EBay to Spin Off PayPal • Hacker News Board

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#21

Post by icebraining » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:52 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #10

conchy wrote: post #7

Smart move, eBay divests before bitcoin really starts eating PayPal's lunch

Bitcoin provides zero protection to buyers. It's delusional to think people would want to buy stuff from ebay without the protections from Paypal or their credit card provider. Current consumer protection advice is to walk away from any sale that uses things like Western Union or cash transfer - and this is likely to be extended to include Bitcoin as soon as anyone in the general public hears about Bitcoin.

Still, a simple escrow system on top of Bitcoin could provide the same guarantees while potentially being cheaper. It's not like Bitcoin prevents such systems from being created - on the contrary, it has mechanisms to support them.

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#22

Post by dosh » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:53 PM UTC

Once this goes live, PayPal will sooner or later face stiff competition beyond its current stage under the umbrella of eBay, competing against Chinese players like those of alipay and tenpay which already have users in the hundreds of millions. These players are agressively looking into the markets outside of mainland China.

The landscape won't change in a few years, but in a decade, may look completely different.

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#23

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:59 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #10

conchy wrote: post #7

Smart move, eBay divests before bitcoin really starts eating PayPal's lunch

Bitcoin provides zero protection to buyers. It's delusional to think people would want to buy stuff from ebay without the protections from Paypal or their credit card provider. Current consumer protection advice is to walk away from any sale that uses things like Western Union or cash transfer - and this is likely to be extended to include Bitcoin as soon as anyone in the general public hears about Bitcoin.

[deleted]

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#24

Post by danvoell » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 12:59 PM UTC

dosh wrote: post #22

Once this goes live, PayPal will sooner or later face stiff competition beyond its current stage under the umbrella of eBay, competing against Chinese players like those of alipay and tenpay which already have users in the hundreds of millions. These players are agressively looking into the markets outside of mainland China. The landscape won't change in a few years, but in a decade, may look completely different.

Maybe these competitors would want to invest/partner with paypal and splitting from Ebay opens up that opportunity

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#25

Post by hemancuso » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:07 PM UTC

This articles suggests only 20% of PayPal will be sold, although I doubt that number is anywhere near final. It's just like EMC spinning off VMware. EMC held on to 80% of VMware [and still does?]. It lets them capitalize much more effectively on the faster growing subsidiary. Even today VMware trades at double the PE ratio that EMC does.

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#26

Post by 1337biz » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:09 PM UTC

dosh wrote: post #22

Once this goes live, PayPal will sooner or later face stiff competition beyond its current stage under the umbrella of eBay, competing against Chinese players like those of alipay and tenpay which already have users in the hundreds of millions. These players are agressively looking into the markets outside of mainland China. The landscape won't change in a few years, but in a decade, may look completely different.

These would still have a massive trust issue in most parts of the "Western World". Certainly doable under the umbrella of buying an established western (banking) brand but Asian brands will have a hard time communicating trust, reliability and security.

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#27

Post by psaintla » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:12 PM UTC

danesparza wrote: post #15

I'm amazed that this jackass who ran TWA into the ground still has so much staying power. http://www.businessinsider.com/marc-andreessen-carl-icahn-ki...

As long as you have massive amounts of money you'll always be relevant.

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#28

Post by VLM » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:19 PM UTC

foldor wrote: post #18

michaelt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Paypal just another middleman between the retailer and the banks? I mean, Paypal is all very well for a small site where customers don't trust you with their card details or you're not doing enough volume to get a decent merchant account - but neither of those applies to Amazon. Paypal will want a bigger cut than Amazon's existing credit card processors. So why would Amazon want to use Paypal?

PayPal allows people who don't have a credit card to make purchases online. Many people in European countries don't have a credit card for example. Accepting PayPal is an easy alternative to supporting all of the different payment methods that you might need to meet certain regions expectations.

The existing marketplace solution for that is prepaid credit cards, essentially gift certs that can be redeemed by being run as a credit card. Teens use them to shop online, or at least my kids do.

There is also limited liability with prepaid CCs, no matter what happens you can't be out more than the value of the CC, but you can get into considerable financial trouble with paypal WRT overdrafts and overdraft fees and bounced check fees ... its just not worth it unless you're well disciplined.

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#29

Post by jfoster » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:23 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #21

DanBC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin provides zero protection to buyers. It's delusional to think people would want to buy stuff from ebay without the protections from Paypal or their credit card provider. Current consumer protection advice is to walk away from any sale that uses things like Western Union or cash transfer - and this is likely to be extended to include Bitcoin as soon as anyone in the general public hears about Bitcoin.

Still, a simple escrow system on top of Bitcoin could provide the same guarantees while potentially being cheaper. It's not like Bitcoin prevents such systems from being created - on the contrary, it has mechanisms to support them.

What makes you think it would be much cheaper? I think it might have to be more expensive. The anonymity aspects of bitcoin could result in more fraudsters getting away with fraud.

Re: EBay to Spin Off PayPal

#30

Post by ghshephard » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 1:25 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #12

ghshephard wrote: post #4

The first thing that comes to mind is that the clock has just started ticking for PayPal to become accepted all over the web in places that it may not have been as welcome. For example, I'm sure Amazon will add PayPal within 90 days of Paypal going public (if not sooner).

Isn't Paypal just another middleman between the retailer and the banks? I mean, Paypal is all very well for a small site where customers don't trust you with their card details or you're not doing enough volume to get a decent merchant account - but neither of those applies to Amazon. Paypal will want a bigger cut than Amazon's existing credit card processors. So why would Amazon want to use Paypal?

Anybody who doesn't have a credit card can't buy from Amazon (easily) right now, even if you have a paypal account. Given that EBay and Amazon are direct competitors in the retail space, it made good sense not to share purchasing/sales information with Paypal.

Once Paypal and EBay are separate entities, Amazon now can reasonably enter into a merchant agreement with Paypal.

I don't buy into the Amazon/Paypal being competitors - while in theory this is true, Amazon has far more to gain by accepting paypal customers, than it has to lose by not winning the online payment business.