Hacker News Reader

I have not used Venmo. Can someone explain the user experience around this? Does it happen just by doing a transaction or is it like posting something on social media with an audience dropdown box or something?

View on HN

There's an activity feed, just like Facebook. Whenever you pay someone on Venmo the app will make a public post on your behalf, and any of your friends can see all of your purchases on the feed ("Bottomless mimosas", "Sushi with Jessica", etc).

Also important to note that your transactions are "public" by default, which means everyone can see them, not just friends that you've added.

Do users really fill comment field? Why? Does it have embedded accounting module or people knowingly collect and share their payments? If it is accounting, then why free text and not categories?

I use local similar app and all transactions go with no comment, from everyone, since there is no point to make such comments (and they’re private).

It happens just by doing a transaction unless you set the transaction to friends only or private. (I do think that the setting "sticks" for later transactions, but am not 100% sure.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com