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on paypal sucking and related topics
If you haven't heard any paypal horror story, I'm mildly surprised; I've heard a bunch, and seen firsthand just how randomly sucky they can be, but just in case it's news the latest episode of the one that's been making the rounds lately is here: http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/06/sooner-or-later-youll-pay-pal/
I have a really annoying relationship with paypal. In some ways it's really useful, and on the face of it the service they offer is of fantastic utility and does things that really weren't possible before, but their management of same is the very essence of arbitrary and capricious, and once you do anything that's at all different from what everybody else is doing they're liable to freeze every asset within reach with no notice and with very little particularly meaningful oversight or recourse unless you can manage a bunch of negative publicity.
From where I sit, that entire last paragraph works just as well with "google" instead of "paypal". The assets, one might note, are electronic communications and social networks instead of money, which surely makes a difference, but either way it represents value and I don't find either company particularly trustworthy. While most people have always taken some care with their money it seems rather more popular to put one's entire online identity into rather more shaky online edifice instead.
Consider this, perhaps, an urging to occasionally contemplate the nature of one's business relationships, particularly those with large companies with complex and opaque motives.
I have a really annoying relationship with paypal. In some ways it's really useful, and on the face of it the service they offer is of fantastic utility and does things that really weren't possible before, but their management of same is the very essence of arbitrary and capricious, and once you do anything that's at all different from what everybody else is doing they're liable to freeze every asset within reach with no notice and with very little particularly meaningful oversight or recourse unless you can manage a bunch of negative publicity.
From where I sit, that entire last paragraph works just as well with "google" instead of "paypal". The assets, one might note, are electronic communications and social networks instead of money, which surely makes a difference, but either way it represents value and I don't find either company particularly trustworthy. While most people have always taken some care with their money it seems rather more popular to put one's entire online identity into rather more shaky online edifice instead.
Consider this, perhaps, an urging to occasionally contemplate the nature of one's business relationships, particularly those with large companies with complex and opaque motives.