PayPal Goes In-Store | Hacker News Reader

PayPal Goes In-Store

techcrunch.com

26 points3lit3H4ck3r24 comments

Yeah, sure. I'll let someone use a smart phone to take a picture of my credit card. That has to be the dumbest idea ever.

Eliminating the merchant account is the stroke of genius. The benefits will outweigh the drawbacks for many people, sellers and buyers alike.

And if you don't want to give someone an imprint of your credit card, you can pay with PayPal, and you are protected against fraud up-front (as opposed to after the fact, as with credit cards). That is an improvement.

>And if you don't want to give someone an imprint of your credit card, you can pay with PayPal, and you are protected against fraud up-front

Does the process for doing that involve typing my PayPal password into a device I don't control?

Why?

Not only does the Obama campaign plan to allow donations like this, but the last time I went physically into an Apple store my purchase was made that way. A PDF was emailed to me for receipt and I liked it.

By taking a picture of your credit card? Or a swipe attachment?

There's a big difference between trusting a national chain and a small business which this seems to be going after.

The Obama campaign better do anything it can to get money. After how much clout the "small" donors had during the health care legislation, no dollars are moving from me to them this time. SuperPACs maybe. Politicians seem scared of SuperPACs.

This may be the first serious competitor that Square has had. Paypal knows the payment space very well, has a brand that everybody recognizes, has relations with a lot of merchants, and the Paypal dongle looks better for heavy usage, because of its shape and size (based on the first picture).

Give paypal about three months before they start locking innocent merchant accounts and inadvertently sending square all the business they can handle.

Paypal does bring with them a strong reputation for enjoying fucking their customers. I and my gf refuse to have anything to do with them, and if they're the only option offered, I simply won't buy.

I would argue that this reputation only really applies within the tech echo chamber and that the vast majority of wider society isn't aware of this reputation, and has never heard of Square.

But these same people probably do have a PayPal account, and given that these onerous policies of PayPals are actually in place to protect the consumer I think they stand a good chance making it much more difficult for Square in this market.

Agreed. I was listening to a morning talk show that was discussing PayPal, and they only said great things about PayPal. I think most of the population likes PayPal, except for the very small percentage which happened to get screwed.

Completely agree. Great move on their part. Capitalize on their network in every country before Square enters it. Square already proved there is a market for it.

Triangle has always been square's worst enemy.

Sic transit gloria Square?

Interesting choice with the triangle shape, Square's customers will find the allusion familiar.

This could potentially disrupt the business of Pentagon.

So we're going through the basic shapes for payment companies?

  Square = obvious
  Paypal = Triangle
  Stripe = Rectangle

Extrapolating, the next payment-company-cum-dongle is going to be circular. Some kind of NFC rig perhaps?

It looks like a whole dongle-shape industry is brewing. Waiting for the first dongle in the shape of Lady Gaga.

Triangle man beats particle man.

Oh wow that's S-E-X-X-Y

I cant wait for paypal to go broke...theres only so long you can dick around the entire market before it comes back to bite you.

Why couldn't PayPal become more of a innovation company and stop taking ideas from entrepreneurial folks. Errr

I saw a "pay with paypal" button on the self checkout at CVS the other day. Has this been around for a while?

CVS is still a pilot program, and the technology is pretty recent. PayPal at the POS (with phone number+PIN, not email+password) has been in full release at all Home Depot stores for the last month or two, after an earlier pilot program.

I've seen that once. I also saw a person use a PayPal credit card in real life for the first time a couple weeks ago. That one threw me! I hadn't realized the market penetration had reached that level.

This is one of the very few moments that I wish a company (in this case, obviously Square) has a patent - PayPal sucks!

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