people don't believe that Square Cash actually works as well as it does.

I think the most reasonable comparison would be with Square, and it's a question of marketing. While Square has p2p payment features it's marketing is mostly towards businesses with its tagline being "start selling today" right on its website. Venmo's tagline is "share payments," indicating they're marketing themselves mostly for p2p. Paypal is a bit of a pain to sign up in comparison with Venmo, which allows seamless Facebook Auth via your phone so is easier for people to sign up for. Kind of all irrelevant since Paypal owns Venmo anyway, but there you go.

I didn't at first either, but after using Venmo, the simplicity of the UI is amazing.

I can easily search for a friend, and send them money right away. In addition, you can request money from people.

It's really easy to split groceries, utilities, and other bills with roommates and friends.

If I remember correctly, PayPal owns Venmo.

When it launched, it was miles ahead of PayPal. You could sign up and be transferring money within 10 minutes, and to cash out, once you verified your account information, they actually delivered the money to your account quickly, often as soon as the next business day. PayPal, until recently, never delivered the money in a timely manner, not to mention all the freezes and holds that have them paying out a class action settlement.

As of now, I don't disagree. PayPal has successfully adopted most of the best parts of Venmo (though time to receive money remains the slowest of all the competitors) and Square Cash is miles ahead of both of them - the ability to send money to people who don't have an account, and allowing them to access that money without creating an account is simply fantastic. No more conversations with friends like "Look, I'm sorry I don't have cash right now. You can wait, or you can download Venmo and let me pay you now."

likely as they have so many apis already

Thought the same thing. Yea, pretty sure it will.

Yep. I have two services using the API, both only really used by my friends. One is a cost splitting web app and the other was to send money to your friends only through SMS.