Re: The dollar REALLY sucks again
ultrakaiju wrote:
I haven't heard of Ripple, but I am definitely willing to give anything else a go. I think the real issue here will be overcoming how ingrained PayPal has become with businesses/online retailers. For instance, even if by some miracle a better search were to come along, it would be incredibly difficult to surpass Google. It has just become so ubiquitous already, that Paypal is almost as recognisable a brand as Visa. I hope that people are willing to accept change, and some newcomers can manage to gain market share from something that started out just for ebay, which it is/was great for, but has gotten too big/greedy for its own good.
It's related to Bitcoin (I posted a link in the BTC thread), but it's an all-encompasing exchange - if you have any type of currency (including their own cryptocurrency - the Ripple) in an account you can send someone money within seconds in any type of currency you want. It sounds like the system automatically finds the best exchange rate, and the "fee" is something like 1/4000th of a cent.
And I hear what you're saying about Paypal/Google. But I think back to previous "social network" iterations that were the end-all be-all at the time - I never participated in them, but my wife was heavily involved with LiveJournal, then Myspace, and now it's Facebook and nobody gives LJ/MS a second thought. Sure, it seems like Facebook, Google, and Paypal are here to stay - but it's probably just a matter of time before something new takes their place.
