As for bank logins...that’s been around since long before Plaid. But I agree there must be a better way. Though I don’t have any great practical ideas.
Even if users are technically opting in, and even if everything is documented in the privacy policy, a potential end-game here is that startup companies have access to all bank transactions for the people who need to use Plaid - likely people on the ground in the sharing economy who rely on it for payments - and the more fortunate/wealthier folks continue to have financial privacy by virtue of not needing to use it.
That would be a really unfair world to live in.
Obviously this is a hugely sensitive service, I’m not denying that. But there’s a way to do it right and it seems that Plaid is attempting to do that. So I’m not ready to declare them evil before they actually do anything evil.
Unfortunately the current approach of the major aggregation players is the only way to motivate the banks to give customers access to their own data through more reliable means.
Sure, but the developer using Plaid's services doesn't.
Isn't this a clear parallel to the Google "Don't be evil" approach that gets discarded as soon as the opportunity cost becomes too large to ignore?