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Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

nytimes.com

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Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#51

Post by bit48 »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #45

>“It’s making people less generous and chivalrous,” Ms. Pennoyer said. “It used to be you’d go to a restaurant, and you’d put down your credit cards and split it 50-50, even if one person had steak and one had chicken. But now people pay exactly to the cent.” How is this portrayed as a bad thing in the article? This solution to this problem is the ONLY reason I use Venmo. Perhaps the author was always the one orderin…

> How is this portrayed as a bad thing in the article?

It takes some of the humanity out of the time spent together. Being generous with each other is part of how friendships and other relations are formed.

Among friends, boiling it down to a precise transaction is petty. If a friend is abusing this approach, that says something about both him and your friendship.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#52

Post by KekDemaga »

guiomie wrote: post #40
mabbo wrote: post #17

I think the problem here is expectations. If you went to dinner with a friend, and thought everything was covered but then later received a bill in the mail there's an aspect of unexpected demands in it. If your friend said ahead of time "hey I've got this app that will let us split the bill easily, that okay?" then you'd be expecting it and there's no social transgression. Social norms and expectations are the ficti…

I was shocked by the inability of restaurants (literally their policy) in California to do individual bills. I still can't understand why it's this way... The only reason I used Venmo was for that.

Some credit card services charge a per transaction fee as well as a percentage so spiting the check can begin to eat into his margins.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#53

Post by mjw1007 »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #32

I don't use this app and this article kind of explains why. If I go to dinner with friends, or anything, I'd rather pick up the check than worry about splitting it. The next time, they'll pickup the tab, and so forth. That's what friends do. I don't know if I'd want to go out with someone who is going to bill me for it later, or wants to use an app to split things up. For me it just makes things superficial, awkward,…

That's a good way to make sure that people with significantly different amounts of money don't socialise together.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#54

Post by prodtorok »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #32

I don't use this app and this article kind of explains why. If I go to dinner with friends, or anything, I'd rather pick up the check than worry about splitting it. The next time, they'll pickup the tab, and so forth. That's what friends do. I don't know if I'd want to go out with someone who is going to bill me for it later, or wants to use an app to split things up. For me it just makes things superficial, awkward,…

Ever been a college student?

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#55

Post by seanp2k2 »

deorcness wrote: post #47
R_haterade wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I think it's simple common courtesy that the person extending the invite picks up the check.

In my experience, that's culturally exclusive to the upper-middle and upper echelons of society. In working class groups, no single person is expected to pay for everything; it's split relatively evenly.

It's absolutely cultural. Within Hong Kong culture (a close friend is Cantonese), there's this funny thing where people fight to pay the bill. You typically get points for doing it before anyone else even has the chance. Sometimes a person will get up to "use the restroom" then go pay the bill away from everyone else. It's seen as a privilege and an honor to be able to pay for everyone. Considering that in the family, we sometimes go out to seafood places with a dozen or more people (all family), it can get expensive. It's a bit of a show-off thing IMO, but the family is not obnoxious about it (no one actually tries the bathroom thing with us; they just joke about it...but we also never ever split the bill or even show it around or let anyone else see it).

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#56

Post by eachro »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #44
harryh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venmo significantly predates Square Cash, and once you get used to using a particular app for a task switching is a burden, especially for something like this with a powerful network effect.

As far as I remember, Paypal significantly predates Venmo. What happened there?

Venmo got its initial traction through college students. I doubt most college students had a paypal account to begin with.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#57

Post by niketdesai »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #44
harryh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venmo significantly predates Square Cash, and once you get used to using a particular app for a task switching is a burden, especially for something like this with a powerful network effect.

As far as I remember, Paypal significantly predates Venmo. What happened there?

The Paypal app was late, and didn't really support the seamless Venmo experience, because initially Venmo allowed you to sign up with a CC and ate the fees. Later, with enough momentum and usage, they moved people to direct deposit by adding the CC fee and giving some other incentives.

The company was acquired, along with BrainTree, by Paypal to bolster their mobile and API-driven payments in the present age.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#58

Post by mjevans »

tedivm wrote: post #22

I have never disagreed with something so much. While I'm financially not doing so bad, I grew up poor. When I was college age going out with friends was complicated- if we all handled our own bills it was one thing, but when I'm not drinking and only eating cheap food to save money splitting the check would literally mean I'm subsidizing other people friends and could be the difference between being able to afford to…

You were either too proud to tell your friends the truth or had bad friends.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#59

Post by inezk »

This is one of the worst article I read in a long time - also I couldn't disagree with it more. I like eating salads and my friends like eating stakes - Venmo and Square Cash makes it so easy for us to spend time together and split money in a sensible way (how splitting it in a half would be sensible in this case?). Saying that this make friendship transactional is just bullshit - it makes them honest. And people thinking they they are charged for friendship because they have to pay for their own meal need to rethink it.

Re: Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are

#60

Post by eropple »

prodtorok wrote: post #36
metaprogrammed wrote: post #28

Another 'how [tech company/product] is ruining [social norm]' thought piece.

Right, and this is more of an evolution of generation. This is a social norm amongst millennials.

Not in my neck of the woods. If you sent a Venmo request amongst us you would be invariably called an asshole (and it wouldn't be a kind way of saying it, that sort of thing is real shitty). We use Venmo to push money around (Square Cash is nicer, but that ship has sailed), but it's more like "ehh, $25 is about right and I'll get it next time so the rounding will work in my favor".

We are not doing down-to-the-penny nonsense because that would be silly and we are not dunning our friends because that would be awful.

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