Hacker News Reader

Comment by StudentStuff | Hacker News Reader

The eBay/PayPal split has been a mess. eBay should have had its own, seamlessly integrated payments from the start, but lacking that PayPal was a good crutch.

Since the split, you now get the choice of paying through eBay directly, through PayPal, or another way (depending on what the seller accepts). Simplifying this for small dollar transactions is critical if eBay is to stay competitive with Etsy, Amazon, Target, Walmart and the numerous others that are sharing the online shopping market.

View on HN

ebay did have its own integrated payments early on: Billpoint. (https://www.pymnts.com/digital-payments/2018/ebay-intermedia...)

From what I recall, the fees were much higher then PayPal and it didn’t take long for PayPal to become the de facto standard.

> The eBay/PayPal split has been a mess

It has been an absolute goldmine for shareholders. eBay bought PayPal for $1.5b in 2002 and spun it off in 2015 for ~$50b. PYPL is currently valued at $106b.

Why would eBay shareholders consider it a "goldmine" if eBay let PayPal go for half of what it was worth?

I have not checked the details, but I read it as someone who held a share in Ebay+PayPal prior to PayPal being spun of got an Ebay share + X PayPal shares at the time of the spinoff. I don't think PayPal was bought for $50B, it was valued as that as a separate entity. The PayPal share has doubled in value since the split.

Because they didn't sell it, they spun it off. Shareholders got 1 PYPL share for every share of EBAY. EBAY was ~$28 a share and the combined value of both is currently ~$123. An 80% annualized ROI seems like a goldmine to me!

Of all the reason I dont buy things from eBay, the payment options have very little to do with it.

Are you sure this is a problem? It’s very common for retailers to offer multiple payment options. As long as they let you check a box to default to the same option in the future, I don’t think users mind.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com