[Moto7451]

I haven't figured out a reason to use Venmo. My Bank (Ally) has a really great app that has supported emailing/texting payments. They do require access to a web browser to complete the payment the first time, but subsequently it seems to auto-magically go through ACH if you opt into the bank saving your settings. None of my friends have complained about the process so it seems to be pretty painless.

On the other hand, my intern at work keeps getting Venmo spam. "So and so asked for $1: Hey, don't pay me $1. Instead of to 'http://foo.bar' and sign up for a job where you'll make $2000 per month from home!" and the like. That sort of stuff is a full stop turn off for me.

My guess is for people who don't bank traditionally, these services make sense even though they come with some weird (to me) tradeoffs. Apparently the spam, reliance on yet another third party, broadcasting of what they're doing with their money, etc is ok for their user base. We're just not their target customer.