Monday, September 22, 2014

Paypal Pounces on Apple Pay (Rewrite)


It seems PayPal is unhappy having a major contender in the online payment field. It reminds me of the discussions we've had in class about technological revolution. Technology industries must adapt or fade away when better technologies are developed. Since Apple is entering PayPal's industry with something only marginally different, the situation is not exactly the same, but the effects are. The linked article points out that Apple has a better public reputation than PayPal, which means the public should be more likely to use Apple's service. Not only that, but Apple's service is accepted at brick-and-mortar retailers while, to my knowledge, PayPal is not. I believe that PayPal will become irrelevant unless they find a way to outdo Apple Pay or figure out a way to exist alongside Apple's new service.

2 comments:

  1. There are a few brick and mortar stores that accept Paypal, but I don't know of anyone that actually uses the feature. Apple has the huge advantage that they can integrate Apple Pay really well with the iPhone and make it super easy to use. So I completely agree that Paypal will become irrelevant unless they do something radical soon. On the other hand Paypal does have a large international presence and is one of the top online credit card processors, but many other companies are eating into that market as well.

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  2. I actually did see a headline while looking for another current event that PayPal is partnering with another company to use their payment system on a smartwatch or something similar. So they realize that they're late to the game and need to jump in.

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