Venmo Five Years Ago • Hacker News Board

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#31

Post by stevesearer » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #19

Question: does anyone know how/if Venmo makes money or is it just a loss-leader for Braintree/PayPal? I use it for thousands of dollars of transactions a year but I have never paid a penny in fees or seen an ad. People claim that Venmo acts as a bank and invests my carried balance but I can't imagine that's lucrative enough to pay all the bills.

They also charge a 3% fee on money sent using a credit card. Many of my friends just have a balance sitting in their Venmo account because they use it so often to pay for things from rent to groceries to splitting a bill at a restaurant. No idea of the metrics of how much can be made from the interest on those balances though.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#32

Post by RankingMember » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #22

RankingMember wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm weird but I feel like cash is superior for those applications and doesn't require me to hand my credit card number out to yet another company.

But it does require you to walk to the nearest ATM, withdraw the nearest round amount to the amount you need, then somehow try to get change from your friend (or just call it even) then walk around with the remainder. I get what you're saying, but it isn't difficult to see why people find Venom a better option. What is exactly that bad about Venmo having your credit card number? You're protected from fraud anyway.

I think services like Venmo are the way of the future, but there's something the minimalist in me really likes about the completely analog transfer of paper money. There's an app for everything and they all require mental overhead (the least of which is remembering which silly oft-nonsensical app name translates to the real-world thing you want it to do). I'm not a Luddite, but simplicity to me is not 100 different apps for 100 different everyday tasks they handle.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#33

Post by protomyth » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #24

untog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does require you to walk to the nearest ATM, withdraw the nearest round amount to the amount you need, then somehow try to get change from your friend (or just call it even) then walk around with the remainder. I get what you're saying, but it isn't difficult to see why people find Venom a better option. What is exactly that bad about Venmo having your credit card number? You're protected from fraud anyway.

Write check, friend deposits with mobile check deposit app. Everyone has a bank of some sort, I have yet to meet anyone who is using Venmo.

"Everyone has a bank of some sort"

I think we've had quite a few articles on HN that show that isn't true.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#34

Post by superuser2 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

Venmo is an objectively worse experience to Square Cash in every way. Bank accounts rather than debit cards, difficult Facebook-linked discovery, stupid social networking integration, obtuse UI.

Square Cash is beautiful, elegant, and effortless. I encourage my friends to use it over Venmo whenever I can. Unfortunately, Venmo is wildly more popular among people I know.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#35

Post by superuser2 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #5

josephpmay wrote: post #2

For those who are older, Venmo is used today probably more than cash by college students (for things like paying a friend back, paying membership dues, paying to get into a party, etc.)

I'm weird but I feel like cash is superior for those applications and doesn't require me to hand my credit card number out to yet another company.

It's surprisingly hard to settle a dinner bill between 8 people who only have $20 bills, and no one actually goes inside the bank branch to get other denominations (or buys anything with cash to get change).

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#36

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

HaloZero wrote: post #26

toomuchtodo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write check, friend deposits with mobile check deposit app. Everyone has a bank of some sort, I have yet to meet anyone who is using Venmo.

You then have to write out a check to the right person, the amount, the other person has to sign it and then take two pictures. Venmo just reduces all of that to. Send $10 to X

Perfect example of the HN bubble.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#37

Post by mnewberg » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:40 PM UTC

kloncks wrote: post #11

In summary- it’s so awesome to see how they went from scrappy to a must-have product that does around $700mm in annual transactions. Where is this from? Venmo should be doing much higher than this figure.

My bad... fixed now. That was from a slate article last year. They are doing much more than that on a quarterly basis.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#38

Post by mojowo11 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:41 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #34

Venmo is an objectively worse experience to Square Cash in every way. Bank accounts rather than debit cards, difficult Facebook-linked discovery, stupid social networking integration, obtuse UI. Square Cash is beautiful, elegant, and effortless. I encourage my friends to use it over Venmo whenever I can. Unfortunately, Venmo is wildly more popular among people I know.

Venmo is not "objectively worse in every way."

Example #1A: It's absolutely insane for Square to have an app targeted toward sending money to friends, splitting bills, etc. that doesn't have a built-in calculator. It's inexcusable that if I'm paying two even shares of a $213.42 bill split between seven people, I need to either do some mental math or leave the app to use another calculator.

This is one of the most common actions I take in Venmo. Until they get their act together on that, there's just no way I'm switching. It's a classic example of thinking that simplicity is the same thing as removing features.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#39

Post by wil421 » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:42 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #35

RankingMember wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm weird but I feel like cash is superior for those applications and doesn't require me to hand my credit card number out to yet another company.

It's surprisingly hard to settle a dinner bill between 8 people who only have $20 bills, and no one actually goes inside the bank branch to get other denominations (or buys anything with cash to get change).

Its not very hard to ask for change from a restaurant or get change from a bar later on in the night.

If everyone got $20 from the ATM earlier what's to stop them from using their debt card to pay the bill? I was a server for many years and splitting the bill is standard for most younger people.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#40

Post by scragg » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 6:42 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #34

Venmo is an objectively worse experience to Square Cash in every way. Bank accounts rather than debit cards, difficult Facebook-linked discovery, stupid social networking integration, obtuse UI. Square Cash is beautiful, elegant, and effortless. I encourage my friends to use it over Venmo whenever I can. Unfortunately, Venmo is wildly more popular among people I know.

Square Cash definitely has acute UI. ;)