6 ms·

Venmo, owned by paypal, is very popular in the US. People use to split expenses among friends.

kevindong 7y ago
Importantly however, Venmo doesn't make money on peer to peer transactions that use bank accounts, which I'd imagine is what most people do as that's free. Consequently, Venmo is not profitable. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/venmo-has-40-million-users-paypal-reveals-for-first-time.html#:~:targetText=Venmo%20is%20on%20pace%20to,Cash%20App%20as%20of%20December https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/venmo-has-40-million-users-p....
- lccarrasco 7y ago
  Venmo transactions' data and the social network inferences you can make from them are probably pretty valuable on their own.
  - kevindong 7y ago
    But Venmo/PayPal don't have any ads? Furthermore, just because you can link people together, it doesn't mean that knowledge is actually valuable. The only social network you can link to Venmo currently is Facebook. The only other way to "discover" contacts/friends is by uploading your contact book to Venmo's servers.
  - idunno246 7y ago
    I don’t see how that data is all that valuable. There’s the inherent network effect of needing to install it to send/receive money from a friend who did. But a surprising number of people will pay for instant transfer(almost all of that 300m probably comes from this), and the debit cards they get to take in a portion of the merchant transaction fees. They’ll probably be profitable off that, with p2p as a loss leader to drive installs
rconti 7y ago
It's so odd, because Venmo is both newer than PayPal, yet limited in the same stupid ways PayPal is (multi-stage xfers), which Square Cash avoids entirely. It's perplexing to me that Venmo ever caught on.
- Infinitesimus 7y ago
  Venmo caught on likely because of Facebook integration
- burkaman 7y ago
  What do you mean by multi-stage xfers?
  - umeshunni 7y ago
    It transfers to your Venmo balance and not directly to your bank account.
- airstrike 7y ago
  Network effects. Square Cash is vastly superior but Venmo is the incumbent so it's hard to tell your friends "no, I have this other cash app you should install instead"
  - Maxious 7y ago
    Hence the slogan "we're not using the other apps anymore" https://www.reddit.com/r/FriendsofthePod/comments/8pgbpq/whats_the_other_apps_in_the_cash_app_ad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FriendsofthePod/comments/8pgbpq/wha... https://twitter.com/square/status/968602892646023169?lang=en https://twitter.com/square/status/968602892646023169?lang=en
- birdyrooster 7y ago
  Also the whole publishing all of your transactions on the public internet by default was a really good feature.

Importantly however, Venmo doesn't make money on peer to peer transactions that use bank accounts, which I'd imagine is what most people do as that's free. Consequently, Venmo is not profitable. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/venmo-has-40-million-users-paypal-reveals-for-first-time.html#:~:targetText=Venmo%20is%20on%20pace%20to,Cash%20App%20as%20of%20December https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/24/venmo-has-40-million-users-p....

lccarrasco 7y ago
Venmo transactions' data and the social network inferences you can make from them are probably pretty valuable on their own.
- kevindong 7y ago
  But Venmo/PayPal don't have any ads? Furthermore, just because you can link people together, it doesn't mean that knowledge is actually valuable. The only social network you can link to Venmo currently is Facebook. The only other way to "discover" contacts/friends is by uploading your contact book to Venmo's servers.
- idunno246 7y ago
  I don’t see how that data is all that valuable. There’s the inherent network effect of needing to install it to send/receive money from a friend who did. But a surprising number of people will pay for instant transfer(almost all of that 300m probably comes from this), and the debit cards they get to take in a portion of the merchant transaction fees. They’ll probably be profitable off that, with p2p as a loss leader to drive installs

rconti 7y ago

It's so odd, because Venmo is both newer than PayPal, yet limited in the same stupid ways PayPal is (multi-stage xfers), which Square Cash avoids entirely. It's perplexing to me that Venmo ever caught on.

Infinitesimus 7y ago
Venmo caught on likely because of Facebook integration
burkaman 7y ago
What do you mean by multi-stage xfers?
- umeshunni 7y ago
  It transfers to your Venmo balance and not directly to your bank account.
airstrike 7y ago
Network effects. Square Cash is vastly superior but Venmo is the incumbent so it's hard to tell your friends "no, I have this other cash app you should install instead"
- Maxious 7y ago
  Hence the slogan "we're not using the other apps anymore" https://www.reddit.com/r/FriendsofthePod/comments/8pgbpq/whats_the_other_apps_in_the_cash_app_ad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FriendsofthePod/comments/8pgbpq/wha... https://twitter.com/square/status/968602892646023169?lang=en https://twitter.com/square/status/968602892646023169?lang=en
birdyrooster 7y ago
Also the whole publishing all of your transactions on the public internet by default was a really good feature.