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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 had never heard of it until I saw that post
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venmo is used more than cash by my late 20 and early 30 friends as well.
What are the 30's people using it for?
I think the reason why I never heard of it is cause of the way my friends and I handle money. One person will grab drinks one day and the next time the next person picks up lunch. If someone buys a pizza everyone just gives them whatever bill from their pocket. None of us really "keep track" in specific dollar figures. Nobody says "this is only $5, you owe me $6."
Of course this kind of thing doesn't work out for every group.
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.
On the other hand, my intern at work keeps getting Venmo spam. "So and so asked for $1: Hey, don't pay me $1. Instead of to 'http://foo.bar' and sign up for a job where you'll make $2000 per month from home!" and the like. That sort of stuff is a full stop turn off for me.
My guess is for people who don't bank traditionally, these services make sense even though they come with some weird (to me) tradeoffs. Apparently the spam, reliance on yet another third party, broadcasting of what they're doing with their money, etc is ok for their user base. We're just not their target customer.
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Unfortunately, America hasn't reached the same level of financial sophistication as the UK regarding money transfers. It will eventually, obsoleting hacks like Venmo.
What is the sophisticated UK alternative to Venmo?
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.
In the UK, pretty much anyone with a bank account can go to their bank's website and transfer money to any other bank account in the UK instantly, and for free.
Every bank has their own interface, some better than others, but it works well enough that I don't think Venmo could ever take off here.
I've yet to see a payment app reach any major usage in my social network, which is extremely fragmented among Google Wallet, Snapcash, PayPal, Square Cash, Popmoney, Simple, bank-specific apps i.e. Chase Mobile... (Weirdly enough I don't know anyone using Venmo, though I'm familiar with it from HN and the like.) It seems like everyone wants a simple payment app, but there's a huge 'sign-up fatigue' from the fragmenta…
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I'd have to argue with "objectively" - many of your gripes are subjective. The bank account vs. debit card is one time on setup - and has little to do with day to day interaction. Not do I see how the UI is obtuse - it takes 3 clicks to pay someone. The one legitimate gripe you have (the facebook/social network), is a plus in my opinion - in the sense I can pay anyone by just knowing their name. Friend of so-and-so i…
"The bank account vs. debit card is one time on setup - and has little to do with day to day interaction. Not do I see how the UI is obtuse - it takes 3 clicks to pay someone." I like Venmo, but I vehemently disagree here. Every time I recommend Venmo to someone who hasn't heard of it, I have to explain why they should give their banking information to a company they've never heard of. It's an onboarding disaster. I…
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/safety_net/2015/02/...
I've yet to see a payment app reach any major usage in my social network, which is extremely fragmented among Google Wallet, Snapcash, PayPal, Square Cash, Popmoney, Simple, bank-specific apps i.e. Chase Mobile... (Weirdly enough I don't know anyone using Venmo, though I'm familiar with it from HN and the like.) It seems like everyone wants a simple payment app, but there's a huge 'sign-up fatigue' from the fragmenta…
I think if you have roommates you're much more likely to have heard of it. I personally would only need it for dinners/drinks/rides and when I go out socially I tend to fall back on the old approaches to keeping things square among the people in my circle.