X is now licensed for payment processing in a dozen U.S. states

https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/05/x-is-now-licensed-for-payment-processing-in-a-dozen-u-s-states/

by mikece • 3 years ago

66 84 3 years ago

dboreham• 3 years ago

But they'll freeze your account if you post something negative about Elon.

johnsimer• 3 years ago

There are hordes of people on Twitter criticizing Elon, Tesla, Elon's twitter purchase, Elon's political comments, etc. Last time I checked, they still have their accounts.

ceejayoz7• 3 years ago

This isn't some silly hypothetical; he's demonstrably banned accounts he's mad at before. https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-start...

ourmandave• 3 years ago

Last time I looked they were all talking about jumping ship to Mastodon and Bluesky.

How many actually have is anyone's guess.

rand12392• 3 years ago

Will I get free money if I post something positive?

oaththrowaway• 3 years ago

I guess they can go build their own payment platform?

astrodust2• 3 years ago

Somehow he'll find a way to make a service even more cantankerous and unpredictable than PayPal.

ldjkfkdsjnv2• 3 years ago

This is literally not true

astrodust2• 3 years ago

Dude has skin thinner than a sheet of graphene.

nickthegreek• 3 years ago

Except when it is.

sidibe• 3 years ago

There seems to be plenty of criticism on there, he probably never sees it because it's from non blue checks.

Mainly be careful not to say the forbidden words cs and decolnization

Prickle• 3 years ago

I would be more afraid of X banning my account for posting something that violates a random British, Saudi or Chinese law.

Fundamentally, no one should want banking and social media being in the same place. All it takes is one belligerent government to apply pressure.

We already saw Canada freeze bank accounts of people who were protesting in the capitol. I don't need the possibility of my speech locking my account.

mikece4• 3 years ago

Elon has long been on record saying that he wanted to create the "Everything App" -- he wants to turn X into the WeChat of the rest of the world (starting with the US). The cynical side of me thinks that if he pulls it off he will have created a tool of perfect surveillance as well as convenience.

ldjkfkdsjnv2• 3 years ago

Rather the surveillance tool is in Elons hands than someone else

willsmith72• 3 years ago

he's done some really impressive things by pushing the bounds of what's possible/legal

i absolutely don't trust him to put user privacy/protection over product development. he thrives off outlandish predictions and aggressive deadlines. user protection is the first thing to go when that's the case

mikece4• 3 years ago

The largest customer of SpaceX is the US Government; the largest customer of Starlink is the US Government; what makes you think the largest customer of X data mining and analysis won't also be the same as the above?

itishappy• 3 years ago

Why?

kelnos• 3 years ago

I'd rather no one has any surveillance tools on that scale.

It's weird, though: I supremely dislike Musk, but I do think he might be a less-bad steward of that kind of tool than a lot of people/corporations.

Then again, he also throws a bunch of tantrums, so I expect he'd eventually weaponize that kind of view into everyone's lives. Probably in childish ways, not your garden-variety discrimination.

JohnFen2• 3 years ago

I disagree. I think Musk is right up there in the group of entities that absolutely should not have that power.

snowwrestler3• 3 years ago

The "everything app" can mean an app that does everything, an app that everyone uses, or both.

It's totally possible that X expands its feature set while its audience and cultural relevancy continue to decline. I would not be surprised if it stabilizes at some point as a moderately profitable medium-sized tech company. But it's never again going to be the global phenomenon it was a decade ago.

nicky03• 3 years ago

I'm confused. You're comparing Twitter's audience today to 10 years ago and you think it has _declined_? How confident are you on that?

jowea2• 3 years ago

an app that everyone uses

Wouldn't that be the "everyone app"?

And in any case, I assume Elon would want both.

iamacyborg3• 3 years ago

Facebook wanted to do this with Messenger too.

If they couldn’t do it, I see no reason to believe that X can.

Brybry2• 3 years ago

But doesn't WhatsApp basically do this? Just not yet in most of the world.

mikece4• 3 years ago

From Wikipedia: "[In 1999] Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal."

Apparently he kept the x.com domain and never lost the desire to be a bank?

rand12392• 3 years ago

The critical difference here is this is being attempted by the guy who was kind of behind PayPal, Tesla and Spacex.

The guys who are trying to make Messenger an everything app are probably some random MBA grads who have done nothing of significance in their life and real world.

It's more about ability to make change in real world to improve human condition. Facebook has 0 expertise when it comes to this.

Only thing Facebook has expertise is in building web pages, servers and running AB tests to make humanity keep scrolling down and stare at bullshit.

itomato• 3 years ago

...on his satellite network?

tensor• 3 years ago

I mean, WeChat is a great surveillance tool. I guess he was just more literal than we expected when he said he wanted Twitter to be WeChat.

JohnFen2• 3 years ago

I don't know. That's pretty much exactly what I expected when he said that.

r00fus• 3 years ago

Given X's trajectory it's more likely to become the "nothing app".

kosolam• 3 years ago

Hypothetical interview: Host: So Elon, what do you think about the creditor banks? Elon: F-u!!!1 is this clear enough?!?!

MisterBastahrd• 3 years ago

$44B is a lot of money to burn through just to create a shittier AOL.

technolocaust• 3 years ago

ugh when you tech bros are all driving around in your smart cars broadcasting unregulated tracking data to a centralized place and people are tweeting about it you’re going to rethink whether or not it should be allowable.

jacobsimon2• 3 years ago

It’s remarkable to me that this would not only lead to competition with PayPal (founded by Musk) but also with Cash App, founded by Dorsey. The article does not even mention this second point, which in my opinion represents a huge lost opportunity for Square and Twitter, who could have had the same partnership when they were both doing well and run by the same CEO.

est31• 3 years ago

It does happen that tech CEOs found companies that compete partially or completely with their prior creations. Usually at that point the founder CEO only owns a small portion of the company, and the new company might give them the opportunity to capture a larger fraction of the market. They already know it well, having participated in it a few years ago, and there might be structures in the prior company that might prevent them from pulling off their success in that one.

FireBeyond3• 3 years ago

with PayPal (founded by Musk)

Sigh. PayPal was not founded by Musk. PayPal was a Confinity product, and had an MVP, and trademarks, before Musk entered the picture, was CEO for four months before the Board fired him on his honeymoon.

Musk's primary "contribution" to PayPal has been collecting dividend checks.

jacobsimon2• 3 years ago

Hah actually yeah didn’t realize the full history here, it’s actually tied back to x.com in a full circle way:

In March 2000, Confinity merged with x.com, an online financial services company founded in March 1999 by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho. Musk was optimistic about the future success of the money transfer business Confinity was developing. Musk and Bill Harris, then-president and CEO of X.com, disagreed about the potential future success of the money transfer business and Harris left the company in May 2000. In October of that year, Musk decided that X.com would terminate its other internet banking operations and focus on payments. That same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com, which was renamed PayPal in June 2001 and went public in 2002.

Anyway, my comment was more about Square and Twitter and how I wish they’d formed a partnership of some sort.

iinnPP• 3 years ago

I'm sad that basically all Elon/X threads are now full of nearly exclusively lowest possible effort garbage and that no real discussion occurs.

On the topic at hand, it seems obvious that the direction of X is that of authentication (X being where you sign). This news is further proof of that. Along with the checkmark changes among others.

diob• 3 years ago

I get likes now on my tweets and replies! Except they're all bots :)

root_axis• 3 years ago

That's what happens when the face of the company is publicly obsessed with online culture war politics.

nitwit005• 3 years ago

They need to create a compelling reason to switch from existing payment methods to X, which seems to be mostly absent at the moment.

A decade ago I'd have said they could target specific markets like hiring artists, but there are now companies targeting those niches.

sys_64738• 3 years ago

Eh, no. Never would I give Twitter and Chief Twit my bank details.

infotainment2• 3 years ago

Finally! I can entrust all my banking to a company that fired most of its SREs! What could go wrong?

meepmorp• 3 years ago

Tucked away towards the bottom, among the speculation that this could somehow tie into ad revenue sharing:

The company also lost a deal with Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, which would have seen the celeb tout live audio, live video and live shopping on X. Musk lashed out at Hilton after the deal went south, but the departures could spell trouble for X’s monetization plans, and therefor its creator economy and payments ambitions.

Remember, advertisers - if you don't do business with Elon, he'll shit talk you in twitter.

X is now licensed for payment processing in a dozen U.S. states

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