

Apple Wants To Build A PayPal Killer, Say Wall Street Gossips - troystribling
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-eyeing-paypals-business-say-wall-street-gossips-2009-8

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oomkiller
Uhh, hell would freeze over before I'd use it in anything. Paypal is bad
enough, but Apple's App Store policies have tarnished their reputation in my
book!

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vaksel
Yeah I can just imagine it now:

We are sorry but you can't buy this item because we don't iPay to be
associated with questionable content.

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jstevens85
That already happens with PayPal.

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jimmybot
They also mentioned Facebook. Are payments really big on Facebook? With tons
of customers and experience with processing payments for real-world goods, I
would think Amazon would have a better shot at it than Facebook.

Also, out of Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, I would guess that Amazon customers
are the most likely to be spending money elsewhere as well.

But in all these cases--Pay Pal, Apple, and the rest--they are wrappers on a
bank account or a credit card. Why wouldn't the banks and the credit card
companies themselves want to get in on all this?

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jamesk2
I remember suggesting this to Steve Case when he was CEO of AOL. It was before
paypal and it would have made a lot of sense for AOL to become the
micropayment processor since they already had access to their subscriber's
credit cards. I'm glad they really didn't move on it though, because they
could have killed the movement of large content companies going to the web
with it. Why publish free on the web when you could have made money for
articles on AOL? AOL at the time was the largest ISP.

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protomyth
I would much rather they: 1) fixed the appstore policies 2) create an OS X
appstore 3) allow sale of media in an appstore like way so people stop
creating apps to sell media and just use something Apple develops / buys

I get the feeling, that at the end of the day, the appstore will have some
rating system with one of the ratings being "unsupervised content access".

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runevault
I wouldn't use it but considering how many people do use iTunes to buy things
(both iPhone/Touch apps and music) this makes a ton of sense. I doubt it'll
take much extra effort to add the infrastructure, if any. And it creates
additional revenue stream.

Interesting to see where this goes if true.

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roc
Sounds like someone overheard a feature, didn't understand it and then
misinterpreted the example.

A direct pay-pal knockoff would have nothing to do with Apple's core business
(selling hardware). And to be at all plausible, would have to support
transactions that have _nothing_ to do with their hardware/software ecosystem.

Microsoft is the sort of company that might have been distracted into building
a financial arm during its years of plenty. Apple really isn't. That sort of
absolute diversification is antithetical to how Apple operates.

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jsdalton
The article and headline say "PayPal killer," but my guess is that it would be
closer in spirit to Amazon's Flexible Payment System.

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modeless
Personally, I don't understand why ISPs haven't become payment processors.
They already have a monthly billing relationship with their customers.
Wouldn't it be cool if your ISP provided a service whereby you could buy
things online and charge them to your ISP bill?

If done right such a service could be more secure than credit cards for online
purchases, make micropayments much more feasible, and provide a separate
revenue stream for ISPs. Why haven't they jumped on this?

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fname
naming "<anything> killer" is usually destined to failure

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access_denied
Well, one thing is clear: anybody who has billions of cash on the high side
and his mind at the right place, will now, at this tim in history, investigate
if he should enter the banking industry in some form or another.

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TrevorJ
I don't specifically disagree with you, but I'm curious: what are your reasons
for that viewpoint?

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anigbrowl
All competitors have just been weakened and many are seeking to preserve
market share and/or autonomy (from regulation). furthermore, consumers largely
hate banks at the moment. I certainly hate mine. If you have a big New Idea
and the cash to implement it, it's a great time to offer an alternative.

Having said that, my experience with Paypal has been very good overall. And I
have a jaundiced attitude towards Apple.

