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Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

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Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#41
post #26
post #25

> The goal is to make it much easier to pay for in-app purchases. It is well known that the more steps users have to go through to verify payment information on a mobile device, the more likely they are to abandon that purchase halfway through the process. I wonder how Apple will react to that. They're pretty keen on banning apps that don't give them 30% of in app purchases. If Apple doesn't reject this they will hav…

Policies like that dissolve on this scale. It's not like some random auditor in a cubicle in the app store division pulls up the next app to review in their queue (hm... next is "Facebook"...) and rejects it because it has a payment option that doesn't go through Apple's process. What happens is that Mark calls Tim, their people meet, and a bunch of lawyers write up a contract that the rest of us will never see.

Apple got Amazon, Netflix, NY Times and a whole bunch of other big names to givein to their in app rules. The DOJ will have a field day if they special case Facebook.

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#42
post #13

My biggest barrier to ever using something like this is trust. Facebook has screwed with privacy policies, and over-complicated application data-sharing settings so many times that I can't imagine funneling money through their platform. While I trust them with some of my personal information which has value, there's just no trust there for me when it comes to actual money. Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in m…

What do you think they are going to do with your money exactly ?

I dunno. Sharks. Laser beams. The works. At least it finally might bring mobile electronic payment systems in the US up to the same standard as in Africa. Will take the US a while to catch up though.

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#43
post #41
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Policies like that dissolve on this scale. It's not like some random auditor in a cubicle in the app store division pulls up the next app to review in their queue (hm... next is "Facebook"...) and rejects it because it has a payment option that doesn't go through Apple's process. What happens is that Mark calls Tim, their people meet, and a bunch of lawyers write up a contract that the rest of us will never see.

Apple got Amazon, Netflix, NY Times and a whole bunch of other big names to givein to their in app rules. The DOJ will have a field day if they special case Facebook.

Do we actually know if any of those sites pay the full retail-rate of 30%?

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#44
post #13

My biggest barrier to ever using something like this is trust. Facebook has screwed with privacy policies, and over-complicated application data-sharing settings so many times that I can't imagine funneling money through their platform. While I trust them with some of my personal information which has value, there's just no trust there for me when it comes to actual money. Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in m…

Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in my mind ... and that's pretty low.

You're certainly far, far from the norm because PayPal has tens of millions of active accounts and even people who hate it use it.

So, the biggest barrier for fb for me has nothing to do with trust and more to do with acceptance by merchants.

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#46
post #13

My biggest barrier to ever using something like this is trust. Facebook has screwed with privacy policies, and over-complicated application data-sharing settings so many times that I can't imagine funneling money through their platform. While I trust them with some of my personal information which has value, there's just no trust there for me when it comes to actual money. Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in m…

What do you think they are going to do with your money exactly ?

Don't imply it's a silly suggestion! They can freeze your money, block a transaction, etc. etc.

Whatever PayPal does, Facebook can do too.

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#47
post #13

My biggest barrier to ever using something like this is trust. Facebook has screwed with privacy policies, and over-complicated application data-sharing settings so many times that I can't imagine funneling money through their platform. While I trust them with some of my personal information which has value, there's just no trust there for me when it comes to actual money. Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in m…

I actually don't worry that they'd screw with the money at all. They are professional & big (think: Won't go away, can pay from their pocket if they screw up) enough in my book to trust them with transactions.

Unless you consider that you're now not only giving them data about your private life, friends and preferences, you add the 'successful conversion, bought X' data point to a data set that is already too big by my standards. It's like combining my address book, private pictures, credit card bills and entering that data into a huge corporate database so that I can chat and plough a virtual field.

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#48

This guy totally called it: http://blog.dinkevich.com/seriously-ads

Right. As if it wasn't obvious from day one of Facebook credits that they will try something like this in the future. I'm surprised it took them this long. Not that I plan on using it or anything - I've almost completely gave up using my FB account.

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#49
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, most credit card fees are percentages, so the number of transactions wouldn't matter. I've never dealt directly with it, so I'm not 100% certain though.

Credit card fees are a base amount (which varies based in the auth method) plus a percentage of the sale. So for smaller transactions, the effective percentage is higher. Have you ever been to a store with a minimum purchase amount for credit cards? This is why.

Card fees depend on how big you are though. Large UK supermarkets have no minimum purchase amount for credit cards, because they have the clout to negotiate a better deal. Facebook is probably big enough to do the same.

Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments

#50
post #13

My biggest barrier to ever using something like this is trust. Facebook has screwed with privacy policies, and over-complicated application data-sharing settings so many times that I can't imagine funneling money through their platform. While I trust them with some of my personal information which has value, there's just no trust there for me when it comes to actual money. Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in m…

Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in my mind ... and that's pretty low. You're certainly far, far from the norm because PayPal has tens of millions of active accounts and even people who hate it use it. So, the biggest barrier for fb for me has nothing to do with trust and more to do with acceptance by merchants.

> PayPal ... and even people who hate it use it

[imo] should read

and even people who hate it _have to_ use it

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