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PayPal To Open App Store For Developers
angry tapir writes "PayPal will open an applications store this year where developers can offer their wares, the latest step in the company's multi-pronged strategy to deepen its relationship with external programmers. Developers have a big opportunity to offer applications for merchants and consumers that PayPal doesn't have the interest or resources to build itself, according to a PayPal official."
Isn't this just going to piss off the government of India even more? They're already holding developer's PP accounts under suspicion.
"Hostess Brands, Inc., the largest wholesale baker and distributor of fresh bakery products in the United States, will open an applications store this year where developers can offer their wares, the latest step in the company's multi-pronged strategy to deepen its relationship with external programmers. Developers have a big opportunity to offer applications for merchants and consumers that Hostess doesn't have the interest or resources to build itself, according to a Hostess official."
The above makes as much sense as the summary and article. Paypal? Software?
Are there any developers that actually trust paypal?
If I were a developer, I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole. Paypal wants to pull more shit with people's accounts? Well, just declare that the app is a 'rogue app' or something. Then they get to play their little games, and THEY probably don't get the bad PR for it.
From my experience with Paypal this will be an outright desaster for many people. You can't get a hold of any human being through their shit telephone system. There is nothing except pre-fab email replies. They lock accounts for no apparent reason and refuse to explain themselves. They steal money from their account holders by blocking accounts and not creating opportunities to dispute that. They've stolen money from foobar http://www.foobar2000.org/, the Xorg Foundation http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.freedesktop.xorg/42548 and as we all clearly see Wikileaks http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100124/1846137886.shtml
Paypal is a lame excuse of an idea that went right of the window. They try to act like a bank but don't take the responsibility that comes with it. They screw several countries out of taxes because they're situated in Liechtenstein (at least for Europe) which doesn't pay anything. They provide the service of adding another layer of menu forms to a credit card purchase. They don't provide actual added value to most resellers and are currently used as an extortion tool for Ebay customers. On top of that they are a major target for phishing and skimming attacks, cross site scripting and abuse.
Who in their right mind would do business with them? Oh I forgot you have to. In case you've wondered I've had my share of problems w/ Paypal. They refused to let me balance my PP account from my bank because they are too fucking stupid to get a non-automated verification system for new bank accounts. So while my account was in transfer because of a merger they send the "verfication" (a ridiculous transfer of random cent values) to the wrong sort code and subsequently refused to correct their mistake or let me (who had done nothing but provide them with updated proper bank data) verify the account any other way. In short: Paypal sucks, I've closed my account there and won't be coming back. Ever.
If that is the kind of servce they provide to their paying customers imagine how brilliantly developers will find working w/ them.
With smartphones, PayPal sees a future in which its system can be used to pay at the grocery store, the cleaners, the gas station, and for things like rent and parking meters, he said.
Really? As long as you can't pay your hookers & blackjack with PayPal, it'll be useless.
Then there's a long list of people that have been screwed over by PayPal, and that warn you never to do business with them (especially on the money recipient side). Complaints like this http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/07/1830222/Paypal-Reverses-Payments-Made-To-Indians keep coming in: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/10/0048246/India-Suspended-From-PayPal-For-At-Least-a-Few-Months
And PayPal tries to present itself to users as some sort of bank, but well... it isn't. And from the looks of it, doesn't even want to become one (government oversight and all that crap).
I've only used PayPal on a few occassions to buy stuff abroad, and it worked well for me. But in order for PayPal to become more commonplace, it needs to: