[lyricaljoke]

What a lot of people miss about the utility of Venmo is that it lowers the social cost of squaring up minor debts.

Think of the example of a large group of friends often gathers in arbitrary subsets of the group to go to dinner. If Alice orders salad every time and Bob orders steak, and we split it down the middle each time, that kind of sucks for Alice. Some people suggest rotating picking up the entire bill between outings, but I'm unconvinced that this really ends up working out equitably in practice.

Or, say Dora has a habit of leaving happy hour after the first round, which was picked up by Charlie. It's not a huge cost, but...

In a world without instant electronic payment, the meek Alices and Charlies of the world lose out because there's a social cost to asking somebody to repay a small debt (paying <$10 by cash is a hassle). By making these frictionless, I'd argue that Venmo reduces that cost by providing an easy way to equitably split without levying the inconvenience on the restaurant, as with separate checks.