PayPal Demos Auto-Debit Gumball Machine

ForgedArtificer writes "At their recent developers conference in San Diego, CA, PayPal unveiled a proof-of-concept gumball machine that would instantly pay for a gumball through a PayPal account using a smart phone and a QR code, sending a confirmation of the purchase through Twitter. Ok, maybe we all don't really care if we can get a gumball without a quarter, but the possibilities for this technology are endless."

Banking regulations.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is PayPal *not* a bank again? O.o

My credit card doesn't run out of batteries

[igreaterthanu]

My smart phone does. This will never be able to replace other forms of money until they get that one sorted.

A: Because it disrupts the flow of a message

[DNS-and-BIND]

Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly irritating?

Re:My credit card doesn't run out of batteries

[ziggyzaggy]

your credit card can't make 25 cent payments. I believe we'll go to a cashless society, all electronic money. That way the banking cartel can get a cut of every transaction no matter how small, and the government can tax, monitor and control all transactions no matter how small. If they consider you a pestilent person, they will cut off your ability to buy and sell.

Here come the overdrafts

[BigSlowTarget]

Wonderful. Since Paypal is linked to checking accounts now you can expect that should a hold be placed on a check you deposit or if there's a bank error you'll be in for a $33.05 gumball.

...endless stupidity

[holophrastic]

So let's see. The gumball is a simple sphere that cost a penny to produce, and was produced in a batch of thousands. The gumball machine -- read dispensor -- cost ten dollars to produce, adn was produced in a batch of hundreds. The consumer is standing not twelve inches away from a needless and insignificant candy treat.

The perfect solution is not:

a more expensive dispensor, more competant consumer, a mobile phone, a fancy barcode -- read smart phone -- a web-site -- read web browser -- a privacy policy -- actually four -- Internet infrastructure, cellular infrastructure, a phone plan, a data plan, customer service, tech support, a collections agency, anti-fraud measures, and a PIN.

The perfect solution is a hammer. The quarter was already a nuissance. This is just stupid.

Oh yeah, and a bank account. How silly of me.

Re:My credit card doesn't run out of batteries

[igreaterthanu]

how is this any different from swiping an EFTPOS card?

PayPal gets it's 1% or whatever the current rate is.

Re:Banking regulations.

[cob666]

PayPal wants everybody to believe that its a simple escrow service but I agree that its acting more and more like a bank, if they are considered a banking entity in the UK and other countries in Europe then they should be operating as a bank in the US. PayPal simply has far too much control over YOUR money and regardless of what their TOS state it should be far more difficult for them to arbitrarily hold people's money and/or freeze their account.

Re:...endless stupidity

[holophrastic]

It's not proof of concept. It's a fun sunday tinkering in the basement.

Try to count the number of things you could do with that sort of concept -- actually. Then think about how many of those things would be better off as a result. Odds are, it's very close to none.

People like to do such things -- link together a dozen systems to show how cool things can be when you link together a bunch of systems. And it is really cool -- it's like art. Entertaining and totally useless.

It's almost never better to link together multiple systems as opposed to building a dedicated single-structure solution. Sure it's often cheaper, and faster, and worse, and worser, and worsest.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link -- because it has absolutely zero redundancy on any one of its many links. But it's easier and cheaper to manufacture, and it's more flexible than a cable.

So what solution would have you rely on, in this case, your bank, twitter, your phone, your ISP, your phone plan, and the dispensor's isp, its plan, its twitter account, and its paypal account?

Talk about surface area for bugs, adn for attack, and for privacy, fraud, and general distrust.

The same would hold true no matter what you're buying over such a system.

Re:Banking regulations.

[hedwards]

An escrow service doesn't generally get to keep the money that it's moving. Usually they get some sort of a cut of the transfer whether or not it's successful. But the remainder has to be given to either of the two parties involved in all cases. Either the intended recipient or if that's not possible back to the originating party.

Paypal however takes the position that in the middle they own the money and can do with it what they like. They can pass in on as intended or they can refund it back or secret option C they can just keep it and drag their feet giving it back.

Re:My credit card doesn't run out of batteries

[noidentity]

Here in the US we have a device [wikipedia.org] which also charges no fees to either the buyer or the seller. They have a nice feature in that if you lose one, nobody can access the rest of your money.

Re:My credit card doesn't run out of batteries

[igreaterthanu]

Holding US currency is essentially the same as giving the Federal Reserve an interest free loan and it takes much longer to count and hand out change than most electronic transactions. In addition it is nice and easy for any thief to steal. Yes cash is good for fall-back but it has it's issues as well.

Re:endless possibilities

[Sulphur]

I thought you paid for police chases afterwards.

Re:endless possibilities

[zonky]

Yes, everyone will be able to quickly and easily swap cheap payments via paypal, then there will be a fraud allegation, and someone's paypal account will be frozen permanently.

People stupid enough to trust paypal with their record of appalling behaviour deserve what they get.

Why is Twitter involved?

[Animats]

Why run this through Twitter? If the server wants to send an SMS message, it should just send an SMS message using an SMS gateway. Why package it as a "tweet?"

(I suspect why. So they can spam you. It's illegal to send unsolicited commercial SMS messages in the US. If PayPal makes you "follow" them on Twitter to get transaction confirmations, they can then send you ads, too.)

Re:Why is Twitter involved?

[Anonymous Coward]

My suspicion is more for the simple marketing value of the name Twitter being involved. The weight many companies and people give to Twitter is staggering - e.g., CNN broadcasting any fucking thing any idiot sends them on Twitter as though the twit speaks for an entire generation of people. If you don't have a good idea, add the name Twitter and suddenly it's a much better idea.