This may vary by your group and where they at in life, but by my late 20s, those things mattered a lot less. If I buy someone a beer, I just hope they will get me back at some point and if not, then I bought them a beer- no big deal-enjoy! (well enjoy, unless this is the fifth time in a row I have done this and you haven't gotten me back).
I am in my mid-late 30s, and I have Venmo. I just tend to not use it very often, only for fairly big ticket items- concert/event tickets, someone buys a gift for someone else that we all chip in on, a restaurant gives a hard time about taking multiple credit cards, etc.
I much prefer it for payments amongst friends than anything else now though. It’s rather good.
I would love to know if the college crowd was a specific target for venmo: it’s nailed it
I’m 37 and probably wouldn’t know anyone using it in my normal social circle except I happen to know a bunch of ~24 yr olds (some younger) via a younger colleague.
Of those you are younger guess how many use Venmo? Every. Single. One.
Not every day, or all the time, but regularly: especially with friends & at weekends. It’s spread so we’ll split lunches at work occasionally with it.
Hell, there are several restaurants in Berkeley that allow you to pay with it because college kids use it so much.