Re:More Paypal nonsense
by joshu on Tuesday December 06, 2011 @12:57AM
(#3318161)
IIRC Paypal was originally designed for interpersonal payments.
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Right on, Paypal was designed exactly for Bob to send Sally $10.27 for yesterday's lunch tab, according to Paypal's own promotion and vision on day one. Letting businesses, charities, and other orgs use it as a payment processor came quite a bit later.
I think it's safe to say that they, quite reasonably, figured out that the former is a risk-infested nightmare. Saying "hey, that actually cost $11, Bob!" is a minor thing in an interpersonal relationship, but when it has the potential to trigger a fraud investigation (think ex-girlfriend marking all 'casual' transactions as fraud after a breakup) you invite chaos.
So yes, they switched on that, but it's really not hard to see why. I wouldn't want to use it for personal transactions. (In Germany, we mostly use bank wire transfers for that.)
Re:More Paypal nonsense
by Lagged2Death on Tuesday December 06, 2011 @12:24PM
(#3320000)
Well it was at least originally marketed as being for interpersonal payments, as a service that John Q. Public would want an account on for that purpose.