
FacePay? - ewilliamsh
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/05/when-buying-is-as-easy-as-liking/#.i6feph:9K0k
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JoelJacobson
"Facebook split Messenger off into its own app to save you one extra click on
the Messages tab."

Uhm, what? What they did was forcing their users to open up a separate app to
do something with was working great already within the app, without having to
open up a separate app. But now every time you want to do messaging, you have
to wait the extra two seconds for "Messenger" to open up. What a terrible
example by the TechCrunch author. Maybe he was ironic?

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philtar
If you took a moment to think of use cases other than your own, you would
realize that there's a lot of us that ONLY use facebook messenger. I haven't
checked my newsfeed in ages.

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JoelJacobson
Good for you, and all other Messenger-only-users. But why force all other
users who are using the Facebook-app to open up a separate app when they want
to send or read messages?

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testingonprod
They expected to add a TON of complexity to the messenger product (they
announced messenger as a platform at F8) and they needed a way to decouple the
already complex main FB app. It buys them a bunch of things, like easier
maintenance, extensibility, and ability to push updates independently among
other user experience benefits.

They also didn't want to split the user experience of using Facebook messenger
on mobile and hence the forced switch.

It was only a big deal because of the surface area of the world that the main
Facebook product (w/ messenger) covers. I guarantee you that if Google did
something like that no one would care (at least not enough to give 20,000+ 1
star reviews)

~~~
dilap
Yeah I'm one of the messenger-only people, and (obviously) I'm really happy I
can use the messenger-only app, but, wow, the way they handled the integration
w/ the main FB app is ungodly inelegant, almost to the level of being
insulting to the user, IMO.

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stewartbutler
Honest question: has Facebook done anything to indicate that they are willing
and able to protect user data? Because social and financial are two words that
I don't like seeing near each other. I ask because I deleted my account years
ago because I felt I had too little control over what was shared and with who,
concerning when the service is from a company with no financial incentive to
keep any data private. I have no idea if those behaviors have changed and no
real interest in looking into it myself.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I very rarely post to Facebook but I do feel that I know who my data is shared
with when I do. They seem to have stopped their ridiculous habit of resetting
all my privacy settings to public now as well.

Like Google I imagine they do actually try to protect the data they have
beyond what I explicitly share at least to the extent it's not sold (I'm
assuming they use the same model as Google and sell ads from the data instead
of just selling the data, but their ads are so badly targeted it's hard to
tell).

That said I don't see myself giving them financial details because I don't
really know what they do with data that's not explicitly shared by users
(which like I said has become a lot clearer) and I don't really particularly
trust them. Plus I'd be amazed if they ever managed to show an ad I was
remotely interested in.

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minikomi
There's also Line Pay for places where that's prominent

[https://help.line.me/line/android/categoryId/10001102/](https://help.line.me/line/android/categoryId/10001102/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv25NjPxzW4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv25NjPxzW4)

~~~
sanxiyn
Better URL: [https://pay.line.me/](https://pay.line.me/)

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DanielBMarkham
Do retailers really want Facebook owning the entire marketing sales funnel,
including the customer relationship? This article makes it sound like this is
a new feature for businesses, but it sure doesn't look like they have the best
interests of businesses at heart.

It's not friction if you have to smile and say hello to the guy at the apple
cart before you buy your apples.

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frik
> What if buying something was as easy as Liking it? You’d probably buy a lot
> more, and buy it through whoever made it so damn simple.

Exactly. There is Paypal. Afaik, Amazon and Google discontinued their similar
service that was in competition with Paypal (API for third party website
payments) - but why? (I think that were the services: Amazon WebPay, Google
Checkout)

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downandout
Google Checkout shutdown because it had reputational issues among merchants,
and culture clash issues with the rest of Google. Payment platforms require
human support personnel, and this is something that Google is diametrically
opposed to. They algorithmically suspended many merchant accounts early in the
service's life, with no explanation as to why and no one to talk to about it.
This happened to me; I wound up filing a BBB complaint and they responded
saying the reasons that they effectively stole thousands of dollars from me
after months of operations without a single chargeback were "proprietary and
confidential". I was not alone; the Google Checkout support forums were filled
with stories like mine.

This is why no one should ever use Google for any critical function that may
require support (cloud servers etc.). Google just doesn't do the whole "human"
thing very well. If it goes terribly wrong and they refuse to talk to you,
good luck suing them unless you are a Fortune 500 company.

~~~
xyby
Im not in the US, so I wonder: If big company like Google owes you money -
isn't there some institution that will help you get it? Maybe the BBB?

Especially if Google wrongfully kept the money from many customers. I would
think some government run institutions would get going. Something like the
"public prosecutor's office" or so.

~~~
adventured
If Google were doing this at a large scale, the US Government or state
government/s would usually be willing to sue them over it.

At a medium scale (in # of cases), you might find a law firm willing to take
on a lot of cases, in exchange for a big cut. You can also choose to pursue
your own situation individually.

At a small scale (just your case let's say, and a small'ish sum of money),
you're going to mostly be limited to small claim's court, which can work
perfectly well sometimes:

[http://consumerist.com/2008/01/21/suing-big-companies-in-
sma...](http://consumerist.com/2008/01/21/suing-big-companies-in-small-claims-
court-is-fun-and-easy/)

~~~
dhimes
But isn't it illegal? Isn't there a criminal prosecution aspect to it?

~~~
adventured
The correct answer to that is: it depends, aka not necessarily.

Most likely what Google is doing, is dancing in the gray area. For example, is
it criminal when PayPal hits you with a chargeback because a customer lies
about x y or z? Given their size there's no question they do that a lot.
Google would argue their business choices, like shutting down someone's wallet
account (with money in it), falls into a similar category of business
discretion - rather than being criminal.

This is why almost all of what the SEC does is civil enforcement, fines, etc.
In business there are almost always cases of financial loss due to ignorance,
incompetence, discretion, risk taking and so on - most of that is not properly
going to be criminal, but rather civil.

Were Google doing something inappropriate in an area involving business
discretion, the government may decide it's not ok, but not criminal (eg
lacking the _intention_ to defraud). In that case, they'll typically try to
put a stop to the behavior, and use fines to do so. At times it can be
incredibly difficult to show a company is intending to defraud its customers,
the Feds would need a hard trail of evidence (emails, communication, etc.
showing Google was trying to defraud customers).

~~~
dhimes
Wow- great answer. Thank you.

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exelius
Facebook has a huge opportunity here to build the mobile payment killer app.
If they can get this integrated with NFC, you can pay for the tab at a
restaurant and split the check among you and your friends. Realistically, you
could use it to split nearly ANY bill - Facebook just has to build an
interface.

The only question is if the payment processors and Apple/Google will leave the
door open wide enough.

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chrischen
Glad to see they're catching up to WeChat (Tencent) in China, who's been doing
similar functionality for a while now (messaging brands).

~~~
frik
I heard good things about WeChat/its chinese counter part.
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/rosatrieu/2014/07/02/what-
chinas...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/rosatrieu/2014/07/02/what-chinas-
tencent-is-getting-right-in-mobile-payments/)

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itsbits
This won't be like WebPay or Checkout. Considering all the businesses and
Family/Friends already in FB, this can be put into very good use.

But I was kind of waiting for Youtube competant from Facebook for sometime
now. I think Facebook is one of the major sources for Youtube and FB has
ability to do something about it.

~~~
frik
YouTube belongs to Google. I too wonder why Google hasn't focused more of
their attention on YT. It's their social network hub that works fine for about
one billion people.

Do the G+ comments below YT videos make sense? No (from the users point of
view) . There used to be insightful replies to YT comments including video-
replies. All that has vanished, only spam remains. Beside that, anyone
remember their older social hubs Google Buzz and Orkut?

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Lancey
I don't think the author of this article has ever used Facebook or actually
read the details on the thing he's writing about. Facebook having a payment
method doesn't solve a single problem with either Facebook or payment methods
in general.

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christianmann
This is also a good way to add unlimited context to a transaction.

