[ChikkaChiChi]

I skimmed through the comments and thought "What is Venmo and how terrible am I for not knowing about it sooner?"

I then searched for the term on the page and noticed that the term is largely clustered around two threads; one of which the users both drop the name so much I had to check if they worked for the company.

No offense to those who enjoy Venmo and its services, but this thread is a great example of HN commentary echo; it's way louder in here than it actually is.

[ceras]

Among the disjoint groups of my own friends and my girlfriends' friends (none of whom code or are tech savvy at all), everyone I know in NYC uses Venmo. I learned about it from non-tech people. It could be because Venmo advertised very heavily in NYC mass transit a long time ago.

My friends in the Bay Area, in contrast, are far less likely to know about Venmo and either use none of these options or are pretty fragmented.

YMMV, of course :) it just seems like Venmo has done really well in one particularly large market, and the other ones are still way more fragmented.

[ChikkaChiChi]

That sounds perfectly reasonable and I could totally believe it. Many of these services seem to have an adoption in NYC or SF that may not be representative of other areas.

[masterj]

I'm in SF and nearly everyone I know uses Venmo. YMMV

[smackfu]

Actually, I think it's an example of a generation gap. HN skews older than Venmo.

http://www.businessinsider.com/venmo-splitting-a-group-check...

[ChikkaChiChi]

I'm sure that they have statistics to back up their target demographic, but I would probably apply a geographic layer onto those numbers and see where that leaves 'em.

I just did a quick run through of my office (Minneapolis/St Paul snowboard, etc. online retailer): asking who has heard of it or uses it. Of the 30 or so I asked, 1 person has it on his phone and he says he never uses it.

I _did_ have a conversation where I was told 'I usually pick it up then they get me back later' which a few people in earshot agreed with.

Maybe there needs to be an app to track who owes you drinks?

[ChikkaChiChi]

I also did read through that article, and the one shot of someone asking for $3.00 to put someone's suit in a bag is hilarious to me.

Back in my day, I thought we called those things favors. :)