Twitter

[ChpBstrd]

Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!

But would he enjoy being blacked out?

Would anyone even notice over there at this point, outside of the nazis?

Musk might love the opportunity to be cancel-martyred by the libs of Europe. It would be his excuse for the collapse of Twitter under his watch.

[LennStar]

Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!

But would he enjoy being blacked out?

Would anyone even notice over there at this point, outside of the nazis?

Hey, I still watch this live!

Though I haven't opened the "for you" algo feed for weeks. It's a blue-brown swamp everywhere. Blue here being the "new" far right party in Germany. I literally had their bosses (who I of course not follow) turn up first tweet about a dozen times in 30 times opening it since tweetdeck was closed and "recommended to follow" is generally a mix of Elon and 2 of those party officials or sometimes a far right media.

[jinga nation]

Joke's on the EU, they have no revenue!

But would he enjoy being blacked out?

That statement is triple X-rated. Chapeau!

[jinga nation]

There is now a European Union reaction to free speech/unchecked stochastic terrorist activities on Twitter/X. /s

EU warns Elon Musk over ‘disinformation’ on X about Hamas attack
Failing to moderate content such as fake news could incur fine of 6% of X revenues or EU blackout under new laws
Lisa O'Carroll in Brussels
Tue 10 Oct 2023

“Public media and civil society organisations widely report instances of fake and manipulated images and facts circulating on your platform in the EU, such as repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games. This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information,” he said.

“Let me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation,” Breton said, adding that changes in X’s public interest policies raised questions about his compliance to the new rules.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/10/eu-warns-elon-musk-over-disinformation-about-hamas-attack-on-x

Came across this today: https://mastodon.social/@andrewstroehlein/111215427625041401

Anti-discrimination officer Ataman: Federal Government should no longer communicate via Platform X (translated title)
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/antidiskriminierungsbeauftragte-ataman-bundesregierung-sollte-nicht-mehr-ueber-die-plattform-x-kommu-100.html

Also: https://social.growyourown.services/@FediFollows/110742264490530166
Germany has its own Mastodon server for its federal and state government accounts.

[Metalcat]

Whed did Handmaid's Tale become a "How To" guide for billionaires?

https://slate.com/technology/2023/10/elon-musk-grimes-babies-pronatalism-research.html

[PeteD01]

Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.

[Metalcat]

Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.

Oh I'm not too concerned about his children, he doesn't actually seem all that interested in them, nor do I think they feature much in terms of his succession planning.

They're just collateral damage so far.

But for sure some of the new up and coming billionaires who worships Musk and has Thiel whispering sweet nothings in their ears are likely to buy into this whole fertility as a crisis thing and have read a lot of Jordan Peterson and really double down on forced monogamy and forced fertility as a moral imperative.

As a woman who very vocally has never wanted children, I have to say that certain patterns of talk are starting to make me uncomfortable in ways that I never anticipated being an issue.

[PeteD01]

Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.

Oh I'm not too concerned about his children, he doesn't actually seem all that interested in them, nor do I think they feature much in terms of his succession planning.

They're just collateral damage so far.

But for sure some of the new up and coming billionaires who worships Musk and has Thiel whispering sweet nothings in their ears are likely to buy into this whole fertility as a crisis thing and have read a lot of Jordan Peterson and really double down on forced monogamy and forced fertility as a moral imperative.

As a woman who very vocally has never wanted children, I have to say that certain patterns of talk are starting to make me uncomfortable in ways that I never anticipated being an issue.

Well it is Nazi talk, so being uncomfortable with that kind of drivel is a perfectly normal reaction.

Musk is not an original thinker and all that talk about the fertility crisis is really just echoes of eugenics and the SS program "Lebensborn".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn

[Metalcat]

Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.

Oh I'm not too concerned about his children, he doesn't actually seem all that interested in them, nor do I think they feature much in terms of his succession planning.

They're just collateral damage so far.

But for sure some of the new up and coming billionaires who worships Musk and has Thiel whispering sweet nothings in their ears are likely to buy into this whole fertility as a crisis thing and have read a lot of Jordan Peterson and really double down on forced monogamy and forced fertility as a moral imperative.

As a woman who very vocally has never wanted children, I have to say that certain patterns of talk are starting to make me uncomfortable in ways that I never anticipated being an issue.

Well it is Nazi talk, so being uncomfortable with that kind of drivel is a perfectly normal reaction.

Musk is not an original thinker and all that talk about the fertility crisis is really just echoes of eugenics and the SS program "Lebensborn".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn

Oh for sure.

The book The Tragedy of Heterosexuality covers the history of marriage in North America really well and how white supremacist propaganda makes up so much of the foundation of our modern conceptualization of heterosexual relationships.

Musk is definitely not an original thinker and it's not hard to see his influences when he speaks.

[Phenix]

Fortunately, regression toward the mean assures that that Elmo's offspring will, more likely than not, on average be less twisted and smarter than Elmo himself.

Oh I'm not too concerned about his children, he doesn't actually seem all that interested in them, nor do I think they feature much in terms of his succession planning.

They're just collateral damage so far.

But for sure some of the new up and coming billionaires who worships Musk and has Thiel whispering sweet nothings in their ears are likely to buy into this whole fertility as a crisis thing and have read a lot of Jordan Peterson and really double down on forced monogamy and forced fertility as a moral imperative.

As a woman who very vocally has never wanted children, I have to say that certain patterns of talk are starting to make me uncomfortable in ways that I never anticipated being an issue.

Well it is Nazi talk, so being uncomfortable with that kind of drivel is a perfectly normal reaction.

Musk is not an original thinker and all that talk about the fertility crisis is really just echoes of eugenics and the SS program "Lebensborn".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn

Oh for sure.

The book The Tragedy of Heterosexuality covers the history of marriage in North America really well and how white supremacist propaganda makes up so much of the foundation of our modern conceptualization of heterosexual relationships.

Musk is definitely not an original thinker and it's not hard to see his influences when he speaks.

With rave reviews from the likes of Bitch Magazine and Pink News, I'm sure it's a very reasoned and well balanced book [sarcasm].

Here's an excerpt from one of the top customer reviews: Her case for the tragedy of heterosexuality is made from a non-random survey of relationship self-help books, “pick-up artist” workshops, celebrity couples’ tweets, memes, and a survey of her straight-bashing friends. But the vast majority of straight individuals don’t engage with relationship self-help books and very few men pay for pick-up workshops (it stands to reason that only those for whom heterosexuality isn’t working out consume such products); and memes and tweets are not representative of individuals’ hearts and minds (or vice versa). Her focus is on the unrepresentative and pathological fringe, but she never acknowledges this. It is bizarre to me that she would generalize from these, but if you subscribe to the view that we’re all just vesicles of culture and “there’s nothing outside the text,” or if you don’t actually ask a representative sample of individuals how they feel and think, maybe such conclusions seem justified.
To be clear, I do not intend to minimize the destructiveness of misogyny or defend heteropatriarchy. But as a scholar who has published regularly in the fields of relationships and stereotyping, I want to emphasize that her cherry-picked data are at odds with the scientific consensus: a seriously problematic minority aside, most straight men and women actually like their romantic partners and feel warmly toward the “opposite” sex.

Sounds like there were many moral/ethical missteps in her "research" to get to the book's conclusion. As an academic myself, I enjoy reading a well researched topic. I will not be partaking in this book, nor would I feel comfortable recommending it to others interested in the topic.

[Metalcat]

With rave reviews from the likes of Bitch Magazine and Pink News, I'm sure it's a very reasoned and well balanced book [sarcasm].

Here's an excerpt from one of the top customer reviews: Her case for the tragedy of heterosexuality is made from a non-random survey of relationship self-help books, “pick-up artist” workshops, celebrity couples’ tweets, memes, and a survey of her straight-bashing friends. But the vast majority of straight individuals don’t engage with relationship self-help books and very few men pay for pick-up workshops (it stands to reason that only those for whom heterosexuality isn’t working out consume such products); and memes and tweets are not representative of individuals’ hearts and minds (or vice versa). Her focus is on the unrepresentative and pathological fringe, but she never acknowledges this. It is bizarre to me that she would generalize from these, but if you subscribe to the view that we’re all just vesicles of culture and “there’s nothing outside the text,” or if you don’t actually ask a representative sample of individuals how they feel and think, maybe such conclusions seem justified.
To be clear, I do not intend to minimize the destructiveness of misogyny or defend heteropatriarchy. But as a scholar who has published regularly in the fields of relationships and stereotyping, I want to emphasize that her cherry-picked data are at odds with the scientific consensus: a seriously problematic minority aside, most straight men and women actually like their romantic partners and feel warmly toward the “opposite” sex.

Sounds like there were many moral/ethical missteps in her "research" to get to the book's conclusion. As an academic myself, I enjoy reading a well researched topic. I will not be partaking in this book, nor would I feel comfortable recommending it to others interested in the topic.

Interesting, having read the book I enjoyed the section on history and it sent me down a path of reviewing a lot of the history she covered. There are basically two sections to the book, a historical review and then more of her personal perspective on the present.

I was able to see her personal perspective on the present as her personal perspective, but enjoyed a lot of the history.

To be fair, it's also well reviewed by The New York Times, Sage Journals, Georgetown University, Cambridge University Press, etc, etc, not just feminist sources. As a former academic myself I felt pretty comfortable reading it after seeing the caliber of reviews it had.

I also didn't consider the content of the book to be overly radical, it was pretty tame in its conclusions in general, IMO. But my whole point in mentioning it was that it discusses the history that white supremacy played in our modern conceptualization of marriage.

ETA: this review from Georgetown Kennedy Institute of Ethics covers pretty much everything stated in the book and the research sources for the history

https://kiej.georgetown.edu/jane-ward-the-tragedy-of-heterosexuality-nyu-press-2020/

[Phenix]

With rave reviews from the likes of Bitch Magazine and Pink News, I'm sure it's a very reasoned and well balanced book [sarcasm].

Here's an excerpt from one of the top customer reviews: Her case for the tragedy of heterosexuality is made from a non-random survey of relationship self-help books, “pick-up artist” workshops, celebrity couples’ tweets, memes, and a survey of her straight-bashing friends. But the vast majority of straight individuals don’t engage with relationship self-help books and very few men pay for pick-up workshops (it stands to reason that only those for whom heterosexuality isn’t working out consume such products); and memes and tweets are not representative of individuals’ hearts and minds (or vice versa). Her focus is on the unrepresentative and pathological fringe, but she never acknowledges this. It is bizarre to me that she would generalize from these, but if you subscribe to the view that we’re all just vesicles of culture and “there’s nothing outside the text,” or if you don’t actually ask a representative sample of individuals how they feel and think, maybe such conclusions seem justified.
To be clear, I do not intend to minimize the destructiveness of misogyny or defend heteropatriarchy. But as a scholar who has published regularly in the fields of relationships and stereotyping, I want to emphasize that her cherry-picked data are at odds with the scientific consensus: a seriously problematic minority aside, most straight men and women actually like their romantic partners and feel warmly toward the “opposite” sex.

Sounds like there were many moral/ethical missteps in her "research" to get to the book's conclusion. As an academic myself, I enjoy reading a well researched topic. I will not be partaking in this book, nor would I feel comfortable recommending it to others interested in the topic.

Interesting, having read the book I enjoyed the section on history and it sent me down a path of reviewing a lot of the history she covered. There are basically two sections to the book, a historical review and then more of her personal perspective on the present.

I was able to see her personal perspective on the present as her personal perspective, but enjoyed a lot of the history.

To be fair, it's also well reviewed by The New York Times, Sage Journals, Georgetown University, Cambridge University Press, etc, etc, not just feminist sources. As a former academic myself I felt pretty comfortable reading it after seeing the caliber of reviews it had.

I also didn't consider the content of the book to be overly radical, it was pretty tame in its conclusions in general, IMO. But my whole point in mentioning it was that it discusses the history that white supremacy played in our modern conceptualization of marriage.

ETA: this review from Georgetown Kennedy Institute of Ethics covers pretty much everything stated in the book and the research sources for the history

https://kiej.georgetown.edu/jane-ward-the-tragedy-of-heterosexuality-nyu-press-2020/

First off, let me apologize for coming off snarky. I see now that you were referring to the historical aspect of the book and I am sure there are pieces of the book that are well-written and useful. I will attempt to read the Georgetown review you linked this afternoon.

[Metalcat]

First off, let me apologize for coming off snarky. I see now that you were referring to the historical aspect of the book and I am sure there are pieces of the book that are well-written and useful. I will attempt to read the Georgetown review you linked this afternoon.

Awe, super frickin' nice of you to apologize! I appreciate that.

Anyhoo, not much about that book matters in this thread, the only relevance was the historical stuff and Elon's fixation on some pretty creepy-ass breeder ideology.

Feel free to hop into my journal if you want to talk about that book, we frequently talk about the books I like there.

[Metalcat]

So yeah, the more Twitter fails, the more he's doubling down on turning it into a new PayPal, because apparently Elon is just out of ideas.

IDK, maybe there's more juice in the "banks suck" lemon to squeeze, but it seems like a stretch to me to basically destroy Twitter and turn it into an alt right hellscape and then expect people to want to trust the app with all of their banking.

That feels like a hard sell.

I mean, for sure, the Elon of old in whom the media could find no fault, pre-Twitter, pre-pandemic Elon who everyone thought was an untouchable, futurist genius?

Sure, I think people would have fallen over themselves to use his social media, banking alternative, "everything" app, especially if it integrated with his self driving car network. Sure, I can absolutely see that working.

But is the world really eager to trust their finances to Musk the Megalomaniac who commits SEC violations just for the entertainment value?

IDK, people adopted PayPal largely because it made eBay usable, and eBay was in and of itself incredible useful at the time. But I think most people by now know that some sketchy shit was done to make PayPal possible.

What unmet need does Musk think he can meet with a banking service? That's not a facetious question. I know there are a lot of banking issues in the US, so I can imagine there is a substantial unmet need that a large banking alternative could possibly meet.

But I'm curious what those are and what the beleaguered remaining staff at Twitter might be terrorized into coming up with?

I'm in Canada where we have a very different banking system from the US. I'm curious if some Americans can maybe weigh in on if a Musky banking alternative might actually be something people want???

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23934216/x-twitter-bank-elon-musk-2024

[Taran Wanderer]

I work with some people who have this weird distrust in banks and the Fed, and they think that crypto is going to be more secure for them than FDIC-insured-accounts-that-the-Fed-can-wipe-out-with-the-push-of-a-button.  (Their emphasis, not mine.)  But would they trust Elon more?  Maybe... but I have no idea why.

[FINate]

I'm in Canada where we have a very different banking system from the US. I'm curious if some Americans can maybe weigh in on if a Musky banking alternative might actually be something people want???

Only hyper-libertarian crypto bros who think Elon can do no wrong and is playing 4D chess. You see these guys (and they're mostly guys) all over message boards defending his every move as brilliant. I'm kinda okay if they loose all their money to Elon.

[Travis]

My prediction: if he manages to install some kind of financial service, he'll immediately run afoul of PCI-DSS and US/EU banking regulations because he has no compliance staff. They'll raise hell and take him to court, but he'll take to the airwaves and say "no, no, this is totally something different. The rules don't apply to me."

Remember this is the same guy who over the last year has pretty much said "if you want me to pay my bills or follow regulations you're going to have to sue me first."

Sure, let's give him access to our money.

So we already don't know who is on the other side of the Tweet because his identify verification/pay-to-play system is broken, there are few moderations/filters on content, he wants to handle people's money, and start a dating service all on the same platform? Can you see where these concepts might intersect disastrously?

[Metalcat]

My prediction: if he manages to install some kind of financial service, he'll immediately run afoul of PCI-DSS and US/EU banking regulations because he has no compliance staff. They'll raise hell and take him to court, but he'll take to the airwaves and say "no, no, this is totally something different. The rules don't apply to me."

Remember this is the same guy who over the last year has pretty much said "if you want me to pay my bills or follow regulations you're going to have to sue me first."

Sure, let's give him access to our money.

So we already don't know who is on the other side of the Tweet because his identify verification/pay-to-play system is broken, there are few moderations/filters on content, he wants to handle people's money, and start a dating service all on the same platform? Can you see where these concepts might intersect disastrously?

This is where I get tripped up.

I've read a number of books that discuss the history of PayPal and it's not exactly an above board story of how they managed to get it set up. I think it's pretty common knowledge by now that they innovated by breaking rules and then being forced to backtrack.

I mean, fair, the banking system was lagging and there was desperate need for innovation. But in the age of digital banking, y'know, existing, and fraud within those systems being rampant, is Elon really expecting the public to trust their core banking with him?

The guy famous for thinking compliance is a joke?

I mean, I know not everyone reads books about PayPal, but isn't it fairly common knowledge that early PayPal was actually drowning in fraud and that they were forced to put measures in to address it, which is why they implemented the small deposit system??

Sure, we may all have rushed to use PayPal so that we could buy cool items off of eBay, but PayPal was always sketchy enough that I wouldn't ever want to move all of my banking over to it.

He's saying he wants it to be more than a payment system, he wants people to migrate all of their banking over to whatever magical system they create in the next year, lol.

But then X would have to become not just a payment system, which really isn't needed, we have plenty of those. It would have to become some kind of bank. And banking is ALL about regulations and arcane rules.

It just sounds to me like the Fyre Festival or Theranos or WeWork of banking. Some grand idea that's going to quickly start falling apart because it's not actually possible and no amount of yelling at staff or claiming to be "innovating" will make it possible. And in the end *something* will be delivered, but it will cost a fortune to get there and the end product won't be useful.

At least that's how this sounds.

It sounds like he's grasping for something, reaching back into the old back of tricks and resuscitating old ideas from PayPal, and thinking he can "if it isn't broken, break it" his way to radical innovation through terrorizing his Twitter staff who have never really been on board with him from the beginning.

It really doesn't sound like innovative genius, it sounds like desperation.

I just can't see the play here. I can't see Musk even being able to function in a banking regulation space, and I can't see the value he could possibly add. Especially not in a time where people are increasingly concerned about fraud and the stability of US banks.

That's why I was looking for feedback, I was wondering if I was missing something. But I guess not.

[DeepEllumStache]

But then X would have to become not just a payment system, which really isn't needed, we have plenty of those. It would have to become some kind of bank. And banking is ALL about regulations and arcane rules.

It just sounds to me like the Fyre Festival or Theranos or WeWork of banking. Some grand idea that's going to quickly start falling apart because it's not actually possible and no amount of yelling at staff or claiming to be "innovating" will make it possible. And in the end *something* will be delivered, but it will cost a fortune to get there and the end product won't be useful.

Technically people believed in Theranos and WeWork, probably because they started with a clearly defined and actually disruptive idea.

Musk is talking about a roadmap he created for PayPal back in 2000. Because nothing in banking has changed in the past 23 years? Obviously not online banking, peer to peer payments, high yield savings accounts, and massive regulations behind it all.

I struggle to see the value proposition he's bringing too. I wonder if his team even has a clue. Then again, do we want to take bets on what percentage of those on the team currently will make it to the end of 2024 expected release of this amazing revamp of all things banking?

But we all know that when his banking idea to fail, he'll just blame the Jews.

[LennStar]

I wonder how X will do cheques.

The whole banking system of the US is a mystery to me as a German.
But the biggest mystery to me is why your banks still don't have zero-cost 1 day transactions like the EU has. Of course that's partly for profit reasons, but I can't see a reason why they can't do it cheaper than Paypal (and likely X will be) or at the same speed (I am not even talking about both, because even in Germany many banks want money for insta-transfers.).

-----

Anyway, it has been an eerily quite Musk. Did someone take his phone away for fear what he would say about Israel/Hamas?
I would have thought he would do more about 1 year of Free Bird then just this little quote thing.

Instead he seems to have joined the cult of Blake's Blokes.
If you don't know, ComStar is the FTL communication monopolist in the Mechwarrior universe. The original ideology was to uphold the flame of humanity by providing communication in a universe constantly destroyed by instellar war.
Of course that was undermined und misused by power hungry people. I wonder as which one Musks sees himself...

[maizefolk]

I wonder how X will do cheques.

The whole banking system of the US is a mystery to me as a German.
But the biggest mystery to me is why your banks still don't have zero-cost 1 day transactions like the EU has. Of course that's partly for profit reasons, but I can't see a reason why they can't do it cheaper than Paypal (and likely X will be) or at the same speed (I am not even talking about both, because even in Germany many banks want money for insta-transfers.).

I think our pace of change in banking regulation moves a bit slower. But also we have a lot more banks than most industrialized countries so getting adoption of any new system is necessarily going to be much slower.

France has only about 400 banks for 70 million people. We have about 5x as many people but more than 4,200 banks and another 4,700 credit unions. Call it 22x as many banking institutions that all have to play well with each other in order to adopt a new system.

That said, as I was confidently writing up this post about how the USA has a ridiculous number of banks, I read that Germany has almost 1,400, the most of any country in the EU by far (Poland is next with <600). So the USA could certainly learn something from how Germany was able to get that many banks all on board with systems that enable free single day money transfers.

[FINate]

Musk is talking about a roadmap he created for PayPal back in 2000. Because nothing in banking has changed in the past 23 years? Obviously not online banking, peer to peer payments, high yield savings accounts, and massive regulations behind it all.

I struggle to see the value proposition he's bringing too. I wonder if his team even has a clue. Then again, do we want to take bets on what percentage of those on the team currently will make it to the end of 2024 expected release of this amazing revamp of all things banking?

You don't see the value proposition because you're not the target audience. Musk and his fanbois are true believers in tech based hyper-libertarianism. For them, everything is a technology problem. Which means regulations and other policy concerns are part of the problem because these slow/inhibit innovation. We see this with Twitter as content moderation was dismantled. And Tesla's disregard for public safety rolling out so-called FSD. MMM wrote about this a few years back: Much of the value proposition for crypto is about removing desirable features of the financial system that have evolved over years of painful experience. Creating a shadow banking system that violates regulations *is* the point for Musk and his ilk.

[LennStar]

That said, as I was confidently writing up this post about how the USA has a ridiculous number of banks, I read that Germany has almost 1,400, the most of any country in the EU by far (Poland is next with <600). So the USA could certainly learn something from how Germany was able to get that many banks all on board with systems that enable free single day money transfers.

Don't forget that I said EU. I have no idea how many there are, but it sounds like the EU beats the USA in numbers.

Musk and his fanbois are true believers in tech based hyper-libertarianism. For them, everything is a technology problem. Which means regulations and other policy concerns are part of the problem because these slow/inhibit innovation.

Yes. I always have to think of little children saying "Everyone should just be friends, then there would be no war!" when I hear their "Everyone should just get rid of governments, and everything would be better for everyone!"

Just look at Bitcoin, the solver of banking and bringer of financial freedom. Slow as hell, expensive as a suite in heaven and climate destroying like a medium country. The last thing could be easily changed, but that would rob some of the techbois of their freedom to get money for free. These people think that if everyone is unbound, paradise will materialise.
Haaaaaaaaaaa.......

Ah, did I mention that with... how do they call it? Lightning network? They have basically created... the banking system.

[maizefolk]

That said, as I was confidently writing up this post about how the USA has a ridiculous number of banks, I read that Germany has almost 1,400, the most of any country in the EU by far (Poland is next with <600). So the USA could certainly learn something from how Germany was able to get that many banks all on board with systems that enable free single day money transfers.

Don't forget that I said EU. I have no idea how many there are, but it sounds like the EU beats the USA in numbers.

The EU as a whole has about 5,000 banks for ~450M people to the USA's roughly 9,000* for ~350M people.

*Counting both banks and credit unions which are legally distinct but functionally equivalent to banks. 

[mspym]

Given the high profile trial of SBF that’s currently going on, I cannot see a path where a new payment platform is not very quickly brought under regulation. I know, I know the libertarian dream but there’s too many recent lessons for it to be given much rope to hang itself with.

[Metalcat]

I wonder how X will do cheques.

The whole banking system of the US is a mystery to me as a German.
But the biggest mystery to me is why your banks still don't have zero-cost 1 day transactions like the EU has. Of course that's partly for profit reasons, but I can't see a reason why they can't do it cheaper than Paypal (and likely X will be) or at the same speed (I am not even talking about both, because even in Germany many banks want money for insta-transfers.).

This is kind of what I was getting at. In Canada we have pretty efficient banking systems, but I keep reading and hearing about how the US banking system is crazy and inefficient, which is...weird.

But I don't know a ton about it other than droves of people being unbanked, issues with transferring money (why???), and stuff like that. So I was wondering if there was actually an untapped market for a streamlined, universally accessible online service that maybe, possibly, the team at Twitter who are not at all bankers, could maybe, possibly, magically invent??

It seems like if the banking systems in the US are that messy that there would actually be a demand for a tech solution, no?

I'm just curious if this is more of a Theranos, where there's an idea that if it could work would actually be an amazing product, but the person in charge is a moron who could never actually deliver?

Or is it more of a WeWork where there isn't even a real idea, no real innovation at all, just a tall arrogant, delusional dude who yells a lot?

Like, is he actually on to a need that could, in theory, be kind of brilliant to meet, or is it what it seems, that he's just totally out of ideas and pulling from his greatest hits because there's no way to launch Twitter into space.

[maizefolk]

But I don't know a ton about it other than droves of people being unbanked, issues with transferring money (why???), and stuff like that. So I was wondering if there was actually an untapped market for a streamlined, universally accessible online service that maybe, possibly, the team at Twitter who are not at all bankers, could maybe, possibly, magically invent??

It seems like if the banking systems in the US are that messy that there would actually be a demand for a tech solution, no?

There is absolutely demand and there are a lot of companies already operating in the same space. Two of the bigger examples I can think of are Venmo (which I just found out in googling as I wrote this post, was bought by paypal years ago) and Zelle. Both tech solution around the extreme difficulty of transferring money person-to-person via the conventional banking system.

The trick is getting high enough adoption to actually be easy and frictionless. Right now it seems like most people don't use either.

I was at a lunch earlier today two where two people from India were talking about how much easier and frictionless it is to pay using phones in India, even from street vendors and even for costs as low as $0.10 (US) than it is here in the USA.

Again though barrier to a system like what India has with  in the USA is less technical or legal and more just the network challenges of getting everyone on a single system.

Arguably that's where twitter's existing social network could help jumpstart something similar? (I'm not at all convinced it would work. India's example started with their central bank rolling out a Unified Payments Interface a bunch of different companies could build on top of. It didn't start with a private company.)

That said, India's new universal, cash-free payments system went from nothing to $2T/year in seven years. Something similar in the USA would be handling $16T/year in transactions. And some people I know who have spent time in both countries recently really emphasized to me that the Indian payments experience is much much preferable to what we have in the USA.

[ChpBstrd]

IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?

Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points.   And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.

I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.

[FireLane]

There is absolutely demand and there are a lot of companies already operating in the same space. Two of the bigger examples I can think of are Venmo (which I just found out in googling as I wrote this post, was bought by paypal years ago) and Zelle. Both tech solution around the extreme difficulty of transferring money person-to-person via the conventional banking system.

There's also the FedNow system, which is just starting to roll out. It sounds like it's going to become the official way to do instant payments and transfers. As usual, the U.S. is years behind the rest of the world.

Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.

[Metalcat]

There is absolutely demand and there are a lot of companies already operating in the same space. Two of the bigger examples I can think of are Venmo (which I just found out in googling as I wrote this post, was bought by paypal years ago) and Zelle. Both tech solution around the extreme difficulty of transferring money person-to-person via the conventional banking system.

There's also the FedNow system, which is just starting to roll out. It sounds like it's going to become the official way to do instant payments and transfers. As usual, the U.S. is years behind the rest of the world.

Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.

Yeah ...this is how it's coming off to me, that was my thought the very first time he even mentioned a payment system for Twitter.

But I know precisely zero about tech and software, so I don't like to assume.

The other thought I have is that he's trying to bash his Twitter team into being something they aren't. His other companies have purpose-driven staff, but it seems more than a bit far fetched to take a bunch of social media staff and then just tell them to become banking staff and expect them to just do that.

Again, not a tech person, but it doesn't seem like it would be that easy to just suddenly repurpose the entire remaining staff. Are software engineers that adaptable?

I guess I'm just trying to grasp just how unrealistic this whole thing is, because it sounds like a delusional pipe dream to me. But I don't know enough to really judge.

[maizefolk]

Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.

Please don't put me in the position of defending Elon Musk by going to the best feeling blanket condemnations whether or not they make sense.

Elon Musk hasn't worked at Paypal since 2000, so presumably any actual idea he had about payments business models to be recycled would be from around that era (e.g. the 20th century)

Elon Musk has demonstrably had at least one actual idea since 2000: "I bet we can build and launch rockets for a lot less money than Russia charges to launch things into space."

[Metalcat]

Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.

Please don't put me in the position of defending Elon Musk by going to the best feeling blanket condemnations whether or not they make sense.

Elon Musk hasn't worked at Paypal since 2000, so presumably any actual idea he had about payments business models to be recycled would be from around that era (e.g. the 20th century)

Elon Musk has demonstrably had at least one actual idea since 2000: "I bet we can build and launch rockets for a lot less money than Russia charges to launch things into space."

Yeah, I wouldn't at all phrase it as his last idea, but it definitely feels like idea recycling

[Just Joe]

IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?

Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points.   And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.

I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.

Is something like Venmo different than what is being discussed here?

[FINate]

IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?

Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points.   And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.

I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.

Is something like Venmo different than what is being discussed here?

And Zelle, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and various other options. The US doesn't have a unified "everything app" because there's lots of market competition. See also the classic xkcd comic about how standards proliferate

[Metalcat]

IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?

Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points.   And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.

I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.

Is something like Venmo different than what is being discussed here?

And Zelle, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and various other options. The US doesn't have a unified "everything app" because there's lots of market competition. See also the classic xkcd comic about how standards proliferate

To clarify, none of your actual banks offer payment systems?

Like you can't log into your bank and send someone money??

[FINate]

IDK… in the US anyone can get a checking account with a debit card they can use anywhere for a near-instant transaction. Maybe 5-10 seconds?

Otherwise, credit cards are available to anyone with a pulse. These are immediate and better than free, because many of them pay you to do transactions, with cash back or travel points.   And the more you use these cards, the higher your credit score, which makes insurance, mortgages, loans, other cards with higher perks, and jobs easier to get.

I am paid hundreds of USD per year for using the not-at-all inconvenient status quo. So “free” and “instant” would be a net downgrade. That’s not to say people won’t move to phone based services, because it’s another excuse to play with a phone, but there’s not some awful suffering going on that is reducing Americans’ ability to spend their entire paychecks quickly enough.

Is something like Venmo different than what is being discussed here?

And Zelle, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and various other options. The US doesn't have a unified "everything app" because there's lots of market competition. See also the classic xkcd comic about how standards proliferate

To clarify, none of your actual banks offer payment systems?

Like you can't log into your bank and send someone money??

I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case). Unless I don't have/want to dig out my credit card, I pay with my phone via Google Pay, which can also send to friends and family (e.g. splitting a meal). Some vendors/friends prefer Venmo. Some stuff is done via Paypal. It's a fragmented market. The idea that X is going to unify payments and banking for everyone in a single app, essentially corning the market and forming a monopoly, is laughable. Not interested in Yet Another Payment System.

[FireLane]

Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.

Please don't put me in the position of defending Elon Musk by going to the best feeling blanket condemnations whether or not they make sense.

Elon Musk hasn't worked at Paypal since 2000, so presumably any actual idea he had about payments business models to be recycled would be from around that era (e.g. the 20th century)

Elon Musk has demonstrably had at least one actual idea since 2000: "I bet we can build and launch rockets for a lot less money than Russia charges to launch things into space."

My mistake, you're right. I thought Musk was just an early investor in SpaceX, but he actually was one of the founders. I was confusing it with Tesla.

[Psychstache]

Even so, it further undermines the rationale for Musk believing he can turn Twitter into a banking app. There's no unmet demand for this, and there's no problem it solves. He's just recycling the last actual idea he had.

Please don't put me in the position of defending Elon Musk by going to the best feeling blanket condemnations whether or not they make sense.

Elon Musk hasn't worked at Paypal since 2000, so presumably any actual idea he had about payments business models to be recycled would be from around that era (e.g. the 20th century)

Elon Musk has demonstrably had at least one actual idea since 2000: "I bet we can build and launch rockets for a lot less money than Russia charges to launch things into space."

My mistake, you're right. I thought Musk was just an early investor in SpaceX, but he actually was one of the founders. I was confusing it with Tesla.

I will say that this right here is what makes these forums one of the best places on the internet. You have a group of smart people with various backgrounds and experiences that come together to discuss all sorts of topics and who will own up to their errors when they are made (for the most part). It is just very different from any other corner of the internet.

[Just Joe]

I've learned more useful info here than any other place on the internet.

[Metalcat]

I've learned more useful info here than any other place on the internet.

I've learned more here than any of my degrees. Or, at least I remember more of what I've learned here than I have from my degrees, lol.

[RetiredAt63]

I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).

Another Canadian asking another basic question here.  Why would you not want to send from your bank?  I do it all the time with e-transfers.  I transfer both to people and to small organizations.  A lot of clubs/non-profits are set up to receive payment with e-transfer.  It is secure, and it sure beats sending a cheque, or using PayPal.  It works to and from any Canadian bank.

[FINate]

I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).

Another Canadian asking another basic question here.  Why would you not want to send from your bank?  I do it all the time with e-transfers.  I transfer both to people and to small organizations.  A lot of clubs/non-profits are set up to receive payment with e-transfer.  It is secure, and it sure beats sending a cheque, or using PayPal.  It works to and from any Canadian bank.

It's not that I don't want to, I just don't very often because there are so many other ways to pay/send money. And it's not always up to me, depends on what the person or merchant is using. A single standard would be an improvement, such as the new FedNow, but this is really something that must be specified at a regulatory/governmental level, not Musk trying to shoehorn banking into a social media app.

[RetiredAt63]

I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).

Another Canadian asking another basic question here.  Why would you not want to send from your bank?  I do it all the time with e-transfers.  I transfer both to people and to small organizations.  A lot of clubs/non-profits are set up to receive payment with e-transfer.  It is secure, and it sure beats sending a cheque, or using PayPal.  It works to and from any Canadian bank.

It's not that I don't want to, I just don't very often because there are so many other ways to pay/send money. And it's not always up to me, depends on what the person or merchant is using. A single standard would be an improvement, such as the new FedNow, but this is really something that must be specified at a regulatory/governmental level, not Musk trying to shoehorn banking into a social media app.

Aah, that makes weird sense.  Here credit/debit is usual for businesses, and e-transfers take care of most of the rest. e-transfers are pretty standard here.  And lots of bills can be paid through on-line banking - I pay almost all of mine that way.

I know the banking in New Zealand and Australia was easy when I was there in 2019/2020, but we are all 3 relatively low population countries.  What is the banking like in the UK, or the large population European countries?  Because the US banking system seems to give the excuse of large population for all the banks that barely talk with each other, but the Europeans posting on the forums don't seem to have the same issues.

[seattlecyclone]

To clarify, none of your actual banks offer payment systems?

Like you can't log into your bank and send someone money??

Quickly, easily, without regard to what bank the recipient uses, and without regard to what third-party services they've signed up for? Nope!

Note that I've never lived outside the US, but based on what I've heard I'm envisioning you all have a system where a friend can tell you their account number and you can log into your bank's website, type in that number and the amount you want to send them, and it just works.

We don't have that in the US at all.

There's ACH, a service that every American bank supports for electronic transfers. People routinely get their paychecks deposited using ACH, and other business-to-consumer transfers such as utility bill payments very commonly go through ACH. The cost to the bank to perform these transfers is essentially zero, but the transfers take a couple of days and for some reason most banks don't let individual customers initiate ACH transfers to other individuals.

There are wire transfers, that work more or less instantly (even internationally!), but unless you have the god tier of checking accounts at your particular bank you'll probably pay a fee on the order of $20 to send or receive one of these. Most Americans will never do a wire transfer.

There are third-party services like Venmo and PayPal where two individuals who have both signed up for the service can send money to each other. These services generally use ACH transfers to move money in and out of members' actual bank accounts.

Then there's Zelle, which is a money transfer service run by a company that is a joint venture between most of the big banks in the US. Many (but far from all!) banks have integrations with Zelle. Opening a checking account with one of these banks doesn't automatically mean you have Zelle available for people to send you money; you have to opt in separately and set up an email and/or phone number to tie to your bank account. Once you and the person you want to send money to have both configured Zelle, you can do instant transfers to other individuals through this service from your bank's website. But it's an extra step to opt in, and many people haven't done this yet (if their bank even offers it).

The lowest common denominator therefore remains the paper check. People still send these back and forth all the time in the US because unlike all these other things you can reliably count on being able to mail 100 people checks and trust that all 100 of them will be able to do something with them.

[mspym]

@seattlecyclone you are describing online banking as I have worked in it since the early 2000s. It was always super painful when a bank had purchased a US-based vendor product and you had to tweak the hell out it to meet payment standards. Almost no one accepts cheques. Payments between banks are real time.

In Australia they’ve gone a step further and you can set up a PayId with your email or your phone number and someone can enter that as the payee and it will get to their account instantly. And this is across all the major banks with smaller ones coming on board as they can.

[LennStar]

Note that I've never lived outside the US, but based on what I've heard I'm envisioning you all have a system where a friend can tell you their account number and you can log into your bank's website, type in that number and the amount you want to send them, and it just works.

EURO is legal currency. Everyone is manadated to accept it. So you log in to your bank, choose "SEPA-Transfer" (Single European Payment Area I think), put in their account number, put in the amount, press send and that's it. (well, 2FA ususally there)
Money arrives the next day (though most banks offer fast transfer now - for a price).
I was born in the Cold War time and have never used a cheque, and Paypal only for ex-EU payments for which I now use a "debit credit card".

[bill1827]

I can send people money from my US bank via Zelle. Friends and family, small businesses, whatever. But that's only if I want to send *from* my bank for some reason (which is almost never the case).

Another Canadian asking another basic question here.  Why would you not want to send from your bank?  I do it all the time with e-transfers.  I transfer both to people and to small organizations.  A lot of clubs/non-profits are set up to receive payment with e-transfer.  It is secure, and it sure beats sending a cheque, or using PayPal.  It works to and from any Canadian bank.

It's not that I don't want to, I just don't very often because there are so many other ways to pay/send money. And it's not always up to me, depends on what the person or merchant is using. A single standard would be an improvement, such as the new FedNow, but this is really something that must be specified at a regulatory/governmental level, not Musk trying to shoehorn banking into a social media app.

Aah, that makes weird sense.  Here credit/debit is usual for businesses, and e-transfers take care of most of the rest. e-transfers are pretty standard here.  And lots of bills can be paid through on-line banking - I pay almost all of mine that way.

I know the banking in New Zealand and Australia was easy when I was there in 2019/2020, but we are all 3 relatively low population countries.  What is the banking like in the UK, or the large population European countries?  Because the US banking system seems to give the excuse of large population for all the banks that barely talk with each other, but the Europeans posting on the forums don't seem to have the same issues.

In the UK I look on these US banking issues with bemusement.

We have had Direct Debit facilities for decades (variable regular payments taken by the payee)used for bill payments, so all regular bills happen automatically.

Inter account transfers have been available for years. They started off being a little bit flaky, but now they seem to be universally available and the transfer happens on the same day (Less than £25,000 per day.)

If you need to transfer larger amounts there' a system called CHAPS and SEPA is available for international transfers, although there are charges involved if you use those.

We're also on the verge of a cashless society. I always used to use cash for low value transactions, but Covid made people reluctant to handle actual money (perceived risk of catching it) so card transactions have become the norm, even for very small traders who wouldn't have wanted to pay the fees in the past. (I'm told that buskers now have card machines!)

Cheques are virtually extinct; only seem to be used by businesses that live in the past, like solicitors and even they are gradually moving into the 20th century.

[RetiredAt63]

Quickly, easily, without regard to what bank the recipient uses, and without regard to what third-party services they've signed up for? Nope!

Note that I've never lived outside the US, but based on what I've heard I'm envisioning you all have a system where a friend can tell you their account number and you can log into your bank's website, type in that number and the amount you want to send them, and it just works.

Canada:

No matter the bank?  Yes.   

We don't need the person's bank account number (although you can do that too for larger amounts), you just need their email address.  You log in to your online bank account, go to e-transfer, enter the name and email address of the recipient, and add a question and answer.  They will have to answer the question to verify payment.  But you have already told them the question and answer.  So it is secure and easy.

People who are receiving several payments can set up a payer id sort of like what mspym describes.  Le Poisson did that for CMTO payments.  I remember when he was organizing the first one, it was easy for him to get payment from Canadian campers and he had a lot more work arranging for ways for US campers to pay.

We do still use cheques, but rarely.  I got new cheques when I moved in July 2022 and I have used 4 of them.  I'm not sure my daughter even has cheques.

Since Covid the use of plastic has gone way up - coins and paper money are full of germs, and asking cashiers to handle money we had just handled, when we could just tap to pay for things, meant we shifted.  Plus for small transactions (usually under $200) we just tap.  It's easy.  Now it is even preferred for really small transactions - like when I buy a tea at Tim's.  I know small vendors who have it set up on their smart phones for farmers markets and craft fairs.  And again with online banking it is easy to monitor your bank account and pay bills, or just transfer money from your chequing account to your credit card account if your cc was issued by your bank.   No waiting each month for the paper statement to arrive.

So Elon Musk may end up with something useful for Americans, but the rest of us don't need it.

[Metalcat]

To clarify, none of your actual banks offer payment systems?

Like you can't log into your bank and send someone money??

Quickly, easily, without regard to what bank the recipient uses, and without regard to what third-party services they've signed up for? Nope!

Note that I've never lived outside the US, but based on what I've heard I'm envisioning you all have a system where a friend can tell you their account number and you can log into your bank's website, type in that number and the amount you want to send them, and it just works.

No account number needed.

I log into my banking app and can send money to anyone using their email address (I think you can use cell number now too). A link gets sent to them and they can deposit the money by logging into their bank.

If the person hasn't set up auto-deposits with their bank, then the transfer needs to have a security question and answer. But if they have autodeposit, then the transfer goes directly to their account instantaneously, no security question needed.

Autodeposit is new, but we've had e-mail based transfers since 2003.

[Just Joe]

I've learned more useful info here than any other place on the internet.

I've learned more here than any of my degrees. Or, at least I remember more of what I've learned here than I have from my degrees, lol.

I'd agree with that.