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Comment by kinsomo | Hacker News Reader

It boggles my mind that anyone would want to stream their payment history publicly.

Hmm, I think most people use it to pay friends back for brunch or drinks. It's not like you're streaming all your credit card purchases. It's kinda like checking in on Foursquare with friends... it's a public way to expose your social graph a bit.

It may not be for you, but people love social media. To put it a different way: it's so successful because, despite there being lots of ways to pay back friends, none of the other ones let you subtly brag that you're out having fun.

>it's so successful because, despite there being lots of ways to pay back friends

It was far and away the simplest and easiest way to quickly transfer money electronically, at least around ~6 years ago. The "big players" that have payment apps either weren't launched or were just getting started, and PayPal just had/has this bizarre level of BS required for a process that should just take like 2 or 3 simple steps.

Nowadays I have friends that occasionally put amusing messages and stuff in their payments, but I don't really get the feeling that people are actually showing off much. Most of the payments I see are between SOs or roommates splitting utilities+rent and such. There are probably plenty of people who do enjoy this part of the app, but Venmo just seems like a great product regardless, so I don't know how key it actually is.

I've been told Venmo works exactly like PayPal, which is to say it's a 2 step process to get money from your Venmo account into your actual checking/savings account. So that would make it just as usable as the, what, 20-year-old PayPal, and worse than Square Cash. Am I misinformed?

When I started using Venmo, PayPal was cumbersome to use (I don't even know if it had decent mobile app 6 years ago) and tended to have additional costs. Also the UI pummeled you with all sorts of random information and options, when all anyone wants to do is send $x to y-person as fast as counting cash in your wallet takes. For a group of people sitting in a restaurant, PayPal was (is? I dunno) annoying. Venmo is effortless.

I just looked up Square Cash, and it seems like it launched in 2015 according to Wikipedia. Everyone I know (who I would want to send money to/from) was already using Venmo by 2012, 2013 at the latest. I've yet to encounter a single instance where I wanted to switch, nor (anecdotally) have I heard someone voice a single complaint about Venmo in-person.

Venmo got to market with a pretty much pure product before anyone else, and has yet to give any cause for switching.

Wikipedia's article is very oddly worded, saying

"In March 2015, Square introduced Square Cash for businesses, which includes the ability for individuals, organizations, and business owners to use a unique username to send and receive money, known as a $cashtag"

But for some reason they neglect to point out the pre-for-business component. It actually dates back to 2013:

https://squareup.com/news/introducing-cashtags

I stand corrected, though, because as you note, Venmo predates it by several years. I guess I just had no reason to switch from PayPal until Square Cash came along in 2013 and was even more frictionless. But ultimately, these things are clearly down to network effect.

Oddly, all I can find about the PayPal mobile app is that it was "re-designed" in 2013. Of course, I was using PayPal on a Palm handheld back in ~2000....

The thing with PayPal is that it always seemed primarily targeted towards customer-business interactions. Trivial payments between friends didn't seem like a high-priority usecase back in ~2012. I noticed the same issues as you when I tried to Google its mobile history.

Venmo definitely won the first-to-market/network effect game. That said, I'm not complaining. Unless it looks like they are on course for bankruptcy or there is a major data leak, it's CX is pretty much exactly what I want it to be. The only unnecessary part is the social feed, but that has absolutely no impact on me unless I want it to (and sometimes it's amusing to see the messages my friends attach to them if I happen to look at it).

Could be. I used PayPal to transfer money to friends before it was even accepted on eBay, but obviously that's a pretty niche example.

It looks like Venmo is ~2x as popular as Square Cash from this recode article:

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/27/17059182/square-cash-app-mo...

And a few other good data points/comparisons.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/paypal-vs-google-wallet...

https://lifehacker.com/money-transfer-showdown-square-cash-v...

(One source points out that Square Cash followed Square Wallet and Square Order; I used Square Wallet because I also had their card-reader from back in the day, so this goes back to at least 2011).

> it's a public way to expose your social graph a bit.

Why is this a thing?

Bragging? "Look at me, I'm baller, spending money on my friends!"

so they can say it's public data and sell the ish out of it

> It may not be for you, but people love social media

People also love heroin and alcohol and tobacco. People love lots of things that are terrible for them.

People also love exercise, healthy food, and sleep.

I don't think payments is something that is social worthy, but comparing them to chemically-addicting substances is a little absurd.

That people like something doesn't mean it's good for them, or even makes them happy: anything that some people really like and that is undoubtedly harmful can serve to prove that point. It doesn't put social media and heroin "in the same ballpark", it doesn't even say social media is harmful, it just says the fact that some people like it isn't saying a lot in itself. (I might add, especially not when it comes in the form of "you don't love it but people love it".)

If you think letting your friends know you just had brunch is on par with heroin or alcohol... well, damn. I think social media can be unhealthy, and I think the pendulum is beginning to swing back the other way, but I support exploring new ways to communicate with the people around you.

Ugh.

I interviewed at PayPal in 2012, and one of the engineering managers there mentioned the concept of social mobile payments- imagine you pay for a beer at a bar, and it shows up in your feed. I was utterly unconvinced by the idea. It felt cargo cult, adding social for the sake of it. A few years later, Venmo goes big among millennials, and later on PayPal buys them. Go figure.

Especially when “the wrong word could get you in trouble”:

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_571f8057e4b01a5ebde34b97/...

It is so ridiculous that the comment for a payment would be used against someone. Writing jokes in the 'for' line on a check is a time honored tradition when paying your friends money. I don't want to live in a world where I am not allowed to make jokes because it might get me a visit from the FBI.

I used to write vulgar stuff in the memo line like “hookers” or “blow”. Stupid college shit. One day my bank called me and said if I did it again they’d cancel my account. I asked the rep her name and promised to stop...

I wrote “fuck you sarah” for two years until I changed banks.

Sarah got punished twice there. First, being the one who had to make this unpleasant phone call, and then being the target of these notes.

As noted below it wasn’t a company policy she didn’t personally like seeing things like “emergency eunuch surgery” on checks.

She said she would make it a policy. All bark, no bite.

I think calling people was probably part of her job.

Wow, you really showed her.

You should have used her manager's name instead.

I asked her if it was company policy and she said no, she just didn’t like it personally and would see it was made a policy.

It was a small town Christian credit union account my parents set up for me in high school to start building credit.

So fuck Sarah.

What an odd thing for a bank to do, police how someone uses a memo line in a check. At least you got your revenge on them.

It's my understanding that Venmo will flag transactions with certain words in the memo.

"I Tried to Venmo $12.66 for 'ISIS' and the Government Was Pissed

It turns out the Treasury Department doesn't appreciate my sense of humor."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5gqyzd/i-tried-to-venmo-1...

Ironic given how Softcard used to be called Isis.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had to file a suspicious activity report for every one of those checks.

Sounds like you never grew out of "stupid college shit". I feel sorry for Sarah and anyone else on the receiving end of this type of behavior.

Making jokes in private is fine. But publicly declaring an intent to violate the law is a joke that is going to get attention from law-enforcement unless they can be convinced it's a joke.

Quite relevant: "Caution on Twitter urged as tourists barred from US."

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16810312

Which is exactly why random bullshit payments shouldn't be public, and why Venmo defaulting to it (or even having it be an option) makes no sense.

"Cuba" is not declaring intent to violate the law, and investigating such a case seems like a poor use of law enforcement resources, since a) there are many legal transactions describable as "Cuba", and b) it depends on the violators being overt about their lawbreaking.

The payer could very well be referring to drinks at the Cuba Libre bar, or tickets for the Cuba Gooding Jr. movie/show.

The very point in question is about whether this information is public.

Guilty until proven funny?

Why is it important to put jokes there? I view a check as a pseudo-legal document. Do you slip jokes into the contracts you sign?

A long time ago, checks had to be deposited at a bank counter, in person. If I wanted to embarrass my payee, I'd write something risque or vulgar in the memo line. That way they would have to suffer that embarrassment if they wanted my money.

Yeah, it's juvenile. I don't understand why the FBI would care though. There's a 0% chance that a real terrorist is writing "ISIS" on their checks to fund terror.

I would agree, I don't really understand the logic in this thread. You're literally giving the check to a bank who is then going to have read it and look at what it's for and who you're sending the money too - and part of their job is to decide if it is legitimate, or if they should ask you about it, etc. If you put something extremely suspicious or flat-out illegal in the memo line, I would presume they're obligated to at least report it, or else they could be on the hook if it turns out it was actually true and they let it go with no questions asked.

I draw smiley faces on the signature line at stores and restaurants pretty often.

I don't want to live in that kind of world either, but it goes on existing around me all the same.

Too late, you already live in that world.

A friend in college got a fun letter from the Comptroller of the Currency after writing “A Night in Tehran” on a reimbursement for Iranian food in Chicago.

Did that happen to be the name of the restaurant?

I agree. This makes me feel old now, and I'm in my early 30s. My wife has access to all my financial information, but I can't imagine sharing it publicly!

Indeed.

My guess behind the attraction to such a service would be that a public spending feed could make one more conservative for fear of judgement.

Although if its solely for bill-splitting I have no idea why it is public. Surely people's spending history has some value en-masse, why make that public?

It's not hard to understand. My feed is mostly "friends only" but there are a few public posts too, let's have a look:

https://venmo.com/harryh

    1. Tickets for a band. That's cool.
    2. Clearly something amusing about jail.
    3. A computer. Computers are fun.
    4. MEAT
    5. Sci Fi movies. Movies are fun.

People do this for the same reason they use twitter or facebook or instagram. To share what they are doing in their life with their friends. Most payments aren't top secret stuff, they're just little notes about people's social life.

Why not? It seems to be a pretty popular feature -- lots of people post things to be funny and/or brag about their lives. Most of social media exists for people to broadcast their experiences.

Technically, that the thing with Bitcoin and other blockchain currencies

something something bitcoin

[flagged]

This breaks the site guidelines, which ask: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That's especially true in this case. When a discussion has been repeated so many times, it becomes off topic on a site where the core value is intellectual curiosity.

This is being downvoted likely because "Mark was a kid", but in many ways he was right. A priori, there is no reason to trust any website or company on the internet.

The fact that people trust Google with intimate search queries, or trust Facebook with their personal photos and info, or trust Apple with their messages, or trust a website like Amazon in shopping is really amazing. They are all private companies that are, strictly speaking, beholden only to their shareholders. And for whatever reason, people either forget that or erroneously believe there is legislation governing their behavior.

He was a kid, but lol, damn kids are honest. Yes all people are dumb fucks. That's like straight up impossible to challenge that claim too.

> downvoted likely because "Mark was a kid"

well, it's often used as a lazy sort of character assassination.

it's also (perhaps ironically) a good example of why "right to be forgotten" can make sense.

> it's also (perhaps ironically) a good example of why "right to be forgotten" can make sense.

Or, perhaps ironically, a good example of why "right to be forgotten" does not make sense.

Can't reply to TAForObvReasons directly due to thread limits but, you're right on - actually just about anyone in this game sits in the same boat. MZ was the only one that admitted it.

The 15-year apology tour and various dark patterns that Facebook employs certainly suggest that if "dumb fucks" was a youthful error Zuckerberg has done nothing to change. If he learned and course-corrected the company, then your criticism would be fair; that hasn't happened, so the comment is still relevant today.

I don't see these citations as "lazy character assassination"; rather, "this is who he is, he laid the cards bare more than a decade ago"

In Facebook’s early days, everything you put on the site was shared with your friends. So it was not “private, personal, info” but rather the opposite — information that users wanted to publicize widely. I have never put anything on Facebook that I care whether Mark Zuckerberg reads or not. It would be weird and creepy, for sure, if he was looking at pictures of my baby, but I willingly shared those with over a thousand people so am happy to share with one more.

This isn't meant to call you out specifically but I've seen others echo similar sentiments of "I only put what I want on FB so it's no big deal privacy wise".

What's troubling about FB is the _other_ implicit information they (and the other large social apps) passively collect about you. Unless you're using a particularly effective ad/privacy blocker you're also sharing all the data about every site you've visited that has a FB like button. Also, separate from you and your data, FB has a tremendous graph of all the contacts, etc who have you as a contact.

Collectively, this gives them a much greater reach and ability to make inferences than just what you directly share.

> shared with your friends.

The quoted conversation is about Zuck volunteering to share information to someone who is NOT their friends.

> So it was not “private, personal, info” but rather the opposite — information that users wanted to publicize widely

SSN is not private, personal info?

I've never met anyone online or offline who wanted to publicize their SSN widely. Oh wait... that LifeLock dude.... https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft/

SNS is meant to mean SN's, or "screennames". This (now-outdated) term refers to messenger accounts (AIM/ICQ) in the pre-Facebook world.

SNS, not SSNs.

SNS almost certainly refers to either:

1) Student numbers

2) Screen names (like for AIM)

I dont know why people even defend MZ, with arguments like, "he was young" -- he still is young. "People grow and mature" -- yup not seeing it. "People change" -- also dont see it. In fact, the MZ of today is just as creepy (if not more) than sketchy Mark 'Dumb Fucks" Zuckerberg.

Typically, the only defenders of MZ are FB employees. I guess they indoctrinate their employees to their Godhead well!

(s/Harward/world/g) and (s/4000/2B/g) and you'd get the recent Zuck's Congress testimony.

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