Meaning FB is getting into payment, or some sort of credit transferring via the Messenger app. I am actually surprised it took this long for FB to revive the doomed FB credit service. I mean, by now FB probably has more info about many people than banks and debt collectors.
It's interesting that according to the FT article mentioned [0] the license is for Europe - and they're talking with UK payments companies. I'm not sure about the rest of Europe, but in the UK I don't imagine a lot of interest - payments are easy by bank transfer. Paying to other European countries isn't great via the banks, I imagine most people use something like Paypal now. But I don't think international payments are likely to be a big part of Facebook realistically.
The license is apparently valid throughout Europe though so maybe other countries have poorer bank transfer systems and this would be better.
> Paying to other European countries isn't great via the banks
How so? With SEPA[1] it's both easy (European wide bank account number) and free (might not be the case if both accounts use different currencies though, but in euros it's free).
That was definitely an oversight on my part, sorry. I'm in the UK and while we have free payments to UK banks we don't to Europe. My bank charges £22 and takes 2-4 days to make a payment in Euros to Europe, from GBP. We do have EBANs though. Paypal was much better but SEPA sounds like a much better approach.
That just makes me wonder more why they went for Europe first, it seems to be impossible to monetise pretty much anything except cross currency.
Maybe I'm being nit-picky, I wish we would stop using "poaching" to refer to the (legal) hiring of a person already employed at another company. Actual poaching is illegal, conversely anti-"poaching" pacts are collusive and illegal.
That's the GGP's point, I think. The word 'poaching' is used because the humans are treated as game, and continuing to use that word continues to bring up that connotation.
Since PayPal and Facebook aren't competitors "poaching" isn't an apt description by that definition either. I think "poaching" is just a more dramatic and linkbaity synonym for "hiring".
I'm not sure if you're saying you're not familiar with the meaning that the word has had since the early 15th century, but http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poaching?s=t. It's application to business employment is obviously much more recent - I can't find a definitive citation, but I'd be surprised if this usage even dated back to the early 20th century.
I find it an inapt analogy to describe a transaction in a competitive job market.
>I wish we would stop using "poaching" to refer to the (legal) hiring of a person already employed at another company
But that's what it means...? Or do you mean like in the literal sense, like is your comment about illegally hunting wild animals? (which nobody would ever confuse for a second.)
If you are talking about the same thing everyone else is (hiring) then what do you mean by "actual poaching is illegal"? I am trying to really give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you know what you're talking about, but I just can't make heads or tails of your comment...
Of course I don't think Facebook shot the guy, and I don't deny that there is a widely accepted meaning that is specific to an employee changing jobs. It's more of a cranky rant that it's a terrible metaphor that I wish would fall out of fashion.
One reason that I think it's so inapt is that the longer-standing definition of poaching refers to an illegal activity. Not only is it illegal, but the illegality is a fundamental part of the meaning of the term. Also it places an odd emphasis on the company that the person is leaving (i.e. this was against their wishes), when they are the third most important entity in this transaction.
I hate the term poached here. It implies that PayPal owns the person, and that Facebook sneakily took their property. Why do we say "Facebook Poached David Marcus" and not "David Marcus chooses to work at Facebook."?
I'm kind of bummed to see him doing good things with a product I consider a core part of the services I use and then leave to join a product I don't much care for.
What's great about Paypal is that it's good for both business and personal. Facebook is horrible for making that separation. I couldn't see myself using Facebook over Paypal. Though most important is the adoption. If it's easy and everyone is using it, then I suppose that could change my mind.
Facebook may be generating significant mobile revenue, but the core Facebook mobile / app strategy is suspect. Poke, Home and Paper have all been flops, and it's hard to imagine Slingshot faring any better.
How long before Facebook will attack paypal on its home turf?
They could do a pretty good job of it too, what with facebook knowing who you are (within reason) and who your friends are they could set this up in such a way that they could side-step the biggest problems with payments through paypal.
The tell-tale will be when facebook registers as a bank somewhere.
Edit: hello downvoter, feel free to disagree a bit more verbosely.
They don't need to even do anything new feature-wise; they need CS that doesn't suck goat cheese through a coffee stirrer.
If I call in with a problem, give me someone that can both answer my questions and put fingers on the keyboard and fix said problem.
Not really that hard. No more indian call centers, no more useless CS, no more hiding need-to-know information behind the all-consuming veil of "fraud protection" (something its competitors don't seem to have that much of an issue with).
That's 90% of your problems fixed right there. The other 10% would be the inconsistent enforcement of rules.
I assumed your parent was talking about customer service from a vendor perspective, which makes more sense. At a certain volume threshold ($5k / mo? $10k? I forget) the customer service experience absolutely improves, but not enough.
Yes paypal 'sucks'. But the problem is not that it sucks. The problem is to do better. And it is quite possible that anybody that has ever tried to do better ended up with something that sucked even more than paypal.
Combating fraud is hard, at scale with half the worlds petty criminals seeing you as the obstacle between them and their victims you're in for a rough ride.
I wouldn't judge them too harshly. (Even if I personally will never use them ever again I do appreciate the kind of issues they have to deal with.)
True, combating fraud is very hard! And PayPal has used a very clever strategy there.
PayPal is changing now, a LOT. After David Marcus and Bill Scott, things are now in motion for the better! I'm sure in an year or two, we'll see PayPal in a much different way than what it is now.
How much new can they really do as a payment processor?
I'm sure there's some little things they could dabble in but realistically the only things people want from Paypal are less fees, less account closures/theft from account holders, faster transfers and overall better customer support.
Paypal doesn't need to innovate, they need to fix the obvious issues that relegate their service to a "barely workable until the instant someone better comes along" paradigm.
How much new can they do as Paypal? The company has a horrific public image (due to the reasons I listed) and has arguably been getting outmaneuvered innovation-wise in the payment processing business for many years now. The company is a giant just waiting to be toppeled.
Disclaimer: I may very well look back in 10 years and feel like a fool for the above opinion, but my current experiences have me pretty self-assured.
This is a problem with most large companies. Once you reach a certain size, you encounter problems with scaling. Paypal is such a big company the only way they and other companies like them innovate is by acquiring other companies and teams because it's cheaper and easier.
The amount of friction within a company like Paypal I would imagine is quite high. Not even those at the top of companies like these can change things at the flick of a switch. Things move very slowly in large companies, this is why smaller startups are able to come along and shake things up so easily before being acquired. It is how it is.
Original Poster from the linked thread, Same thing, different day. Most talented people I know have left or "left" (including myself to found my own company), there is a lot of internal Game of thrones. Some of us saw this coming (based on publicly disclosed stock unloading by David)
Now that DM is gone, I am very bearish on PayPal. Good news is he can now openly mentor and advice entrepreneurs in the space.
Shower thoughts: Maybe I should write a full blog post with all the spicy stuff! (with GOT memes)
One can only speculate. I would refer you to his statement, seems like he is more interested in "getting shit done" than getting drained by bureaucracy.
As for Bill Scott, its a 2 edged sword. I think he runs a good ship, and great guy if you are part of his team or enjoy his patronage or benefit his goals/vision. Him and his team understand technology, appreciate doing what they do. They are one of the forward looking tech teams at PP. But, it comes with usual red herrings though.
One can only speculate. I would refer you to his statement, seems like he is more interested in "getting shit done" than getting drained by bureaucracy.
I know, but why couldn't he fix it? That is the real question.
Like cancer, mediocrity, incompetence, and resistance to ideas (new products etc) was endemic at PayPal when I was there. The easiest way to become irrelevant was to challenge their confirmation bias. In other words, you try to fix it it blows over on you, Similar to the the third rail in politics.
the smartest move will be to move out, create a different world, and show them how its done. (Refer: Exit, voice, & Loyalty by Albert O. Hirschman). Hence I believe going to a better shore is in line with this spirit of california. Hope that helps.
PayPal and eBay are hugely vulnerable. They've underinvested in infrastructure, their technology is old, and they've become slow and bureaucratic. Worst of all, their ideas are stale and the user experience is dreadful.
PayPal's fat margins aren't justified by the service they provide, only by the lack of alternatives. But new alternatives are launching much faster than eBay can respond.
Square has become a well-run, genuine alternative. BitPay / Coinbase are still very small, but the cryptocurrency wildcard at least shines a light on what money transfer should cost.
Amazon is quietly expanding their payments footprint. The famous Bezos quote seems appropriate here: "Your margins are my opportunity."
Apple exposing their Touch ID API will level the playing field, exposing PayPal to more competition and margin pressure. Look out if Apple starts using their billion-credit-card database to get into payments themselves.
If Facebook/Whatsapp can payment-enable messaging and do it at a lower cost, PayPal's raison d'etre starts looking pretty questionable.
And now eBay leaking personally-identifiable information on 150 million customers isn't helping maintain trust or brand image. The breach couldn't have happened at a worse time.
We could be looking at the Blockbusterization of eBay and PayPal. The stock price is starting to reflect this reality, so look for more key people to leave in coming months.
Because they are failing to understand the importance of having smart people on board. I did an internship over there few months back. People are generally not motivated. They have below par hiring practices, especially in engineering.
So why are there no alternatives to Paypal. It's been fifteen years. Cost you are talking about is in built in money transfer business. Fraud prevention alone will kill most of the start-ups.
Square, Stripe and maybe even Coinbase to an extent. You could even throw in Amazon payments and Google wallet as well. They are in a tough spot, and their brand is always taking damage from how they run things.
I think they will die from not one big dog taking over, but a bunch of smaller companies each taking bites out of their market share.
I am awaiting the announcement of SquareCash or CryptoStripe - where you have a walled currency garden where those participating in the Square or Stripe ecosystem can start generating CompanyCredits with which to spend within the ecosystem.
How would the valuation to user actually function?
Would one allot some % of their transactions to Square (above both fee and margins) into the pool. Then they earn various mechanisms to increase their pool share (including buy some/debting some from square) and then be able to use all of it as in-system credit? Where goods and services were exempt from taxation due to there being no "actual US currency transacted"?
It would be very interesting to see if such a system results in the truth that labor-resource is the true vector of tax - not money. Unless that is already established and I am just ignorant....
I agree with most of this post, except square and paypal play in pretty separate parts of the payments ecosystem. Square isn't at all competitive with PayPal's core business atm.
|If Facebook/Whatsapp can payment-enable messaging and do it at a lower cost, PayPal's raison d'etre starts looking pretty questionable.
PayPal's raison d'etre is not in Peer to Peer money exchange. Its more on strong merchant integrations, partnerships, and relationships. In fact PayPal draws a small loss on p2p products. If you want to compete with PayPal its through strong merchant integrations which many startups have not succeeded in doing. When braintree made inroads into a segment of b2b products, PayPal acquired Braintree.
P2P is more or less a adoption hack/growth hack for a payments company. Merchant integrations and risk models are where its at.
Genuine question: The article goes on and on about how making the apps paid in developing countries would make more sense than using ads, etc, etc.. Ok, I see the point. But is it really that different from the developed countries? How much do they get per user in advertisement? How much would it cost me if I wanted to opt out of advertisement? I don't know if people in general prefer ads, but if I had to pay, say $5 a year for a an ad-free whatsapp, I'd gladly pay. Is it ridiculously low compare to what they make with ads?
This sounds like a demotion. I personally thought he had a misconduct trying to pump Bitcoin while at the same time fessing up that he owns bitcoins - especially when many perceive Bitcoin as a PayPal competitor.
I mean, if FB was serious about chat, wasn't there an exec at a chat-focused company that would have been a better fit?
Also, why would the President of PayPal leave (his Top-dog position) to take on a head of a mere department at another company? Also seems odd...
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