Trends: PayPal is No Friend of Mine
PayPal has declared itself the Enemy of the Public while Desperately Clinging to a Dying Business Model
PayPal. Almost as World Wide Web as Wikipedia and Google. A core element of many digital lives. A nearly priceless staple for small businesses and content creators on this Western continent and beyond. Combined in concert, PayPal is but one highly desired element in a comprehensive and far-reaching amalgam of what we define as the modern internet. With a workforce measured in the tens of thousands, which generates some $25 Billion a year in revenue, PayPal's business model can be best summarized as a bridge between the analog and the digital — as it relates to money and the transfer of value.
Nothing within this document should be taken or construed as Financial, Legal, or
Investment Advice under any circumstances or pretenses.
This document is created for speculative and entertainment purposes only.
Please consult a Professional Financial Adviser before making any Financial or Legal Decisions.
Without Prejudice, within and in its entirety
The problem PayPal is attempting to solve is an analog and legacy financial systems conflict against modern developments and needs. Our existing systems of credit and money are so old as to be literally 'stupid' in the digital age. As a result, small businesses, individuals, and even large businesses are increasingly forced into PayPal's restrictive pipeline in the vacuum of legislatively appropriate and mass-marketable solutions. PayPal is designed to do what all companies that exist and thrive within regulatory frameworks and failures are intended to do – ensure compliance with the higher order at the expense of innovation and users.
I'm not against regulations and national protectionism, nor will I be addressing the issues with FINCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) in this particular article. Instead, the problem with PayPal is fourfold:
1) PayPal is a reactionary corporate response to decades of political incompetence and failures to redress and innovate, especially at our "beloved" central bank - The Federal Reserve. The result is a dire devolving situation of sporadic and poorly timed reactionary policies and digital developments by that institution and its counterparts worldwide, leading to inefficiencies now being met by otherwise worthless entities such as PayPal.
(See Further – "Federal Reserve Board - Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) paper published January 2022, or the previous "Digital Dollar Project" research paper two years prior. The Retail Payments Research paper by IBM Corporation. Or any of the dozen or more published articles by Central Bank institutions and the IMF circulating as we speak in the developed and developing world. (Included Below))
2) PayPal's business model is technologically outdated in the global marketplace and has been for over a decade. Moreover, their entrenchment in our highly regulated markets, excellent marketing, and seemingly friendly-enough customer-facing image and logo lend them no permanence or security. As a result, PayPal faces the same problems that most entrenched companies face – the inevitable and entirely earned eventual collapse in favor of systems and processes of greater efficiency, lower cost, higher political neutrality, and less user friction.
3) PayPal is too compliant with existing government and structure and willing to throw thousands or even millions of its users under the proverbial bus to save their dying corporate interests from inevitable extinction. Their recent back-and-forth regarding fining users $2,500 for public speech violations and claiming the right to withhold funds inside private accounts for upwards of six months or more is just another example of entrenchment and corporate complacency. PayPal makes so much money they don't care if they lose your business – or that you lose your business, which is a problem for you, not them. To wit, it isn't this writer implying such, but the actions of PayPal itself.
Remember – Actions speak louder than words in almost all regards.
4) PayPal has a 'two masters problem' – They are increasingly no longer the masters of their domain, which is a natural response by a free market to entrenchment by any company. Critically, they seek to position themselves as a secondary Master of Money, which is entirely outside their capabilities and power to achieve without extensive and detrimental new regulatory frameworks enacted by Congress to the detriment of every actor involved, specifically – You.
Where once PayPal's value was nearly incalculable to small businesses and creators, the ink has already dried on the CBDC trade publications that will undoubtedly become their demise, which is more a reaction to the private and near-constant innovations by Private Money: namely cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin.
It's one thing to owe allegiance to One Master, but as the adage goes — you cannot effectively serve two. As our dollar faces its (too little too late) evolution, which is currently a reactionary evolution as opposed to a natural one, the almighty greenback is becoming a domestic political tool in the battle for supremacy within the global war of currencies.
Critics
To those who will argue that 29 Million small businesses can't be wrong, which is the estimated base of PayPal's core business, I say to you: Rarely, in history or even presently, have firms of any size been entirely correct in their service of a marketplace and by extension its clients.
A significant number, more than 29 Million, was utterly wrong about COVID lockdowns. A considerable number, potentially far more than 29 million businesses and families, went bankrupt or suffered irreversible losses due to lockdowns. Nearly all Chambers of Commerce organizations, small and medium business lobbying organizations, and publications succumbed to reactionary political pressure.
No, not even succumb - willingly marched the tune without a moment of hesitation for the billions of lives they interrupted, destroyed, or permanently ended. The organizations you pay to prevent these types of overreaching political actions not only failed you directly; but perhaps even fraudulently. More importantly, every small and medium-sized business that is now or will ever be for the preceding 100 years or more from this moment in time faces the external threat you have created. You have allowed this precedent to exist, extending further into time than we can imagine. The lessons learned by your failures will be long forgotten by society and collective history, far sooner than those now understood by dictators, political ideologues, and pundits empowered by your powerlessness. That power you gave so quickly will never cease to be endlessly salivated over, for the foreseeable millennium, by the most unscrupulous of persons among us.
Twenty-nine million small and medium-sized businesses are not immune from collective mistakes. If you stake your entire business on PayPal, your local Chamber of Commerce, or faith in any institution you can't directly reach and influence: you have already failed us - a damning statement I don't submit to you lightly.
We, the businesses of America and indeed the world, can only get stronger from this point forward, as there isn't much room left to fall before we all bottom out.
Now is not the time to get entrenched and complacent like PayPal. Now is the time to plan, envision, and enact. Do not force yourselves into a position requiring a reaction. Do not allow others to make unreasonable demands of you. It's your business, after all.
Facebook's previous slogan rightly captured a sentiment I would sincerely extend to you and part with you here. But, unfortunately, an inappropriately applied sentiment recently embraced by ill-advised politicians, media, and pundits. A phrase abandoned by its progenitor.
A sentiment that inspires my actions, regardless of how futile.
A sentiment you no longer can afford to abandon, as your previous reckless abandon has already risked everything and broken far more than we will ever know or understand in this lifetime or the next.
"Move fast and break things."
-Facebook
As always,
Farewell, and Good Luck.
-Dark Philosopher
Trends Forecast
PayPal is expected to collapse into itself, either through the continuation of the issues listed below or through continuing market pressure from advanced competition,
PayPal's latest attempts at innovating their product offerings through the inclusion of Bitcoin and related protocols are more reaction than innovation and will only further adoption of those protocols and the eventual decline of PayPal, both from a value perspective and also from a clientele perspective,
PayPal is fully expected to adopt the CBDC Federal Reserve Currency and will likely still remain in business during and immediately following this pivotal market alteration,
During the final years of collapse, PayPal may seek merger, acquisition, or investment to begin heavy expansion into unsaturated markets with more restrictive (Read: beneficial to PayPal) financial conditions or markets with low financial or banking services - Unbanked, underbanked, underserved market segments and populations.
Black Swan Possibilities
Congressional Intervention in direct competition on behalf of, or with the intent to, support PayPal and the Payment Services Industry,
Reverse - Crisis or Political Motivation may lead to increased Oversight and Regulation, shortening the lifespan or limiting merger/acquisition viability,
Poor Market Conditions or Public relations may lead to a Rapid Decline of the Company, faster than expected. Equally, a timely merger or acquisition could extend PayPal's existence before the inevitable,
Western Union, Regional Banking, or highly restricted and underserved markets that may ban or prosecute direct competitors
A fundamental innovation of PayPal’s core offerings or reinvention may completely alter the due course
Article Updates
November 16th, 2023 - Fixed Layout, Format, Signature
Included Sources for investigation:
Federal Reserve Analysis:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/central-bank-digital-currency.htm
IBM's Retail CBDC's - The Next Payment Frontier
https://www.omfif.org/ibm19/
Deutsche Bank Research - Imagine 2030, The Decade Ahead
https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000503196/Imagine_2030.pdf?undefined&realload=ZHzJuTz1u7VVXTPJkCY0Hm/NGUeQX45EwVUF7ojbVQymKfzduKm9lsgThO6E1kVe
Digital Dollar Project Exploration Paper, May 2020
https://digitaldollarproject.org/
Other Sources to Consider:
Australian Government's Blockchain Roadmap
Bank of England Policy Papers