
Thanks to Venmo, We Now All Know How Cheap Our Friends Are - gk1
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/style/venmo-cheap-friends-transaction-history.html
======
extr
Young millennial male, every single person I know uses Venmo. IMO this article
largely misses the point of the app. It's replaced cash/checks is all, it's
not some huge social upheaval in the way we use money that needs to be
analyzed. In my experience it's rarely used for splitting bills for dinner or
picking up bar tabs (I can't remember the last time I went somewhere that
wasn't able to split the bill on their end?), but more around casual "I'm
going to go to the store, you need something?" "Yeah, get me some ice cream.
I'll venmo you.". Or for utility payments among roommates.

The guy who was nagging you to give him $3 cash for the cab ride is now
requesting $3 from you on venmo for the uber, but it's the same guy, and he
still needs to chill out and remember you split your case of beer with him
last week.

~~~
rc_kas
"every single person I know uses Venmo"

How does that happen. I don't know a single person who uses Venmo. Not one. I
know a lot of people and I work in Tech.

~~~
rjbwork
I only know 1, I also work in tech.

I, have found developers and other tech workers to be, somewhat ironically,
more "Ludditic" than the general population.

~~~
Terr_
I think it's because we've seen behind the curtain. Product X isn't as
magical, and we've seen how it can go horribly wrong.

I wonder if mechanical engineers tend to be safer drivers...

~~~
Tade0
I have one data point in the form of my father, who is a mechanical engineer.
He always knew what you absolutely _shouldn 't_ do with your car, like give it
gas on turns(wears cv joints in fwd vehicles) or keep the clutch depressed
when you're standing still(wears some bearings I don't remember the name of).

He has had the same car for the past 25 years now.

~~~
rhapsodic
_> keep the clutch depressed when you're standing still(wears some bearings I
don't remember the name of)._

It's the throwout bearing. Your father has a point, but I would rather keep
the clutch in. Too much thinking involved putting it in neutral every time you
stop.

~~~
pacaro
Not putting it in neutral when stopped can contribute to failing your driving
test in the U.K.

~~~
rhapsodic
Aside from reducing wear on the throwout bearing, what is the purpose?

~~~
mirimir
Not having the car jerk forward if your foot slips off the clutch.

~~~
joncrocks
Which it may well do if you get rear-ended. One 'accident' can become two.

~~~
AstralStorm
Technically you're supposed to hold on brakes or a hand brake while idle,
which makes both points moot. Especially important in clutchless cars or other
auto transmissions.

The brakes will hold a slipped clutch and a rear end.

The clutch has an added benefit of you get rear ended and drop it - engine
braking is a thing. Not good for the engine, potentially good for your forward
bumper when you get reared.

~~~
mirimir
> The clutch has an added benefit of you get rear ended and drop it - engine
> braking is a thing.

There's no engine breaking when stopped, if the engine is running.

I typically do keep my foot on the brake when stopped in traffic. And I do
balance brakes, clutch and throttle when stopped on a hill. But except for
stop-and-go traffic, or when getting ready to punch it, using the clutch and
brakes together seems pointless.

------
tedivm
I have never disagreed with something so much.

While I'm financially not doing so bad, I grew up poor. When I was college age
going out with friends was complicated- if we all handled our own bills it was
one thing, but when I'm not drinking and only eating cheap food to save money
splitting the check would literally mean I'm subsidizing other people friends
and could be the difference between being able to afford to go out or not.

Apps like this level the playing field and make it a lot easier for people of
different incomes to socialize together with less awkwardness.

~~~
mjevans
You were either too proud to tell your friends the truth or had bad friends.

~~~
dsjoerg
You haven't had many friendships with diverse income levels.

~~~
treehau5
This problem is even worse when it's not even necessarily income levels that
is the problem, but just different values around money & spending. If you have
the same income level, but find it outrageous to spend x on y, you just get
viewed as a "cheap ass"

It's not my fault I don't want to pay 13 dollars+tip for a cocktail when I can
make 20 of them at home for the same price.

~~~
cakedoggie
> It's not my fault I don't want to pay 13 dollars+tip for a cocktail when I
> can make 20 of them at home for the same price.

Oh, certainly not your fault, but you might be better staying at home. Why
agree to go out somewhere with your friends if you are just going to drink
water?

~~~
treehau5
> Why agree to go out somewhere with your friends if you are just going to
> drink water?

What do you think I'm an amateur? Club soda with lime, in a highball glass.

------
jchw
I'm reading this as someone being upset that they were asked to pay for what
they ordered, with the excuse that the app somehow makes the world less
"chivalrous."

I say whatever. I'm not friends with people because I trade off doing nice
gestures. Some people account for their money and would greatly prefer to
balance the books. Fine. Is it really a big deal to pay what you owe? It's not
like they asked you more effort or money. Pay the fucking invoice.

If someone wants to be nice in Venmo literally nothing is stopping them.
Realistically, when I pay people on Venmo I tend to add a few bucks to round
up. But expecting others to do that kind of thing seems stupid to me. The
person on the other end is not nickling and dining you. You're trying to do
that to them by suggesting you don't just pay the bill.

P.S.: I'm sick of hearing the phrase "silicon valley mentality." It's
literally an app that bills people, there's 10s of them out there, none of
them encourage any specific kind of behavior than what the person behind the
phone takes from it.

~~~
mehwoot
_I 'm reading this as someone being upset that they were asked to pay for what
they ordered_

So you assume some unstated motivation behind something and then get angry
about the thing you just made up? Hmmm...

~~~
jchw
I said reading as not assuming.

------
JumpCrisscross
When I spend more at dinner, I eyeball the cheque and ask for a little more to
be put on my card. If we're alternating between who picks up the tab, I'm
mindful about buying them drinks. Venmo just makes cash-only, "no more than 2
cards" dining and vacation booking easier.

Note that I've had friends try to split bills to the penny. I tell them to
stop, because both our times are worth more than that. (The exception being if
I know they need the extra cents, in which case it still seems more reasonable
to round down in their favour.) That kind of gentle social shaming is
productive and something I've noticed a lot of people my age shy away from.

TL; DR If you think Venmo is ruining your friendships, it probably isn't
Venmo.

~~~
wfunction
Addendum: One useful thing I've found about reimbursing (note: NOT splitting,
which is what you were talking about) some other bills down to the penny is
that it makes it much easier to search for them afterward if you want to
figure out whether you remembered to pay for them. Like if you buy someone
dinner and they insist on paying, don't round $10.49 down to $10 or up to $11.
Because then you have different numbers showing up on different accounts
(credit card statement vs. bank statement vs. Venmo/whatever) and it makes it
harder to see if you remembered to pay for it or not.

Aside from the social awkwardness/pettiness, it doesn't really work for
typical bill splitting anyway, since it's not like they would remember what
amount to search for, given that usually the person paying has the only
receipt. Where this method really shines is when someone is reimbursing you in
a bulk/lump payment -- in that case it's far more valuable to know that the
actual amount was $304.01 instead of just something rounded to $300, since
then it'll be a lot more work to figure out if that payment included a $6.23
item or another $7.98 item or whatever.

~~~
cbhl
If you like this, you might like the free workshops from You Need a Budget. I
like to think of it as teaching "poor person's double entry accounting". (The
workshop is free because they're trying to sell you their $50/year SaaS.)

[https://www.youneedabudget.com/classes/](https://www.youneedabudget.com/classes/)

~~~
wfunction
It's not really about budgeting or tracking your expenses, rather it's about
(1) making it easier to search for the exact amount and having the payment pop
up (e.g. in one shot in your email inbox, in some cases) when others ask you
if they paid, and (2) avoiding a misunderstanding where someone asks you if
they reimbursed you for something a few weeks later and you say "no" because
the amount you looked for didn't match what they actually paid you.

------
gozur88
>"It’s making people less generous and chivalrous,” Ms. Pennoyer said. “It
used to be you’d go to a restaurant, and you’d put down your credit cards and
split it 50-50, even if one person had steak and one had chicken. But now
people pay exactly to the cent."

Spoken like the person who always orders steak.

I don't drink, so I'm always irritated when I go out to dinner with a bunch of
people and someone says "let's just split the tab evenly. It's too much
trouble to figure it all out." Since drinks are so expensive relative to food
either I speak up and look like the jerk or end up paying much more than I
should.

~~~
majormajor
I don't drink, and rarely have the most expensive entree, and hate it when
people try to figure out the exact perfect split of a check. It somehow always
takes longer than it should, if we're all friends here making roughly the same
amount, let's just split it evenly.

Dining out with friends isn't solely about turning dollars into calories.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Considering everyone has a very capable calculator in their pocket, notebook,
and camera in their pocket, it's quite easy to figure out your share. You can
simply note how much your meal and drinks cost, add the tax and tip, and drop
it in the middle as cash at the end.

If you go out often (2+ every one to two weeks), don't drink alcohol ($10+ per
drink in NYC/SF, prob even $15+), and you don't eat meat (+15% I bet on
average for a dish), and don't get dessert ($10+), why on earth should you be
putting in an extra $20 to $50 more per meal? Why would I accept that from
someone I consider a friend, or a guest?

------
Overtonwindow
I don't use this app and this article kind of explains why. If I go to dinner
with friends, or anything, I'd rather pick up the check than worry about
splitting it. The next time, they'll pickup the tab, and so forth. That's what
friends do. I don't know if I'd want to go out with someone who is going to
bill me for it later, or wants to use an app to split things up. For me it
just makes things superficial, awkward, and distant.

~~~
mjw1007
That's a good way to make sure that people with significantly different
amounts of money don't socialise together.

~~~
greenshackle2
Not necessarily. My policy (with close friends) is that if I invite someone,
I'll pick the place and pay. They can pick the place and the tab next time.

I don't want to have to worry about my friend's finances when inviting them
out (I want to grab sushi with Irene, but can she can afford it?).

They can pick a cheaper place or invite me over for a home-cooked meal if they
can't afford to invite me out to a nice restaurant.

I work in tech while most of my close friends are still students, the point is
to be able to do nice (more expensive) things with them, which we could never
do if we always split the bill.

------
mabbo
I think the problem here is expectations. If you went to dinner with a friend,
and thought everything was covered but then later received a bill in the mail
there's an aspect of unexpected demands in it. If your friend said ahead of
time "hey I've got this app that will let us split the bill easily, that
okay?" then you'd be expecting it and there's no social transgression.

Social norms and expectations are the fiction here, not the money itself.

This app won't get much transaction in Canada though- in Toronto at least most
waiters easily handle individual bills for groups. I was at a party of 12 or
so the other day- no issues will the bills, everyone paid for what they
ordered. Better software, or maybe better wait staff, whatever it is, it
works.

~~~
guiomie
I was shocked by the inability of restaurants (literally their policy) in
California to do individual bills. I still can't understand why it's this
way... The only reason I used Venmo was for that.

~~~
KekDemaga
Some credit card services charge a per transaction fee as well as a percentage
so spiting the check can begin to eat into his margins.

~~~
Atheros
Then pass the fee on to the customer.

~~~
Scea91
I have no experience with this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was against
the terms of service with the credit card company.

------
ndonnellan
On the contrary, I find it removes social friction if you go out to eat
relatively often. You can still buy rounds of drinks or pick up the tab; no
one is stopping you from being generous.

In college I found it way more tedious to try and "keep-even" with classmates.
Combine that with any sort of gossip around "they always shortchange" (maybe
they're not good at tax+tip mental calcs), and I'm all for removing
uncertainty from friendly transactions.

 __I most definitely do _not_ allow venmo to share my transaction to my social
circle. That seems just silly.

~~~
maaaats
Yeah, I second that it removes friction. I hate the "lets split the bill
evenly"-approach. It makes me feel like I leech of others if I want something
expensive, and the other way around if I'm not very hungry but have to pay for
everybody else having three courses.

~~~
Volt
Can't you just get your own bill then? I feel like so many people make this to
be way more of a deal than it needs to be.

~~~
Spivak
Because the act of getting your own bill is a statement. It's no secret that
you're doing it because Ted always adds a lobster tail to his steak. Or that
you're doing it because you're going to order a water, no appatizers, and the
Ruben because money is tight. Once you're outside of specific circles 'being
broke' stops being a shared experience and it affects how people view you.

The only time you might be able to get away with it is because you're going to
order the 24oz sirloin and don't want to put that on other people. But that's
a statement in a different direction and could come off as elitest or
insulting.

Pay for what you order lessens this awkwardness.

------
endlessvoid94
Sorry but this is nonsense.

The fact that there is no more rounding is a _better default_ that we no
longer must put any thought into. It's more convenient. I fail to see how it
harms the relationship in a way that's "petty".

This also completely leaves out the inconvenience of planning a large
gathering for friends and fronting all the money yourself. Yes, it may feel
"petty" to be reminded to pay your share, but imagine if 12 people all owed
you $50. I say it's petty to need to be reminded.

Please, someone explain to me how splitting expenses is a negative thing. How
is it petty? How is it more "transaction" and less "relationship"?

~~~
grue2
This article is borderline "Millennial bait," but: Suppose I invite you over
to my apartment to hang out. I offer you a beer. You accept, so I tally "1
beer" on a little notepad.

You have some potato chips. ("13 chips" goes on your tally.) You use the
toilet twice, flushing both times. ("7 gallons of water" goes on your tally.)
You're a bit hot, so I turn up the air conditioning. (I need to break out the
calculator, but "+$0.63 for AC" also goes on your tally.) You tell me about a
sad movie you watched recently. (This reminds me of a family problem I am
having, which is mentally taxing. Since I'll likely need an anxiety pill, I
add a fraction of the prescription cost to your tally.) You suggest a walk in
the park; we go out. Walking makes me thirsty, so I buy a bottle of water.
(But since walking was your idea, I add "1 bottle of water" to your tally.)

Do any of the above come across as petty - or absurd - to you? If so, then
that will give you some idea of how someone might feel that splitting social
meal expenses down to the penny - and with a written record, to boot - feels
transactional. The point is everyone has a threshold where this kind of
Venmo'ing behavior goes from innocently equitable to distrustfully penny-
pinching.

Venmo'ing someone can be the equivalent of saying, "I don't trust that our
relationship will proceed in terms that will average out in such a way that is
fair to me." Insisting on Venmo'ing is a lot like insisting that your
significant other tell you their email password. If you have to insist this in
all cases, maybe rethink your relationship?

~~~
endlessvoid94
I see what you're saying. I'd say the petty part there is the tallying the
small items I offered to you _in my home_.

Going out to a restaurant with a group is not the same thing, though. If there
are three people eating at a moderately priced restaurant and one person picks
up the tab, it's not petty to request reimbursement.

In a cash world, it would be petty to demand exact change because of the extra
effort it requires to produce it. In an automatic payments world, it's no
extra effort on either side.

------
pyrrhotech
>“It’s making people less generous and chivalrous,” Ms. Pennoyer said. “It
used to be you’d go to a restaurant, and you’d put down your credit cards and
split it 50-50, even if one person had steak and one had chicken. But now
people pay exactly to the cent.”

How is this portrayed as a bad thing in the article? This solution to this
problem is the ONLY reason I use Venmo. Perhaps the author was always the one
ordering steak and misses his old friend-subsidized lifestyle.

~~~
bit48
> How is this portrayed as a bad thing in the article?

It takes some of the humanity out of the time spent together. Being generous
with each other is part of how friendships and other relations are formed.

Among friends, boiling it down to a precise transaction is petty. If a friend
is abusing this approach, that says something about both him and your
friendship.

~~~
snakeboy
What if you just happen to enjoy steak and your friend enjoys chicken? Then in
the 50-50 split, you could be seen as "abusing" the system if you two go out
to dinner often, yes?

~~~
vertex-four
A 50-50 split is never how it works out - you look at the bill and think "X
spent about £15 and Y spent about £20, so we'll put that down and then make up
the change between us". Or "let's split the food 50-50 and I'll get the
drinks".

------
inezk
This is one of the worst article I read in a long time - also I couldn't
disagree with it more. I like eating salads and my friends like eating stakes
- Venmo and Square Cash makes it so easy for us to spend time together and
split money in a sensible way (how splitting it in a half would be sensible in
this case?). Saying that this make friendship transactional is just bullshit -
it makes them honest. And people thinking they they are charged for friendship
because they have to pay for their own meal need to rethink it.

~~~
maxxxxx
Totally agree. From my experience the people who get offended are the ones
that eat and drink the most.

------
mherdeg
I think a lot of people are totally unaware that Venmo transaction details are
public-to-the-world. Fascinating experiment in radical transparency.

Also, per NYT:

""More supportively, Noam Waksman, a 24-year-old who works in digital
marketing in New York, said he has “been called out by friends before, for
charging my girlfriend for a meal,” which they had spotted on Venmo.""

This is an interesting dynamic - normally the quasi-transactional stuff in
dating is not made so explicit. A friend who wrote a web app like
Splitwise/Bluechips about ten years back reported that he quickly stopped
working on it because "girlfriends hated it".

~~~
colejohnson66
You can change the publicity of a transaction to private or friends only.

~~~
mherdeg
Oof yeah I should be more precise -- I think the surprise is "public default".

They do make it super easy to find the setting "default audiences for future
transactions: private" plus "past transactions: make to private" and I would
wildly speculate it is interesting that many people don't think about whether
or not they should do that.

------
broknbottle
I don't understand why Venmo is such a popular app. I've always used Square
Cash and just recently tried Venmo for the first time. My sister and I had
dinner and she offered to split the tab. She refused to try Square Cash and
had me download Venmo. On the iPhone it felt like buggy port with some weird
social feature that allows users to see public transaction.

~~~
harryh
Venmo significantly predates Square Cash, and once you get used to using a
particular app for a task switching is a burden, especially for something like
this with a powerful network effect.

~~~
thaumasiotes
As far as I remember, Paypal significantly predates Venmo. What happened
there?

~~~
niketdesai
The Paypal app was late, and didn't really support the seamless Venmo
experience, because initially Venmo allowed you to sign up with a CC and ate
the fees. Later, with enough momentum and usage, they moved people to direct
deposit by adding the CC fee and giving some other incentives.

The company was acquired, along with BrainTree, by Paypal to bolster their
mobile and API-driven payments in the present age.

------
RayVR
They fail to consider that venmo and other simple cash transfer applications
lower the barrier to payment of items down to the penny. Time isn't free and I
would be annoyed if a friend demanded I reimburse down to the penny for
something in hard cash. Asking for me to type a number into an app is so easy
it's petty to worry about those pennies and a waste of time. What a ridiculous
article.

------
canadian_voter
_It is possible to make one’s ledger and contacts private, but many users
overlook these options_ ...

I'm sorry, what? The default is to make all of my transactions public? What
the absolute living f---.

~~~
beisner
It's not all transactions, just social ones. People share their personal
information on social media all the time, particularly information that
relates to a social interaction. Since money is often a component of social
interactions, a public record of social transactions essentially adds no
information to what people have already voluntarily posted on other social
forums. I use Venmo all the time, and since the dollar amounts aren't shown
(only the participants and a short memo) I generally feel comfortable with
public transactions. More sensitive interactions I make sure to set private.

~~~
carrendi
A friend once paid me back for a "sensitive interaction" and put a snowflake
emoji in the comment. I don't know if it was public. It was tacky and
thereafter I only took cash for such transactions.

------
peter303
Classic pre-venmo humor article "Caltech Physicists Successfully Split the
Bill". [http://www.theonion.com/article/caltech-physicists-
successfu...](http://www.theonion.com/article/caltech-physicists-successfully-
split-the-bill-2037)

In the old days it could take as long to split the bill as to eat for a double
digit dinner party. Not to mention cheapskates who conveniently forget
beverages and appetizers.

------
harryh
One paragraph in I thought to myself "haven't I read this before?"

A quick google later: [https://qz.com/687395/venmo-is-turning-our-friends-
into-pett...](https://qz.com/687395/venmo-is-turning-our-friends-into-petty-
jerks/)

~~~
tyingq
That article has a funnier lead. Offering a glass of wine in your own home,
then billing for it afterward. That person was probably an asshole before
venmo existed.

~~~
harryh
Agree! Same basic structure though.

------
nfriedly
Maybe its because I live in a semi-rural part of the Midwest, but I've never
even heard of Venmo.

> _Ms. Pennoyer agreed and recalled childhood taxi rides, when two adults
> would fight to treat the other_

That still happens around here. (Well, we don't really have many Taxis around
here, but it happens with meals at restaurants and such. I can recall
occasions not too long ago where friends and I would all try and sneakily pay
for the meal before the others noticed.)

My wife and I lived in SF for a while and stuff like that is part of the
reason we came back.

~~~
semaphoreP
Yeah, I only use Venmo when I'm on the coasts. None of my friends in the
Midwest have it, and maybe I'm just used to it, but it just felt inefficient
to split the bill and wait for each person to pay with their own credit card
rather than having one person pay and Venmo them back.

------
glangdale
This seems to be a generational and geographical gap. Speaking parochially,
among relatively well-off 40-ish Australians acting like this would mark you
as some kind of cheapskate space alien.

I remember being similarly surprised at the 'down to the last penny' bill-
splitting when I first got to the US, but, as a lot of people remark on in
other threads, many of the social gatherings weren't really very long term
(e.g. a random collection of Bell Labs interns).

I'm sure that there are good reasons people act this way, but the impression
that I have to fight down when someone acts like this that you're either
cheap, broke or paranoid about being taken advantage of. I think there are
occasions where everyone needs to get a little more fine-grained (
_especially_ not doing the thing where non-drinkers subsidize drinkers) but
the amount of time some people fritter away on these calculations makes me
wonder what their time is worth...

~~~
bb611
> among relatively well-off 40-ish Australians

The same is true in the US. Note the ages and geographic locations of the
people mentioned in this article.

Among well-off middle-aged (40+) Americans, in my experience it's more typical
for people to compete to pay the ENTIRE bill, every single time, rather than
attempting to share. Generally it's bad form to seem like you're competing to
pay the bill, but very socially desirable to be known as someone who will pay
the bill (and thus must have the money to do so).

------
foobaw
You can easily keep your transactions private on Venmo. I think the benefits
outweigh the negativity mentioned in the article - it has made our lives more
efficient.

However, their scam protection
([https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/19/15997768/venmo-scam-
fake-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/19/15997768/venmo-scam-fake-payment-
merchant-clause-fraud)) has room for improvement..

------
wink
Ha, such a non-issue to us petty bean counting Germans, we always split the
bill and it's only a problem like once a year with particularly stubborn wait
staff.

Yes, maybe I'm generalizing a bit too much, but you're usually asked if the
bill will be split if you're obviously looking like a couple. I'm leaning
towards preferring that way. I've no problems buying friends a beer or two,
but a) I don't want to be overthinking what I am gonna eat and drink if the
bill will be split evenly (like in other countries) and b) sometimes there's
really people I don't want to subsidize (e.g. coworkers instead of friends).

~~~
sshanky
I lived in Germany in the '90s and loved the way they split bills at the
restaurant. In fact, there wasn't even any "splitting"—you paid for whatever
you ordered. The server wore a money pouch and sometimes even a coin
dispensing machine. She would walk around the table and ask each person what
they ordered, would write the prices down on a neat little recycled paper pad
that was about 1" wide and 6" tall, hand it to you, and you paid her
immediately. No tips (you rounded up sometimes), no guilt—just German
efficiency. Geil!

~~~
wink
Well I'd say tips are common - but in the ballpark of 5%-10%, and also usually
no hard feelings if you don't tip or just round to the nearest EUR.

------
MarkSweep
A few friends and I had dinner together every Wednesday at Tied House. I made
a website to split the bill and track debt, so that every week whoever owed
the most money to everyone paid the bill. The levels of debt stayed pretty
low.

[https://github.com/AustinWise/DinnerKillPoints/](https://github.com/AustinWise/DinnerKillPoints/)

The heart of the system is a bill splitter:

[https://github.com/AustinWise/DinnerKillPoints/blob/db54eec9...](https://github.com/AustinWise/DinnerKillPoints/blob/db54eec94b0698b38cdca6ca628acbc3861374a8/src/DkpWeb/Util/BillSpliter.cs)

And some simple graph algorithms to analyze the debt-graph and render the
results with GraphViz:

[https://github.com/AustinWise/DinnerKillPoints/blob/db54eec9...](https://github.com/AustinWise/DinnerKillPoints/blob/db54eec94b0698b38cdca6ca628acbc3861374a8/src/DkpWeb/Util/DebtGraph.cs)

------
erdojo
I guess I'm too old. Have heard of Venmo but don't know of anyone who uses it.
My friends and I trade off treating each other. It's fun, and no one is
keeping score. I enjoy being generous.

I also suspect this author writes off anecdotal info, not actual data.

Take his comparison to libertarianism. Anyone who studies the actual political
platform/ideology of libertarians know that describing it as "every man for
himself" is a gross oversimplification. I'm not a libertarian myself but I
know it doesn't discourage generosity or philanthropy.

Such lazy references make me think the author heard someone riffing about
Venmo at a bar and decided to write rant.

------
OliverJones
The default setting isn't pro-privacy? Really? WTF?

What's next? I gotta idea! Let's get the app to ask for net promoter scores
...

Would you recommend this friend to a friend ... no=1 yes=10

------
marcoperaza
I find Venmo very useful, but one of the first things I did was make any
payment from or to me private. I don't understand why anyone would want to
make that public.

~~~
tylerhou
Well, there is a multi-billion dollar industry built on top of public
transaction records...

------
siliconc0w
Splitting the check used to be a ridiculous exercise of handing the wait staff
a deck of plastic with instructions like '20 more on the blue card'. So now
one person can bear the costs and charge everyone at the end of the evening.
This is marginally better, ideally you could just 'venmo' the venue directly
but this would upset the mediocrity of US banking infra and the card
monopolies.

------
a13n
I recently deleted venmo in favor of fb messenger pay. I think it's US only
right now, but it's just one less app on my phone. I also always hated how
venmo held on to your money if you forgot to withdraw it.

It also just makes sense. I send and receive text, photos, videos, and now
money from friends in one place.

------
Sukotto
If you're from the old school and prefer something commandlineish, Ward
Cunningham has a neat little AWK script to calculate everybody's share of a
group expense:

[http://c2.com/doc/expense/](http://c2.com/doc/expense/)

------
kharms
I used to be a big fan venmo as a cash/check replacement, until a friend
needed some emergency cash. Tried to venmo them, both accounts ended up being
frozen for over a week. A check + USPS would have been 6 days faster.

------
teen
I'm pretty sure nothing has changed, it's just easier to split bills now.

------
rayj
This is not a good idea. I don't want some company like
venmo/paypal/brantree/visa looking datamining every last cent and transaction
that I spend. Who knows who they could sell the data to or if they get hacked.
Just use cash and tell the server what you ordered. They will give you an
individual check, with totals on it. If theres >10 people yes you might need
to pay 10% extra fee but that's better than subsidizing someone's 3 $15
cocktails, $30 steak, $10 dessert.

------
rand77763
I refuse to link my financial activity and things involving my physical
address to Facebook, which Venmo seems to require. This is insanity to me. And
I am a millennial as well.

~~~
tradersam
I use Venmo without a Facebook account. Works fine.

------
jhanschoo
I find that this article's contention of nickel-and-dining millennial is one
instance where technology has enabled a huge change in social mores.

Nickel-and-dining was a problem in the days of loose change, where counting
small change was a huge hassle. With Venmo this problem simply does not exist.
On the other hand, I would say that payments and reimbursements between
friends accurate to the penny on Venmo reflects well on you as a conscientious
person.

------
carrendi
One friend of mine will regularly pay for group dinners or events and Venmo
each person their share. He does this so he can get rewards/points on his
card.

~~~
Spivak
I do this too. I use my credit card for everything but my SO only uses it for
big/online purchases so I love splitting things with her. Double the cash
back!

------
fierarul
This is clearly a PR piece for Venmo disguised as some sort analysis of grave
social change.

I never heard of Venmo before this article! How did it end up on the HN front
page?

Also see
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

------
Pxtl
Huh. I've never even heard of this app in Canada. Around my office we just use
PayPal for that kind of thing where needed. Hamilton here (near Toronto).

I've found a lot of us startup brands missed the boat invading Canada and let
eBay eat their lunch here. Kijiji beat Craigslist for example.

------
cscurmudgeon
NYTimes susbscriptions:

Starting at a low $2.63 per week.

------
colecut
"Teddy Wayne’s most recent novel, 'Loner,' comes out in paperback in August."

I thought that was funny.

------
tigershark
Honestly it sounds extremely freaky.. I didn't know that people in the valley,
that probably earn some multiple of my income, were so scaringly attached to
fractions of dimes when going out with friends that they desperately needed an
app for this huge first world problem..

~~~
walshemj
in many places I have worked this petty attitude would get you marked as not a
culture fit

------
makecheck
Thanks to Venmo, I now know all about transactions between people I don't
know. I honestly can't understand why that stream is considered useful _at
all_ , much less as a feature that has the entire first tab devoted to it.

------
grenoire
For some reason, I never felt this as a friction or problem needed to be
resolved. In the Netherlands everybody (really!) uses debit cards, so it's
easy to have people pay for what they got.

Beer, however, is when you get to be charitable.

------
stefkors
The funny thing about these services is, is that in europe they have a hard
time getting ground. With most banks the default bank app can do these things.
Some things like requesting money also across different banks.

------
type-2
This is cultural, your response this behaviour is based on your upbringing.

------
DrScump
Venmo is fine used among friends but is a major fraud vector otherwise.

I expect most other uses of Venmo in the USA to be supplanted by Zelle over
time.

------
Insanity
I had never even heard of this app. Yet it seems to be for people in my
generation (25). I'm really happy that this is not something that happens in
my social circles.

Could be a cultural thing. Most of my social circles involve Latin American
people, which is quite a mindset difference from the standard European /
American mindset.

Though, even with my European friends this does not happen. I don't mind
having paid more than one of my friends at the end of the evening, it'll even
out eventually.

~~~
consz
What if it doesn't even out eventually? I like to get 4-5 cocktails when I go
out, and am usually the one getting steak instead of chicken (to use the
article's analogy) -- so I almost always dine on significantly more than the
average person at the table. If we just split uniformly, I'm definitely taking
advantage of the other people at the table, so what options are there? Of
course, I could pitch in more for that evening's bill, but once we're at the
point that we're splitting it unevenly, then I don't see how that's any
different than venmoing someone instead, and that's a lot easier than dealing
with cash.

------
ishbaid
Between Venmo, FB, Twitter, and now SnapMap it's scary how much you can learn
about a person you've never even met...

~~~
ishbaid
Also, wouldn't be shocked to start seeing venmo exchanges being used in
courtcases

------
wodenokoto
So asking for 31.61 is socially unacceptable, while asking people to mail you
a check is okay?

------
metaprogrammed
Another 'how [tech company/product] is ruining [social norm]' thought piece.

~~~
prodtorok
Right, and this is more of an evolution of generation. This is a social norm
amongst millennials.

~~~
eropple
Not in my neck of the woods. If you sent a Venmo request amongst us you would
be invariably called an asshole (and it wouldn't be a kind way of saying it,
that sort of thing is real shitty). We use Venmo to push money around (Square
Cash is nicer, but that ship has sailed), but it's more like "ehh, $25 is
about right and I'll get it next time so the rounding will work in my favor".

We are not doing down-to-the-penny nonsense because that would be silly and we
are not _dunning our friends_ because that would be awful.

~~~
prodtorok
I live in a transplant city dominated by young professionals. Multiple
roommates (paying for utilities, grocery shopping together, house-shopping),
many nights out a week with friends, etc. all yield to a multitude of spotting
cash/credit for everyone.

The only assholes are the ones who freeload often. venmo keeps everyone in
check.

What is your neck of the woods, partner?

~~~
eropple
I live in Boston, which is about as young-and-transplanty as it gets.

I don't know, maybe I just hang out with folks who take friendship with a
degree of seriousness, but nobody I know would _need_ to dun somebody in
either our group or our extended group to pay their share. You grab the bill,
you eyeball it for your stuff, you add twenty percent for tip, you're done.

If you try to freeload, you just wouldn't be invited again. Because friends
don't do that, just as they don't send each other invoices.

------
thinbeige
OT: Long time ago, I had friends who made 150k-200k/yr. You won't believe it
but they remembered every single Euro they lent and always insisted on the pay
back. Never met such folks again.

------
ahallock
I've been using Square Cash lately.

------
ryanx435
Paid propaganda piece (TM)

------
zitterbewegung
I see systems like Venmo being commoditized and Venmo being an acquisition
target or being disruptive for large banks . My reasoning is below.

I must not be a true milennial (29) .The new hip social networks don’t make
sense to me or don’t work. Not only that but if this is a feature of Vennmo
I’ll stay with only transferring cash to people with boring old Chase Quickpay
with a bank account I don’t have to pay for without Venmo fees.

Edit: Sorry I should have read up on this.

~~~
CydeWeys
Venmo was already acquired by PayPal last year. I don't think it's an
acquisition target anymore.

~~~
dguo
And technically, Venmo was acquired by Braintree, which was subsequently
acquired by PayPal.

