Paypal acquires Stackmob

They have all the power of a bank, but none of the accountability. They can freeze your assets and if you want to complain dial 1-800-talk2robot, like pissing in the wind.

I'm sure you've all read the horror stories about Paypal. There certainly isn't a shortage of em.

Re: Paypal acquires Stackmob

#5

Post by dangrossman » Tue, Dec 17, 2013, 10:46 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #4

This is bad news - Paypal is an incredibly shady business and I dislike them intensely. They have all the power of a bank, but none of the accountability. They can freeze your assets and if you want to complain dial 1-800-talk2robot, like pissing in the wind. I'm sure you've all read the horror stories about Paypal. There certainly isn't a shortage of em.

Banks can and do freeze merchant accounts for the same reasons and same amount of time as PayPal, and you can complain to the same robotic call tree if you don't like it. PayPal's not unique in that at all, most consumers just have no exposure to this as they never operate a business and have to get a merchant account to accept credit cards.

There does seem to be a shortage of horror stories with PayPal compared to how fiercely they're hated by some like yourself. I read a handful a year at most. For 230 million accounts, that's less complaints than you'd expect as a baseline regardless of the company's service record; every business gets their share. Certainly less than I hear about cable and phone companies, big retail chains, etc.

Re: Paypal acquires Stackmob

#6

Post by yelnatz » Tue, Dec 17, 2013, 10:52 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #3

I never really understood what StockMob does/did? Will the service continue?

"By joining PayPal, the StackMob team will maintain its focus on developers and extending innovative mobile technologies that aim to allow consumers to access the rich capabilities of the PayPal global network... We believe that our work at PayPal will make it easier for developers to create seamless payment solutions that span online, mobile, and in-store experiences."

I think they're done.

They're gonna be joining Paypal to improve what Paypal has.

Re: Paypal acquires Stackmob

#7

Post by byoung2 » Tue, Dec 17, 2013, 11:22 PM UTC

Any guesses what the sticker price was?

Re: Paypal acquires Stackmob

#8

Post by argonaut » Tue, Dec 17, 2013, 11:28 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #3

I never really understood what StockMob does/did? Will the service continue?

They were a competitor to Parse. A backend-as-a-service. Instead of writing your own web api (for, say, a mobile app or a web app), you could just create an API with their service.

Re: Paypal acquires Stackmob

#9

Post by chime » Tue, Dec 17, 2013, 11:59 PM UTC

I was just looking at Stackmob last week as a potential backend for my next project. I had originally planned on using Parse but with their acquisition, I felt uncertain about their future. With Stackmob going the same route, is there any decent backend I could use reliably?

Re: Paypal acquires Stackmob

#10

Post by yuhong » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 12:01 AM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #5

sergiotapia wrote: post #4

This is bad news - Paypal is an incredibly shady business and I dislike them intensely. They have all the power of a bank, but none of the accountability. They can freeze your assets and if you want to complain dial 1-800-talk2robot, like pissing in the wind. I'm sure you've all read the horror stories about Paypal. There certainly isn't a shortage of em.

Banks can and do freeze merchant accounts for the same reasons and same amount of time as PayPal, and you can complain to the same robotic call tree if you don't like it. PayPal's not unique in that at all, most consumers just have no exposure to this as they never operate a business and have to get a merchant account to accept credit cards. There does seem to be a shortage of horror stories with PayPal compared to h…

Just dug this out from Quora: http://www.quora.com/PayPal/Why-does-Paypal-have-so-many-pro...