I was thinking about PayPal, and what their next step would be as a business. Right now, they practically dominate the payment processing industry (well, not really, but it's revolutionary system did have an impact), and I thought they probably are thinking about expanding their reach to the offline world. Let me explain myself: Right now, most of, if not all retail stores have credit/debit card readers. This allows us to carry cards instead of cash. 30-40 years ago, virtually no store had this system available. Now, let's say PayPal developed the hardware necessary to make offline payments using your PayPal account. Sure, there would be security issues, but that was the case with the first credit cards. Once the hardware is developed, let's say a big franchise like Walmart, or even McDonnalds adopts it. The snowball gets bigger, and within a couple of years, PayPal becomes the new standard in payments. Now this doesn't make credit cards disappear - on the contrary: due to the easy use of PayPal, more and more people would want to get both a card, and a PayPal account. I think it would be a cool concept, but that's just my say.
I appreciate your point of view and you never know if that running in paypal's mind at the moment. I like the way you have explained it.
yes this would be pretty simple and good but im sure within a few years alot more people will be using online services ect... and as far as paypal not wipping out the credit/debit cards maybe it could do this, infact whos to say a well financed business doesnt use this idea.... maybe their will be a time when nobody carrys money around and we all have some card that holds everything on that will be very high secuirty? maybe not now but whos to say within the next 5 - 20 years.... sorry i have gone alittle off topic
no, not at all. We're looking at the future here. Credit cards have become the standard both offline and online. I'm thinking that if PayPal extended it's reach considerably, PayPal could become the standard without damaging in any way credit cards (after all, PayPal depends on them to function). People started using cards because 1. It was easy 2. Many got too lazy to carry large amounts cash around. If PayPal can follow these steps, it might just become true. Now I don't know what eBay would think about this, seeing that they own PayPal.
Paypal got so big because US people started using it... come into Europe and you'll find lots of others payment processors.
Sure, there are a lot. I spent the past 2 years in Belgium, and there are more payment processors, but for some reason I prefer PayPal. But that's just my opinion.
I just hate their fax thing... you must(or used to) fax your documents. I saw that last time I've tried to create an account this wasn't necessary anymore. Anyway it's widely used and that's because of their agreement with e-bay and marketing strategy. Anyway I use moneybookers and alertpay as alternative.
i highly doubt it, cause paypal are nothing more than a bunch of thieves www.paypalsucks.com i know that paypal are thieves, First hand, so they will never replace any respectable payment system
I agree with you. A lot of people hate paypal with a reason! An increasing number of people lacks respect and don't trust paypal. Many people only use paypal because they're almost obliged to it in order to sell on eBay. I doubt they'll have a future of domination in the financial world! Just my 2 cents!