At this point there are too many network effects around venmo, if you're splitting the BBQ with 5 people and 4 have venmo and you don't, it's not as convenient for the requester. That's why I got venmo initially, and now it's super easy to request money from friends and 2nd degree friends, since my network is all venmo. I know 1 person who uses square cash and he's over 40, and I know 2 or 3 less tech-literate friends who use paypal and refuse to try venmo. It's just a hassle to split costs with them because I have to do it in 2 apps instead of adding everyone to the same request in venmo.

Yep, it’s network effects. All my friends were impressed by Square Cash’s ability to instantly transfer to their bank accounts for a small fee, but nobody wants to install another cash app (and another virtual wallet) to use with just one friend.

When Apple Pay Cash came out, I was sure that it would replace Venmo, but even after all my friends updated to iOS 11 they continued to use Venmo. I’m guessing this has something to do with Apple Pay Cash not having any way to keep track of pending payments and requests, meaning your friend will probably never pay you back for lunch if the request isn’t paid as soon as it’s sent, before getting buried in history by conversation (iOS-only is another network-effect factor, but my social group is pretty much exclusively iOS).

I feel like I'm missing something here.

If I go out somewhere with a bunch of friends, we just ask for separate checks.

I think "splitting the BBQ" as in someone is buying and cooking a bunch of food and their friends are helping with the cost.

But anyway, some restaurants don't split checks and most don't like to because it's extra work for their staff.

How does PayPal fail this use case? Or cash (the horror)?

My friends and I largely don't carry cash, and even though I typically carry a single 20 and a 100 dollar bill for emergencies, it's hard to split cash unless someone else can give you change, which requires them to carry a bunch of 5s 10s 1s (coins?).

Paypal fails like I said because of network effects. More people in my friend group have venmo than paypal (even though paypal owns both), so when it's time to pay, venmo is the default.

Nothing is inherently wrong with paypal, it's just that nobody in my group uses it. So, just plain old network effects.

People don't carry cash as much as they used to, because they don't need to, because apps can do it.

We used to do that, but splitting with an app is easier so we've gradually stopped. Especially because many restaurants don't like doing separate checks, or have a limit to how much they will split, or it just feels mean and inordinately complicated to ask the waiter to do it when we have a way to sort it out ourselves.

Works well unless:

- the restaurant doesn't do separate checks for large groups - friends ordered meals with significant variance in case, and the server wasn't initially told to keep items separated - you want to split communal items in an arbitrary fashion

Me too. This is not a problem I've ever encountered.