They started it up with venture capital money?
"Amid mobile-pay buzz, PayPal may be left behind" by Alex Barinka and Doni Bloomfield | Bloomberg News October 03, 2014
NEW YORK — Mobile payments are having a heyday. Apple Pay has been splashed across the news, and twentysomethings are paying for taxis with their smartphones. Yet one stalwart risks being left out of the conversation: PayPal.
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Once known as the groundbreaking startup founded by the likes of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Max Levchin before it was purchased by eBay in 2002, PayPal faces new competitors from Square to Apple Pay, which will be introduced in the United States this month.
Thiel was big backer of Ron Paul, and did that ever open my eyes.
‘‘If you’re below 30, PayPal’s not relevant,’’ Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Cos., said.
Honestly, neither is what I'm reading every morning.
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A key ingredient will be changing the perception among younger, smartphone-tethered customers like Arielle Gurin, 22, a University of Maryland student who says PayPal is ‘‘outdated already.’’
‘‘I know you have to have it for, like, eBay, or you can use it for Amazon,’’ she said. ‘‘But I feel like it’s not big anymore.’’
While the Web-payments pioneer has more than 152 million active registered accounts, the de facto focus for payments has become the smartphone, a market that PayPal had tried to break into without much success....
PayPal has gone after consumers with advertising at events like the Governors Ball music festival in New York, a three-day event where people flock to see shows from OutKast, The Strokes, and Skrillex.
Pffft!
The payment company had tried to get concertgoers to download its app to pay for food, an attempt thwarted by weak network connections.
That last part makes me laugh as it flies in the face of the agenda-pushing promotion, and indicates once again the on-the-cheap and subpar infrastructure in the face of greedy money addicts running AmeriKan bu$ine$$.
In-store payment via smartphone is a revenue opportunity worth fighting for, even if that means reversing course after vowing earlier to keep eBay and PayPal together.
I'm surprised they didn't say it was a WAR like they do with everything else!
The mobile payments market is potentially huge, with EMarketer projecting it to total $118 billion in the United States by 2018, up from $3.5 billion this year.
While PayPal might be a go-to for secure e-commerce transactions, Davis Meiering, an undergraduate at the NYU Stern School of Business, said it is not what he turns to on his phone.
Yeah, right! You see who started it?!!!
‘‘I don’t use the PayPal app on my phone,’’ Meiering, 20, said. ‘‘I only ever use it online.’’
Marcus, who had helped turn around PayPal by boosting active accounts more than 30 percent to almost 150 million during his tenure, left in June for Facebook Inc. Dan Schulman, an executive from American Express Co., will take over as chief executive after the split.
The separation of the companies next year could help PayPal keep up with the pace of innovation and competitiveness.
(Turn phone off)
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