Although I've never really used it, I always conceptually preferred the Twitter everything-is-public model over the Facebook faux-privacy model. For two reasons:

1. It's more honest. With Facebook, you are given the illusion of sharing information only with your friends, but it's actually ...with your friends, and Facebook, and anyone Facebook chooses to share it with. Cambridge Analytica being the highest profile example. When you tweet, the expectation is that whatever you said is now On The Internet, a matter of permanent record.

2. It opposes the network effect. Twitter doesn't force me to create an account in order to view a tweet. Or, from the other perspective, if I post on Twitter, I'm not requiring anyone who wants to read my stuff to sign up as well. It's closer to a microblogging platform.

The only use-case I've found for which the public newsfeed feature is, in fact, a feature, is gambling pools where not everyone necessarily knows everyone else well enough to have contact info. Keeps the ledger viewable by everyone, keeps everyone honest (they just have to be careful not to mention that it's for gambling, in the memo).

Seeing it used that way was a real "a ha!" moment. I'd love to know what Venmo's activity looks like around the time that people are putting together or paying out office sports brackets and such.

Which is why I always make a junk message of the payment description. "artisinal rat sausage", "home run Derby entry fee", "sausage gravy slurpee", etc

Holy shit. I've never used Venmo, but thanks for the warning.

It doesn’t seem to be the default anymore on iPhone. Mine was set to private and doesn’t show on the feed. I got Venmo about a year ago.

Everytime I login, I'm in aww that people do not care about these transactions being public. I see people admitting to drug deals, potential cheating, etc. on a regular basis.