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PayPal Launches Facebook App For Sending Money
angry tapir writes "PayPal has launched a Facebook application designed to let users of the social networking site send money to each other. The application, named Send Money, features a greeting card component for accompanying the money transfer with an e-card containing a message, photos and videos to mark occasions like birthdays and anniversaries."
Just think of all the money they can confiscate claiming fraud. Sounds like a good plan.
This is Paypal's motivation in most cases. Considering that they won a case in Connecticut a few years back that says that Paypal cannot be regulated the same way a bank can(when they're pretty much a bank), they really have free reign. Of course, Paypal also has a history of randomly locking down accounts asking for SSN numbers and for you to verify where you live and provide a scanned driver's ID etc etc as well. So, I wouldn't be surprised if Paypal starts doing that here as well. I think you're spot on with this.
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I really don't know why anyone would use the PayPal app.
It's simple really: Facebook is becoming like a separate internet, where lots of people do all their business and personal activities. Many people, for instance, don't even use email any more, as they do all their messaging on Facebook. If you're thinking I'm wacked, consider how old you are: are you over 25 (or better yet, 30)? If so, then yes, this would seem utterly crazy to you, but this is actually exactly how much of the under-25 crowd thinks; they really do think email is "obsolete".
So if FB is like a second internet, with messaging, games, news, etc., it's only natural to think that people who spend all their time on there might also want a way of transferring money on there too. Sure, it's easy enough to just go to http://www.paypal.com/ and do it there, but again, we're talking about people who don't use the internet outside of Facebook.