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Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

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Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#301

Post by omniscient_oce »

Khaine wrote: post #132

In Australia millennials, are allergic to credit cards. Credit card usage in that demographic is really low. Instead they prefer BNPL services as a credit mechanism. Banks have also responded and offer credit cards that don’t act like normal credit cards[1] [1] https://www.commbank.com.au/credit-cards/commbank-neo.html

Myself and most people I know (early twenties) use what the banks give by default which is a "Debit Mastercard/Visa" which lets you shop online like a credit card, perform chargebacks, or pay in-store, but the money just comes out of your savings account like a debit card - not on credit (they get declined if your account is empty too AFAIK but haven't tested it ;P). Are these common overseas? I rarely see reference to it on here or Reddit which is presumably predominantly people from the US or Europe.

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#302

Post by rossmohax »

vmception wrote: post #61
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #47

Every time I see one of these announcements, the valuations go up and up and up and up. I remember not long ago being wowed by a 1B acquisition. That was called a unicorn because of how incredible it was. And now we're at 29B. Is this just because money is all a joke?

Kind of? If you follow monetary policy circles, you would know that we are only close to the predicted level of fantastic market distortions that should be expected. It is fantastic to see it play out, such as valuations much larger than before, as well as the unexpected areas of speculation and shifts in market tolerances for worse deals. But we aren't even done yet! And this comes with a pretty clear agreement on t…

What would you recommend to read/watch to understand better this kind of things?

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#303

Post by Leherenn »

bserge wrote: post #287
Sander_Marechal wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Insurance, points, cashback, chargebacks Dutch here. We don't have points or cashback. Purchases are insured with standard bank debit payments as well, as are chargebacks. I do own a credit card but that is purely for the occasional (usually US) webshop that doesn't accept European debit cards, or as a backup payment method on vacation (my debit card once broke on vacation and my family had to send me money through…

What kind of store doesn't accept "European" debit cards, but accepts credit cards? Visa and MasterCard debit should work anywhere online regardless of origin.

Not sure about online stores, but renting a car in the US with a debit card is a pain from experience.

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#304

Post by fauigerzigerk »

annamargot wrote: post #281
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but this 32% increase was not initially new money in anyone's pocket. The Fed simply replaced some treasuries and other debt on banks' balance sheets with reserves, which don't have to be backed by equity. This gave banks more wiggle room to sit out the pandemic without reducing lending at the exact wrong time. So the Fed has done its job on the way down. Now they just have to do their job on the way up as well,…

Potentially? Seems to me that potential is already being realized.

I don't know how we can possibly know that. There are just too many confounding factors right now.

We had this unprecedented crash that clogged up global supply chains and caused a huge shift in what people are buying. We have massive government spending increases. I don't think it's possible to work out what impact QE is having on inflation right now or whether it will indeed be transitory as the Fed believes.

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#305

Post by sprkwd »

omniscient_oce wrote: post #301
Khaine wrote: post #132

In Australia millennials, are allergic to credit cards. Credit card usage in that demographic is really low. Instead they prefer BNPL services as a credit mechanism. Banks have also responded and offer credit cards that don’t act like normal credit cards[1] [1] https://www.commbank.com.au/credit-cards/commbank-neo.html

Myself and most people I know (early twenties) use what the banks give by default which is a "Debit Mastercard/Visa" which lets you shop online like a credit card, perform chargebacks, or pay in-store, but the money just comes out of your savings account like a debit card - not on credit (they get declined if your account is empty too AFAIK but haven't tested it ;P). Are these common overseas? I rarely see reference…

This is very common in the UK.

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#306

Post by tigerBL00D »

papito wrote: post #280
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #47

Every time I see one of these announcements, the valuations go up and up and up and up. I remember not long ago being wowed by a 1B acquisition. That was called a unicorn because of how incredible it was. And now we're at 29B. Is this just because money is all a joke?

Dogecoin is literally a joke, and is promoted by some billionaires, who are allegedly smart.

Lack of regulation means that there is no penalty for trading on non-public (insider) information or for stock manipulation. Lack of regulation is what everyone wants, right? Except regulation is there to prevent all sorts of fraud that ultimately leaves someone's granny holding the bag. The said billionaires are not so dumb. They know what they can get away with and their close friends may know what they're going to tweet before they do it.

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#307

Post by blairbeckwith »

smichel17 wrote: post #295
cheschire wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s so painless on the Apple Card. Automatic x% back into an Apple Cash account depending on the specifics of the purchase (phone vs card, Apple store vs other store). When you pay off the card, it can automatically debit the Apple Cash account first. Basically all my purchases are 1% cheaper on that card than my other ones. Sure, spending $9,900 instead of $10,000 doesn’t sound like much, but it’s painless free mon…

That "free" money comes from fees paid by the seller to the credit card company, and is passed along to you in the form of higher prices. Unfortunately, paying cash seldom lets you opt out of these credit card driven price increases.

That last part is what makes "free" vs. "well not actually free" functionally identical.

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#308

Post by danwills »

shoto_io wrote: post #278
danwills wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to share my recent fractal renderings, that I think are valuable, here's a fun example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AT9bcRZygdcCiMs5TvRXK50iik5... Despite it being where-everyone presumably-is I do not want to use Instagram, so I am not sure what's best to do.. is there a good-enough 'open'/decentralised alternative now? Maybe a simple rss feed would do it?

What's the reason you don't want to use Instagram?

It's not part of the public internet, that's probably the main problem, but I also have quite a strong aversion to things run by large corporations. At the moment I let google in, but that's it. (and they completely ruined my previous picasa-album sharing of my galleries of fractals, so I'm not hugely happy here either!)

I am more interested to find a passionate niche of ppl that really love the journey than getting general exposure, I guess that's another side of things: 2d fractals don't really have much mass-market appeal, but if you know what's going on there, it's a lot more interesting to follow!

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#309

Post by JelteF »

bserge wrote: post #287
Sander_Marechal wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Insurance, points, cashback, chargebacks Dutch here. We don't have points or cashback. Purchases are insured with standard bank debit payments as well, as are chargebacks. I do own a credit card but that is purely for the occasional (usually US) webshop that doesn't accept European debit cards, or as a backup payment method on vacation (my debit card once broke on vacation and my family had to send me money through…

What kind of store doesn't accept "European" debit cards, but accepts credit cards? Visa and MasterCard debit should work anywhere online regardless of origin.

European (or at least Dutch) debit cards are not Visa or Mastercard. They are either Maestro or V Pay.

These cards don't have a 16 digit card number and CVV that you can in online shops and pay with those. This has the advantage that these numbers also cannot be "stolen" and then used by criminals to buy things.

Debit cards are really just for physical payment, where you either use contactless payment or by using a PIN. For online shopping, the shops talk to the banks by using an OAuth-like API that can be used to either pay once or set up a monthly payment. There's a few different of these APIs throughout Europe, in each country usually only 1 or 2 are used. Some examples of these APIs are: Bancontact, iDeal, Giropay and Sofort

European webshops usually only support the ones in the country that they are located in, and for all others they either support credit card or bank transfers (which are free and standardized within Europe). American webshops usually only support credit cards, so that's the most common reason for people to have one.

Re: Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B

#310

Post by bserge »

JelteF wrote: post #309
bserge wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of store doesn't accept "European" debit cards, but accepts credit cards? Visa and MasterCard debit should work anywhere online regardless of origin.

European (or at least Dutch) debit cards are not Visa or Mastercard. They are either Maestro or V Pay. These cards don't have a 16 digit card number and CVV that you can in online shops and pay with those. This has the advantage that these numbers also cannot be "stolen" and then used by criminals to buy things. Debit cards are really just for physical payment, where you either use contactless payment or by using a P…

Ah, I see. Well, just get Visa or MasterCard, even in Germany it's very easy these days.
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