I am 37. My last couple venmo transactions:

  Paying off a bet about who would become CEO of twitter
  Paying someone for my portion of a bar tab.
  Fantasy Football league dues
  Receiving money from someone for their portion of a bar tab
  Paying someone for movie tickets

Why not use PayPal? No fees? Less friction?

Venmo is way easier to use. Hence all of my friends use it, so there is a powerful network effect.

I use it for just about everything I would have previously had to write a check to an individual for. Most of the time this ends up being some form of paying someone back for my portion of a split bill or if they purchased something on my behalf.

Even though I have had paypal for years, most people cringe when someone doesn't yet have Venmo and offers to send via paypal.

I'm in my 30s. Today is the first day I've ever heard of Venmo.

I think the reason why I never heard of it is cause of the way my friends and I handle money. One person will grab drinks one day and the next time the next person picks up lunch. If someone buys a pizza everyone just gives them whatever bill from their pocket. None of us really "keep track" in specific dollar figures. Nobody says "this is only $5, you owe me $6."

Of course this kind of thing doesn't work out for every group.

I bought concert tickets and a friend paid me for one of them. I need help moving and my friend let me use her zipcar membership. I venmo'd her money for the cost of the van. A few friends and I wanted to send flowers to a friend who had a baby. One person bought them and charged us each the split amount. etc.

Some people use it to meet minimum spends for credit card sign-up bonuses.