We're doing for payments what MP3s did for CDs(willgrant.org)
willgrant.org
We're doing for payments what MP3s did for CDs
http://willgrant.org/were-doing-for-payments-what-mp3-did-for-cds/
21 comments
Also, the original reference is "series of tubes" if that's the illusion they're trying to make.
Allusion.
Didn't know that, thanks. Similar to effect/affect.
Is the accepted convention that in online communication literal grammar corrections should start with an asterisk or at least be surrounded by quotes.
I know how silly this is, but now you see what happens when you get too focused in grammatical mistakes.
I know how silly this is, but now you see what happens when you get too focused in grammatical mistakes.
See Muphry's Law [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphrys_law
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphrys_law
Illusion/allusion isn't a grammatical mistake. They're too words that mean different things, but which are very similar syntactically (you can swap between them in a sentence and get two valid sentences which mean entirely different things).
This can be a pernicious source of errors of communication. It is good to point it out.
This can be a pernicious source of errors of communication. It is good to point it out.
"Two" words.
Sorry.
Sorry.
You might not be overly pedantic, but you are wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage
Nevertheless, I also do not take kindly to semicolon usage, because it's so vague. But that does not mean I can claim that it's wrong, without being wrong myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage
Nevertheless, I also do not take kindly to semicolon usage, because it's so vague. But that does not mean I can claim that it's wrong, without being wrong myself.
Both parts of the sentence need to be able to stand alone; they can't stand alone in the described instance.
I'm not sure how that link supports your assertion I'm wrong. Can you be a little more specific?
Between independent clauses linked with a transitional phrase or a conjunctive adverb:
Everyone knows he is guilty of committing the crime; of course, it will never be proven.
...
This is the least common use, and is mostly confined to academic texts.
In your example, "then" is the conjunctive adverb.
Edit: By the way, I love having grammar discussions on the internet. Let's make a grammar discussion club, so we can really go at it, and maybe try and keep the grammatic national socialism out of hackernews.
In your example, "then" is the conjunctive adverb.
Edit: By the way, I love having grammar discussions on the internet. Let's make a grammar discussion club, so we can really go at it, and maybe try and keep the grammatic national socialism out of hackernews.
Recently I've been playing with Stripe to put a payment form (url) into a QR code. So the cashier prints the receipt, the user scans the QR code and pays using the form on her iPhone/Android.
But why would merchants or users prefer this solution? why not just use the credit card? Perhaps these kinds of ideas are what pg calls made-up startup ideas.
But why would merchants or users prefer this solution? why not just use the credit card? Perhaps these kinds of ideas are what pg calls made-up startup ideas.
Most of the world's consumers don't own a credit card.
Admittedly, this startup is based in the UK, where most consumers have several credit cards.
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-cards-aro...
Admittedly, this startup is based in the UK, where most consumers have several credit cards.
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-cards-aro...
I do see many advantages; credit cards are insecure (all the important info is written on them) and even debit cards machines can be modified or replaced to save your password and card info; but with the phone there is none of those risks. Also I would like to mention that there is no need to read it from a printed receipt, you read it from another device the cashier haves and that is it; wish is a green solution and can be promoted as such.
And if someone steals your phone (hopefully) you have a pattern to unblock it and before the thief can crack it you cancel the app account or change its password.
And if someone steals your phone (hopefully) you have a pattern to unblock it and before the thief can crack it you cancel the app account or change its password.
Fraud prevention will never be free. Neither will payments.
This is clearly incorrect. Visit the UK some time. Bank accounts are free, interest bearing, often come with incentives (I get £5 a month from my bank for paying my salary into the account), and offer free online transfer to other UK bank accounts. Oh, and you can withdraw money from any cashpoint for free - not just those of your own bank
Of course, this probably isn't something the bank makes money on. They make money on fees for overdrafts, and on the profit making products they can more easily sell to existing customers. But the same thing happens in the US, too.
In short, don't assume that the massive flaws in US consumer banking are universal, or that they're fundamental to the nature of consumer banking.
Of course, this probably isn't something the bank makes money on. They make money on fees for overdrafts, and on the profit making products they can more easily sell to existing customers. But the same thing happens in the US, too.
In short, don't assume that the massive flaws in US consumer banking are universal, or that they're fundamental to the nature of consumer banking.
I'm from Singapore, I've never been to the US and I've lived in the UK for 6 years previously.
Remember we're talking about accepting payments here, not opening a bank account. And if free online transfers are so viable for this, why do hardly any UK online merchants accept it as a form of payment and almost all accept the usual credit cards and Paypal? My guess: fraud /risk management and scale.
Remember we're talking about accepting payments here, not opening a bank account. And if free online transfers are so viable for this, why do hardly any UK online merchants accept it as a form of payment and almost all accept the usual credit cards and Paypal? My guess: fraud /risk management and scale.
I was going to say, 'Is risk management free?'. However, there are other ways to make money than transaction fees. For instance, merely having people hold money in their accounts allows them to earn interest on it.
Accepting cash is free. With cash fraud prevention is unnecessary.
Accepting cash is free.
What about the costs of storing cash? What about the costs of going to the bank and depositing cash? What about the transport and storage of storing low denomination notes/coins so you can give change? What about the costs & risks of being robbed of your cash? What about the costs of a staff member being robbed of the cash?
Accepting cash is not free.
With cash fraud prevention is unnecessary.
Ever seen a fake note? A fake coin (yes they exist)? What about a coin from a foreign country that looks like one of your coins, but is worth a fraction of the amount? What about the costs of the little ultraviolet light to check notes for legitimacy? What about the cost of the few seconds the cashier needs to look at each note to check that it's not a fake? What about the costs of the little highlighter pen they can run across it?
Fraud preventing for cash isn't free.
What about the costs of storing cash? What about the costs of going to the bank and depositing cash? What about the transport and storage of storing low denomination notes/coins so you can give change? What about the costs & risks of being robbed of your cash? What about the costs of a staff member being robbed of the cash?
Accepting cash is not free.
With cash fraud prevention is unnecessary.
Ever seen a fake note? A fake coin (yes they exist)? What about a coin from a foreign country that looks like one of your coins, but is worth a fraction of the amount? What about the costs of the little ultraviolet light to check notes for legitimacy? What about the cost of the few seconds the cashier needs to look at each note to check that it's not a fake? What about the costs of the little highlighter pen they can run across it?
Fraud preventing for cash isn't free.
> Accepting cash is free.
Accepting it might be free, but what happens when you need to transfer large amounts of cash from your premises to a bank? Cash-in-transit services aren't free.
> With cash fraud prevention is unnecessary.
Not if we include the identification and rejection of counterfeit currency.
Accepting it might be free, but what happens when you need to transfer large amounts of cash from your premises to a bank? Cash-in-transit services aren't free.
> With cash fraud prevention is unnecessary.
Not if we include the identification and rejection of counterfeit currency.
I beg you pardon, but a large segment of internet fraud is: You pay me for a laptop, I send you a brick.
This does not depend on a payment method, the problem is the time delay between sending money and sending the goods - especially goods delivery not being instantaneous. So without an escrow service there will be this kind of fraud, and someone will want his money back.
[edit] And people will not only send to friends if you are successful.
This does not depend on a payment method, the problem is the time delay between sending money and sending the goods - especially goods delivery not being instantaneous. So without an escrow service there will be this kind of fraud, and someone will want his money back.
[edit] And people will not only send to friends if you are successful.
Thats probably a relatively small part, but influential as it scares people away from paying for things online.
The larger segments are (1)I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. The credit card company takes the money back off you. and (2) I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. I say you sent me a brick. The credit card company takes the money back off you.
The larger segments are (1)I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. The credit card company takes the money back off you. and (2) I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. I say you sent me a brick. The credit card company takes the money back off you.
In the US, the transfer of cash is regulated, which might be relevant to the argument you are making: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#Preventive
Cash includes anti-counterfeiting measures, though, which are not free. The cash itself must be printed, too - also not free.
Someone please explain to me how this "holding people's cash lets you earn interest" bit.
In traditional banking, you put money into savings and get a low return interest rate, or you commit to leave your deposit for a longer term to get a higher rate of return (Certificate of Deposit or "CD.") The reason this works is that the bank can now leverage your deposit with the Federal Reserve to borrow money to loan to others. So they take the interest the Fed charges, add some percentage to compensate depositors, add more to make a profit, and charge the consumer borrower a certain interest rate.
Some banks offer interest on their draft accounts (usually called "checking" accounts) but not many. And lots still charge a monthly fee for the privilege of keeping your money with then if your balance falls under a certain percentage.
So are you people saying this company is in the loan business? Or that their bank is providing them with an interest-bearing account for operating their business within? In the latter case, the margin would be so thin as to me non-existant.
In traditional banking, you put money into savings and get a low return interest rate, or you commit to leave your deposit for a longer term to get a higher rate of return (Certificate of Deposit or "CD.") The reason this works is that the bank can now leverage your deposit with the Federal Reserve to borrow money to loan to others. So they take the interest the Fed charges, add some percentage to compensate depositors, add more to make a profit, and charge the consumer borrower a certain interest rate.
Some banks offer interest on their draft accounts (usually called "checking" accounts) but not many. And lots still charge a monthly fee for the privilege of keeping your money with then if your balance falls under a certain percentage.
So are you people saying this company is in the loan business? Or that their bank is providing them with an interest-bearing account for operating their business within? In the latter case, the margin would be so thin as to me non-existant.
Some banks offer interest on their draft accounts (usually called "checking" accounts) but not many
Not debating the rest of your post, but in lots of European countries you will find the exact opposite. That is, almost noone provides zero-interest accounts. Because those who didn't give interests, even on checking-accounts, quickly found themselves losing most of their customers. Basically markets and competition in action as they should work.
So don't be too eager to extrapolate the (reasonably backwards, technologically under-developed and un-modern) US banking industry to a global de-facto statement. It usually doesn't hold ;)
I mean... You guys still use cheques. What's up with that?
Not debating the rest of your post, but in lots of European countries you will find the exact opposite. That is, almost noone provides zero-interest accounts. Because those who didn't give interests, even on checking-accounts, quickly found themselves losing most of their customers. Basically markets and competition in action as they should work.
So don't be too eager to extrapolate the (reasonably backwards, technologically under-developed and un-modern) US banking industry to a global de-facto statement. It usually doesn't hold ;)
I mean... You guys still use cheques. What's up with that?
Only old people use checks, or when you need to send money through the mail (which is almost never). It can be handy to be able to give someone an amount of money that isn't limited by the amount of cash you have on hand, and without requiring them to have anything more complicated than a bank account to receive the money (and even that is optional if you use a check cashing service).
Which is not to say that the US banking industry isn't backwards and bizarre.
Which is not to say that the US banking industry isn't backwards and bizarre.
> You guys still use cheques
So do the French. Cheques are very convenient in several usecases. For safety deposits they're brilliant: You write the owner a cheque for X hundred euros or whatever, and if at the end of your holiday all is good, he gives it back and you tear it up. They're also great for paying largish sums of money to people who don't have credit card machines (when buying second hand goods for example)
So do the French. Cheques are very convenient in several usecases. For safety deposits they're brilliant: You write the owner a cheque for X hundred euros or whatever, and if at the end of your holiday all is good, he gives it back and you tear it up. They're also great for paying largish sums of money to people who don't have credit card machines (when buying second hand goods for example)
> You guys still use cheques.
Only old women do that. Usually while in front of you when attempting to pay the cashier.
Only old women do that. Usually while in front of you when attempting to pay the cashier.
You don't have to be in the loan business to make money on the float, you just need to invest it. Say you have $100M of revenue per month and are paying out all $100M of it in 60 days. You can very safely keep the float in an interest-bearing account earning, say 3%, giving you $500k/mo. Because your revenue stream is constant, so is your investment. In practice you would also need to buy some insurance (FDIC won't cover you and surely there are some regulations here), but that's the idea.
See clearing banks. When transferring monies between unrelated accounts, and often financial bodies, the amount is held in clearing bank limbo. One reason for this is that so aggregated amounts from one entities account can be offset against another entities. Where for example bank A transfers X to bank B, and the same amount X within the clearing time is a transfer from B to A, the amounts are adjusted, smoothing capital flow.
The more pertinent fact in respect of your question is that while your funds are being held in this state, the interest available accumulates to the originator A. Not your account from which the fund was withdrawn.
The more pertinent fact in respect of your question is that while your funds are being held in this state, the interest available accumulates to the originator A. Not your account from which the fund was withdrawn.
Minor criticism, but I think the 'military-grade security' section on the homepage could be doing more harm than good.
By all means tout the security benefits of the encryption you use, but I don't think the other two points (vetted personal and different bank accounts for internal/customer use) are really necessary from a customer perspective.
I don't think I would have considered either of those as potential security risks before reading them on your homepage. Reading them plants seeds of doubt in my mind; Why do they vet personnel? Because they have access to my payment details? What if the vetting isn't good enough? Why do they point out they have separate bank accounts; are they planning on going under?
The measures that you have taken re: those two points should be taken as given for any established payments processing business.
By all means tout the security benefits of the encryption you use, but I don't think the other two points (vetted personal and different bank accounts for internal/customer use) are really necessary from a customer perspective.
I don't think I would have considered either of those as potential security risks before reading them on your homepage. Reading them plants seeds of doubt in my mind; Why do they vet personnel? Because they have access to my payment details? What if the vetting isn't good enough? Why do they point out they have separate bank accounts; are they planning on going under?
The measures that you have taken re: those two points should be taken as given for any established payments processing business.
From the support page (https://dropletpay.com/support/) ...
"What happens if I want to take my money back out?
To take your money out of Droplet to your personal bank account you need to have Direct Debit enabled. This is a feature that’s coming soon, so during Beta you’ll need to contact us and we’ll send you the funds by bank transfer within five working days."
In other words the only way right now to take your money out is via a wire transfer? ... along with the possibly hefty bank charges associated with it.
"What happens if I want to take my money back out?
To take your money out of Droplet to your personal bank account you need to have Direct Debit enabled. This is a feature that’s coming soon, so during Beta you’ll need to contact us and we’ll send you the funds by bank transfer within five working days."
In other words the only way right now to take your money out is via a wire transfer? ... along with the possibly hefty bank charges associated with it.
No, there are no charges to the user to get their money back out - the service is totally fee-free to users.
It sounds like a good service then, so good that there must be a catch. ;-)
bank transfers in the UK (to/from other UK bank accounts) are usually either very cheap or free, even for businesses. And as it appears to be only a temporary measure then its probably minimal cost to keep the odd customer happy.
It would be a nice thing if you had an external team of security experts validate your protocol.
We've seen too many start ups hacking away MVPs before even thinking about security. It all crumbles down when somebody takes an interest.
Just mentioning TLS/SSL on the FAQ does not make your system secure. And it's better to know now if what you've done is the best you can do, not when you have hundreds of thousands of users.
We've seen too many start ups hacking away MVPs before even thinking about security. It all crumbles down when somebody takes an interest.
Just mentioning TLS/SSL on the FAQ does not make your system secure. And it's better to know now if what you've done is the best you can do, not when you have hundreds of thousands of users.
I completely agree with this. The site is not even returning a proper 404 for ill-formatted urls such as https://dropletpay.com/jsds. Instead it's giving a plain 500 error!
Check out Dwolla. You can use their service to send money for free under $10 for free or $0.25 for more than $10. They have been around for 3 years now and have quite a bit of traction with what they are doing.
https://www.dwolla.com/
https://www.dwolla.com/
This is really starting to get to me.
The platform of this as iOS app based only is beyond retarded. You should be selling the service platform you create. Limiting an interaction to just an App is as stupid as those messaging systems that don't have a web front end component.
The platform of this as iOS app based only is beyond retarded. You should be selling the service platform you create. Limiting an interaction to just an App is as stupid as those messaging systems that don't have a web front end component.
I think it makes sense for them since they are still in Beta with less than 1000 users if I read correctly. But yeah, a web app would be useful.
No android app at launch is dumb. You're losing half your potential audience.... and honestly, that's the half that's more likely to use alternative payment schemes. Even Paypal is too new for a lot of my iPhone wielding aunts and uncles.
They state:
Droplet is the first app of its kind that lets you send payments completely outside of the traditional banking and credit card systems. It’s a bit like cash – but digital and mobile. You don’t need to connect your phone to your bank account to use Droplet. Instead you just top up your account via your phone, a bit like you’d draw money out of a cash point. https://dropletpay.com/about/
What does that mean? Is that a new implementation of chaumian e-cash?
Droplet is the first app of its kind that lets you send payments completely outside of the traditional banking and credit card systems. It’s a bit like cash – but digital and mobile. You don’t need to connect your phone to your bank account to use Droplet. Instead you just top up your account via your phone, a bit like you’d draw money out of a cash point. https://dropletpay.com/about/
What does that mean? Is that a new implementation of chaumian e-cash?
I think it's pretty self explanatory.
Instead of an account with a credit card company, you have an account with droplet.
Instead of an account with a credit card company, you have an account with droplet.
"Instead you just top up your account via your phone..."
What's self-explanatory about that? Are they billing my carrier so the charge shows up on my bill? Are they drawing directly from my bank account? Do they charge my credit card?
What's self-explanatory about that? Are they billing my carrier so the charge shows up on my bill? Are they drawing directly from my bank account? Do they charge my credit card?
It is basically a pre-paid credit card without the plastic and fees
I wish all these startups didn't go so overboard on the hyperbole. "Military-grade security": What does that even mean? Which military protocols exactly are you following? What level of military vetting do your personnel have? Which certifications have you received?
It means that vast numbers of people around the world will have unsupervised access to it and if you wait a few weeks someone will post it all to Wikileaks.
Issue with disrupting existing payment modalities is that you need scale, which is really hard to do when you are a startup and there is not much differentiating you from the rest.
Ubiquity trumps novelty. Every single time.
Ubiquity trumps novelty. Every single time.
Which is of course a catch-22, though people like Facebook and Foursquare solved this by launching in small geographic areas first to get ubiquitus in those areas.
Oh look, Droplet is targetting Birmingham UK, first - looks like they know this.
Oh look, Droplet is targetting Birmingham UK, first - looks like they know this.
[deleted]
The switch from CDs to MP3s greatly reduced the profitability of the music market.
If this company is intending to do the same for payments, perhaps we should all expect to be paid nothing?
If this company is intending to do the same for payments, perhaps we should all expect to be paid nothing?
Putting aside the feasibility of such an idea at a global scale, the clarity with which the idea is described in such a minimalistic scheme is awesome.
If Droplet doesn't charge fees, how are they going to make money? Ads?
Probably interest from holding your money you deposit with them.
That was also the original revenue scheme of Paypal, but it doesn't appear to have been successful--now they rely on transaction fees. Why would it work here?
There is Bitcoin already, and the companies dealing with transactions already have to charge 1% to sustain themselves. How does this company make money then? And this is only for iPhones?
I guess the difference is you don't earn interest by holding other peoples bitcoins, you do by holding their cash. Apparently there is an android app coming.
(In Birmingham only)
I had this idea when I worked at Fusebox in NYC in 1999.
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>If you think of the internet as just a series of pipes; then it’s what you push down those pipes that matters.
That should be a comma, not a semicolon. Semicolons are used for separating related independent clauses.
I know it doesn't really matter, but when it's the first sentence it really stands out.