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PayPal Brings Mobile Payments To U.S.
An anonymous reader writes "PayPal is bringing the eastern use of the cellphone as a payment method to the United States. The company's mobile service aims to use secure text messages as a payment method for direct-marketing initiatives and other 'on-the-spot' mercantile opportunities." From the article: "To the extent that digital money doesn't feel like real money, it may increase spontaneous purchasing ... " This story offers more details on a discussion we had last month.
This is a logicalextension of paypal's increasingly omnipresent marketing and services.
Paypal has diversified into many diferent branches and while this new mobile payment may be subject to some criticism and a degree of scepticism it is likely that this will come to be as pervasive as credit cards.
No parent will buy a cellphone to their kid unless the feature is disabled.
If you send a text message to GOOGL with the barcode number, it will return comparison shopping information. Unfortunately, in America everything is cheaper online, so there's no real point in going shopping anyway.
My other car is first.
What a sensational business model.
1) Act and charge like a real bank, but don't say you're one.
2) Offer no real customer service, treat customers like thieves, offer no financial protection, unlike a real bank don't be forced to implement security and continity controls
3) Profit!
This problem has been solved years ago and the average mobile phone is more than capable of working as an electronic purse. A mobile phone needs no centralized network to process transactions and most certainly is more efficient and trackable than paper currency and Visa/MC association payments.
A tangentially related way to see how abusive things are in the association world is Walmart wants to open a "bank" so they can keep a piece of the Visa/MC Association rent.
The way this will be implemented will be the same old very inefficient way of processing payments with each company in the "chain" demanding their pound of flesh along the way.
This idea is DOA.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Guy: "Hi, sir, Could you help a poor man out and let me borrow your cell phone for a quick moment to call my family? I'm going to be late for my daughter's birthday." Me: "Sure, here you are" Guy: "Thank you kindly, sir.." Guy: *transfers cash to his paypal account, while pretending to have trouble figuring out the phone* Guy: "Ah ha!" *after having transferred the money and pretending that he finally figured out what to do* Guy: *fakes a call to his pretend family, while actually calling his voicemail* Guy: "Thank you sir! ^__^" Me: "No problem! ^_^" This'll be fantastic!
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
Does that mean we can have our own little Donate Now text message or recording on our cell phones?
A mobile phone needs no centralized network to process transactions and most certainly is more efficient and trackable than paper currency and Visa/MC association payments.
Of course it needs a centralized network. Otherwise, what's to prevent me from hacking my phone and changing the amount of money that I have?
I understand what you're saying, in a sense: the transaction processing does not have to be centralized but it definitely must be authoritative. Without an authority, you must trust the phone to accurately report the amount of money it has -- clearly not workable. Thus, centralization is certainly needed.