Venmo is turning our friends into petty jerks | Hacker News Reader

Venmo is turning our friends into petty jerks

qz.com

"Hey, I don't think it's healthy for us to charge each-other for every little transaction. What do you think about not venmoing for anything less than $7?"

Venmo is not ruining your friendships, your inability to face issues head-on is

True, but Venmo makes these passive/aggressive behaviors practically friction-less. progress!

Then its just exposing people who were already jerks for who they are. I use Venmo often, and the authors example just seems to speak badly of his friend circle:

Now, however, such transactions may be followed with a passive-aggressive charge the next day or even late the following week, sometimes over dollars and cents of differences in price. A friend recently requested $4 for the difference between a drink she bought me and a cheaper drink I bought her in return. Another friend charged me $10 for a cab when I had previously bought her a $12 drink, so I felt prompted to charge her back.

I would consider that an inexpensive cost to learning about negative characteristics of my friends.

Or I would just not worry about it. We all have our issues; a friend worrying about $4 probably means there's something behind it. I can either accept that person along with all their issues or I can find new friends.

I have a large group of friends who all use Venmo and nothing like this is an issue. It doesn't seem like Venmo is the problem, but the character of the people in those accounts.

That "friend" is just begging to be the victim of one of the NUMEROUS exploits Venmo ignores.. Because they also refuse to take any sort of accountability when it comes to fraud.. LOL??

As a vegetarian teetotaler, I end up partially subsidizing most other people's meals.

We do split checks evenly though (one of us pays), and use Splitwise to register that. It's just better all around to have this kind of accountability. Over the last couple of years, I ended up being owed mid 4 figures on Splitwise (from all my friends combined) even though none of us makes an extra effort to avoid paying checks. This may be a weird outlier, but this goes to show that the small charges add up, and it doesn't always cancel out.

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