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

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

#361

Post by sethrin »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #334
sethrin wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. This reminds me of an ex-roommate. So I worked at a factory and he was a notary or some such function connected with real estate, working from home. One day I was running late for work, which was maybe fifteen minutes away by bicycle, and asked if he didn't mind giving me a lift. About halfway there he mentioned casually, "Oh, just so you know, I'll be billing you at my normal rate ($60/hr) for this ride." Than…

That's a weird comment on his part, but I think there is often a large mismatch between the cost that a carless person assigns to "bumming a ride" and the cost that the car owner assigns to that. If you are not a car owner, you may not realize how much of a pain in the ass it is to stop whatever you are doing and play taxi.

He believed that money was God's way of showing favor, and somehow that worked out to, "Anything I do to get money is okay." He ended up appropriating most of my possessions. This was of course the first and last time I asked for a lift from that guy, so if you like you can consider him to have appropriately valued his time and effort. However, not mentioning that until we were in the car and driving was frankly extortionate. As I recall, he did back down on the charge rather than pull over, but it provided an extremely sharp life lesson.

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

#362

Post by DrJid »

cyphar wrote: post #301
jamescostian wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 19 and most people I know use Venmo. I'm curious - around what age are your friends? My parents don't know what Venmo is, and I don't think many of their friends (most in the age range of 40-60) do either.

I'm 20 and I've never heard of Venmo outside of HN. To be fair, I am also in Australia, so it's more likely that it just hasn't caught on. The major bank here (CommBank) has made paying other people frictionless (you can send money to a phone number, via NFC, cardless cash, or just by regular transfer) so it's likely that Venmo wouldn't have much of a market here.

Yeah, Venmo is US only at the moment

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

#363

Post by greenshackle2 »

mjw1007 wrote: post #53
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.

Not necessarily. My policy (with close friends) is that if I invite someone, I'll pick the place and pay. They can pick the place and the tab next time.

I don't want to have to worry about my friend's finances when inviting them out (I want to grab sushi with Irene, but can she can afford it?).

They can pick a cheaper place or invite me over for a home-cooked meal if they can't afford to invite me out to a nice restaurant.

I work in tech while most of my close friends are still students, the point is to be able to do nice (more expensive) things with them, which we could never do if we always split the bill.

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

#364

Post by greenshackle2 »

cheapsteak wrote: post #42
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…

We seem to not live in the same Toronto Plenty of places will give you a hard time if you try to split a bill. Kinton ramen refuses to split for parties larger than 4 (and is completely inflexible on this)

My experience in Canada is that many Asian restaurants don't split, but everyone else does.

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

#365

Post by grue2 »

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #82

Sorry but this is nonsense. The fact that there is no more rounding is a better default that we no longer must put any thought into. It's more convenient. I fail to see how it harms the relationship in a way that's "petty". This also completely leaves out the inconvenience of planning a large gathering for friends and fronting all the money yourself. Yes, it may feel "petty" to be reminded to pay your share, but imag…

This article is borderline "Millennial bait," but: Suppose I invite you over to my apartment to hang out. I offer you a beer. You accept, so I tally "1 beer" on a little notepad.

You have some potato chips. ("13 chips" goes on your tally.) You use the toilet twice, flushing both times. ("7 gallons of water" goes on your tally.) You're a bit hot, so I turn up the air conditioning. (I need to break out the calculator, but "+$0.63 for AC" also goes on your tally.) You tell me about a sad movie you watched recently. (This reminds me of a family problem I am having, which is mentally taxing. Since I'll likely need an anxiety pill, I add a fraction of the prescription cost to your tally.) You suggest a walk in the park; we go out. Walking makes me thirsty, so I buy a bottle of water. (But since walking was your idea, I add "1 bottle of water" to your tally.)

Do any of the above come across as petty - or absurd - to you? If so, then that will give you some idea of how someone might feel that splitting social meal expenses down to the penny - and with a written record, to boot - feels transactional. The point is everyone has a threshold where this kind of Venmo'ing behavior goes from innocently equitable to distrustfully penny-pinching.

Venmo'ing someone can be the equivalent of saying, "I don't trust that our relationship will proceed in terms that will average out in such a way that is fair to me." Insisting on Venmo'ing is a lot like insisting that your significant other tell you their email password. If you have to insist this in all cases, maybe rethink your relationship?

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

#366

Post by poslathian »

bsder wrote: post #298
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…

What I worry about is that Venmo is an expression of "everybody is too poor to actually cover each other", and that's a damn shame if true. The way we, now aged, uncool, unhip folks used to deal with this was that we would cover people like you discreetly. One of the better off folks (read: professional receiving a paycheck rather than starving grad student) would take charge of the "pot", would figure out what was l…

I think this really speaks to the issue - by making things quick, easy, and fair-with-documentation, we lose out on the opportunity to practice a bunch of hard-to-relearn (and imo valuable) social skills and machinery that comes with interpersonal debts. see Graeber - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years

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

#367

Post by poslathian »

treehau5 wrote: post #102
dsjoerg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't had many friendships with diverse income levels.

This problem is even worse when it's not even necessarily income levels that is the problem, but just different values around money & spending. If you have the same income level, but find it outrageous to spend x on y, you just get viewed as a "cheap ass" It's not my fault I don't want to pay 13 dollars+tip for a cocktail when I can make 20 of them at home for the same price.

Most of that drink's $13 is paying for the venue in which you consumed it. Frankly, I also dont really get why it's so much more fun to drink with friends in expensive and crowded spaces than our own spaces, but I appreciate that's a minority view.

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

#368

Post by lawnchair_larry »

sethrin wrote: post #361
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a weird comment on his part, but I think there is often a large mismatch between the cost that a carless person assigns to "bumming a ride" and the cost that the car owner assigns to that. If you are not a car owner, you may not realize how much of a pain in the ass it is to stop whatever you are doing and play taxi.

He believed that money was God's way of showing favor, and somehow that worked out to, "Anything I do to get money is okay." He ended up appropriating most of my possessions. This was of course the first and last time I asked for a lift from that guy, so if you like you can consider him to have appropriately valued his time and effort. However, not mentioning that until we were in the car and driving was frankly exto…

Yeah, the two choices are either provide a free ride or don't provide one at all. Billing people for rides is bizarre behavior.

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

#369

Post by kevstev »

shinymark wrote: post #255
abritinthebay wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: how old are you? I’m 37 and probably wouldn’t know anyone using it in my normal social circle except I happen to know a bunch of ~24 yr olds (some younger) via a younger colleague. Of those you are younger guess how many use Venmo? Every. Single. One. Not every day, or all the time, but regularly: especially with friends & at weekends. It’s spread so we’ll split lunches at work occasionally with it.…

I'm a 35 year founder of a small company in San Francisco. I had never heard of Venmo until recently. The dividing line among my team is around 30 years old. Below 30 -> use Venmo all the time. Above 30 -> never heard of it.

This divide isn't really an age thing IMHO, its an attitude about money (related to age) thing. In my early-mid 20s most of my friends were just starting out and counting every dollar. Taking the hit for an entire round of drinks or the pizza delivery was painful enough that you asked for everyone to chip in or at the very least had a careful mental accounting of whose turn it was to buy next (and if they somehow weaseled out if it, that was a strain on the friendship- and I am sure most have cut some moochers out of their life).

This may vary by your group and where they at in life, but by my late 20s, those things mattered a lot less. If I buy someone a beer, I just hope they will get me back at some point and if not, then I bought them a beer- no big deal-enjoy! (well enjoy, unless this is the fifth time in a row I have done this and you haven't gotten me back).

I am in my mid-late 30s, and I have Venmo. I just tend to not use it very often, only for fairly big ticket items- concert/event tickets, someone buys a gift for someone else that we all chip in on, a restaurant gives a hard time about taking multiple credit cards, etc.

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

#370

Post by cardiffspaceman »

rhapsodic wrote: post #278
pacaro wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not putting it in neutral when stopped can contribute to failing your driving test in the U.K.

Aside from reducing wear on the throwout bearing, what is the purpose?

Safety. If clutch could fail mechanically while your foot was on it and the consequence of the failure would be the same as your foot slipping off, then it is safer to shift to neutral. I was taught this when I owned a 1980 VW Scirocco and my informant owned a 1980 Rabbit (Golf).
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