>> The problem with these alternative methods is that they must have
>> sufficient market share to be widely recognized. PayPal is the only
>> one
This raises an interesting question: could the time come in the
not-so-distant future where different e-funds transfer people will,
either on their own or be forced by law to, link up with each others
networks like most ATMs do now? It could be nice, but it could also
become very messy - just look at the various complains about service
fees now. And the reason a lot of people are leary of PayPal now is
becasue of horror stories of frozen accounts, double-dipping, and that
lawsuit that is/was hanging over their heads, and perhaps that they
might be a little greedy with their fees (~3 percent on a couple 10
million dollars per month at least, I forget the exact numbers). It's
not clear that "required access" would help that problem, but it would
at least let buyer and seller use different systems as they wanted.
(<personal rant/observation on ATM fees> I can see the usefulness of
service fees: without them, there might not be an ATM in the middle of
Death Valley. But for an ATM that will *already be there*, as a
majority of the one's in cities will be, if only for the bank's own
customers, the fee is meaningless except as a legitimate way to pay for
a little added phone bandwidth [which probably costs next to nothing],
or as a way to raise profit for the bank or to attract customers.)
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