Payments is not a consumer product | Hacker News Reader

Payments is not a consumer product

medium.com

43 pointsyoung_one41 comments

> In 2018, you can quickly tap Zomato and use its tremendous compendium of information to browse through what the top 500 restaurants are, filter it down to 20 by how much time you’re willing to travel, the money you’re willing to spend, and what other people like you say about a place ...

> In 1990, you wouldn’t have heard about it unless you stumbled by during a drive, or someone went out of his or her way to tell you

On the other hand, in 1990, people actually frequently hung out physically with other people who were like them. If the restaurant was good, they would eventually hear about it from one of those people--but not by anyone going out of their way to mention it, but rather simply in the casual conversations people had with friends back then.

I think it is the shift many have made to interacting more online and less in person that makes things like Zomato almost necessary.

I personally realized how much of my socializing is online when my car dealer called to urge me to get an airbag recall handled. I got the driver side airbag recall dealt with promptly when it was announced, but this one is just for the passenger airbag. I told them I was waiting until the next scheduled maintenance, because it has been 10 years since I've had a passenger in my car, so it is not really urgent.

So word of mouth is dead? How are we supposed to find out about Zomato app then?

The sticker is on the door of most restaurants where i live.

So people install apps based on stickers on walls? Gotta go update my threat model. :)

> or someone went out of his or her way to tell you

The language of the copy is pretty telling... “out of their way”? People talk about what they did _all the time_, it’s what people do when they get together.

You can't search and filter through "dude you have to check out this Lao place".

The internet has way more, better, dynamic information than any group of humans can manage independently. Humans are terrible at recommendations.

I was about to call bullshit about that 1990 claim as well. Not just people hanging out, but there were (and still are) restaurant critiques writer for every newspaper with a decent coverage. News about a new good restaurant always spread.

Plus:

Zagat – 1979

AAA Hotel Guide – 1917

Michelin Guide – 1900

Yellow Pages – 1886

People have been cataloging places to visit forever. Everything old is new again.

At some point I was waiting for something along the line of the optimal solution is no payement, the optimal solution is an upgraded concept of communism...

But it ended up being yet another solution that does the same thing better than existing product and promise to reduce friction... while actually adding a lot because friction to switch to a brand new system is enormous.

It started as a critique piece and ended as an ad. I feel somewhat cheated, bait and switch.

The very same thing, not even with multiple copies of a giant Excel spreadsheet.

Didn't you miss two steps - Go to cart, Pick 'Simpl' payment method.

Also - it's basically reinventing the wheel to be similar to how credit cards in the US work, linked to your email/phone instead of a card. (Not dissing the product, though. I do use, and prefer Simpl when it's available).

But honestly, I'm still waiting for a proper payment system which behaves in a responsible manner while giving me a great deal of control and security.

Using credit cards for online payments is kind of ridiculous. I literally have to take pics of both sides to skim you off. Moving liability to the banks is not an ideal solution. The Indian way of OTPs on every transaction, I agree, has too much friction.

Why isn't there a oauth-like permission based system yet? Where I can authorize recurring payments of fixed/variable amounts, authorize one-time payments, etc, and manage all these merchant at one place? Today, if I have to block a company from charging me, either I go to their website, or get in a long and unfruitful call with my bank.

> Moving liability to the banks is not an ideal solution.

Why not? It works pretty well in many countries.

Chip-and-pin credit cards work fine in practice, which is why they haven't been replaced. The only thing better is credit cards with contactless payment, which happens to be at that sweet spot where the tech benefits banks (less liability) and consumers (quicker).

I'll use a credit card over some shitty app any day.

> Why isn't there a oauth-like permission based system yet? Where I can authorize recurring payments of fixed/variable amounts, authorize one-time payments, etc, and manage all these merchant at one place?

Erm, in many countries you can, see direct debit. Again, solved problem. If your economy or banking system is fucked, that's a different problem, and tech may not be the answer.

Actually, tech may be a fine solution in such failed government situations. But, it might take actual decentralized networks to make it really usable.

This is just a thinly veiled advertisement for another payment platform.

> The correct answer is zero. > Payments should be invisible.

And should be without user consent. It would be the best mobile-first UX. This technology should be called algorithmic payments!

We should use machine learning to detect if the user want to pay something or not!

  userWantsToPay : function(user) {
    //doDeepLearningMagic(user);
    return true;
  }

Looks like a fantastic improvement over the current internet

  void website() {
    if (userWantsToPay()) {
      charge_more();
    }
    show_obnoxious_ad_that_calls_the_same_website_function();
  }

This is really scary. If you think about it I bet there are quite a few start-ups working on exactly that.

So, this is somewhat misleading (or I didnt read the full thing)

* Uber already allows you to pay by cash or use a credit card and put in the OTP after your trip

* The PayTM concept is largely due to a discrepancy in regulations, money can be debited from my PayTM account w/o an OTP, but my credit card cannot be charged without an OTP due to regulations

The example is a bit convoluted. Uber allows you to pay after the ride. I do it most of the time.

There is also an option of paying via cash. I will be surprised if Mumbai airport dint have any options to withdraw cash from an ATM.

Additionally, Paytm has seen people's money disappear from their wallets left and right. And now requires OTP if it detects that the login is from an unknown location. This secures people from getting hacked. Indian banks also do the same. I agree it can be a pain but sometimes security and comfort don't really align well.

Well, Paypal and Wechat proof the opposite. Easy, small transactions are very well a high demand product. And even if you can't make money with it directly, you can still use to drive demand and track users in whatever other service you have. E.g. as insurance company I'd be really interested in that kind of data. E.g. as Amazon I'd be very interested in that ease-of-use sale platform.

Uber in India doesn't require you to key in otp or authorize the payment before the trip. The whole post is based on this false premise.

Or just link your Uber to paytm and preload $100. You won't have to worry about cab payments all through your whole trip.

Off topic but what on earth is with the incorrect comma placement in the numbers?

> 3,64,000 potential transactions could have taken place; only 2,18,400 actually did.

That's how they do in India.

Well TIL, thanks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system#Use_of...

> This is how you end up with American payment networks like Visa and Mastercard companies charging upto 3%; customers have no chance of negotiating a better deal because they have nowhere else to go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuPay

The thing is - and I don’t know how this is in India - cards often have rewards programs funded off that 3%, and you don’t usually get a discount for paying in cash. So if you pay in cash or “cheaper” payment options, you’re actually just paying more money to the supermarket than if you used a card and got some of that 3% back.

I'm okay with the market keeping the money than MC/VISA getting it. Here's the thing: I want the market to make money and stay open so I can keep shopping there. I don't care if MC goes up in flames.

The point is that the market has already raised prices 3% on the assumption that their customers will be able to afford it because they’re getting some portion of that cut back in rewards - the only situation where this doesn’t work is where many of their customers don’t use rewards cards.

I honestly think reward cards are a rent-seeking mechanism against merchants. Merchants (or CC processors a la stripe) pay the higher transaction fee just because a customer swiped their “Platinum Bonus Cash Back Rewards Ultimate Black++” card for the painting they want to buy from you. Fuck that.

In Australia the government decided this was non-competitive and regulated interchange fees down to less than half a percent. They still have credit cards, but limited rewards programs.

The 3% processing charges are really just inertia in North America, since costs have gone down a lot over the decades, but the fees have been reallocated into marketing/rewards.

Handling cash is not free. Probably less than the credit card networks change but non-zero (especially if they handle some cash anyway). There are increasingly situations/places where retailers and other people selling things don't handle cash at all.

Also the EU has regulated debit/credit interchange fees to a tenth of what they are in the US

If PayTM allows a user to go into negative balance upto a certain limit, the premise for the post no longer exists.

No product is perfect, as basing your product on a missing feature of another is a massive risk.

So, this is PayPal?

PayPal is the worst, always use other options before PayPal. Just Google people's experiences with them.

So, this is PayPal, but without the other stuff PayPal is notorious for, which has nothing to do with "press button, buy thing" and everything to do with "their customer support when things go wrong, on either side of the exchange, is garbage"?

PayPal is very good for buyers, terrible for sellers. If you want to buy something and do not fully trust the seller, definitely use PayPal.

If you are a seller see if accepting PayPal is worth the trouble.

Almost all complaints are tied to this bias.

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