Established in 1998 as Confinity, PayPal has grown to be one of the largest financial technology companies on the planet. After going public with its IPO in 2002, it because a subsidiary of eBay which took it to the masses. I remember the first time I was exposed to PayPal as a payments platform, it was while buying something on eBay.
You'd have to live in a cave or on Mars to not know the name "PayPal" by now, as you see it everywhere. After 12 years under the eBay wing, PayPal spun off into its own publicly traded company. This lead to eBay adopting other payment options for customers, instead of solely relying on PayPal. This was a huge win for consumers, and a win for PayPal as well.
Over the years since its separation from eBay, PayPal has acquired numerous payments companies such as Xoom, Venmo, and iZettle. They have also secured partnerships with major brands like Instagram, Pinterest, and Shopify. Almost every website I order anything from has a PayPal checkout option, which I use frequently despite knowing there are better options.
PayPal has been trying really hard to keep up with the times and not get outdated, though. With their addition of the ability to buy, sell, and even make payments with cryptocurrencies, you might think everything is fine and dandy. I see things a little bit differently, and I'd love to dive into it. I personally think we are starting to see the downfall of PayPal.
Let me also say - this is just my opinion. I'm just an idiot on the internet that has little to no financial knowledge outside of degenerate trading. I could be completely wrong, so I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments.
When the COVID-19 plandemic took off, digital payments absolutely skyrocketed. People were stuck in their homes, which meant more and more people would be using digital payment platforms like PayPal and CashApp. This lead to a major increase in revenue for PayPay taking it from $17.8 billion in 2019 to over $25 billion in 2021.
Just like with almost every company that saw massive increases in revenue during the pandemic, that started to slow. Over the past 2 years, PayPal gave back basically all that it gained in revenue increases due to lack of demand. Lower revenue and confidence of course leads to lower stock prices, as PYPL has started to decline after disappointing earnings reports.
While e-commerce does continue to grow steadily, it's not growing at nearly the same rate we saw when people were forced to use online payments. Online payments still account for over 15% of all payments made worldwide, but PayPal isn't the only fintech company out there. They are facing growing competition from different companies like Skrill, Stripe, and Square.
One of the largest problems that I personally see with PayPal is that their fees seem to be higher than almost every other option for digital payments. I'm not talking about paying fees when making a purchase. I'm talking about fees for transferring money to/from the bank, and paying people. If you've ever used PayPal as an independent seller or business, you know what I'm talking about. Those fees hurt.
This sharp drop in revenue back to pre-pandemic levels may have had something to do with the fact that PayPal cut around 2,000 jobs. 7% of its entire workforce. This really comes as no surprised as tons of tech companies have been cutting jobs for more efficient business models, and starting to us Artificial Intelligence to do menial tasks.
There's a solution to a lot of these problems such as fees and relying on a third party to process your payments... You're literally reading this article, which is stored on the solution. The solution is the Hive blockchain.
When you really dive into it, using PayPal is pretty expensive. Whether you're accepting payments or simply trying to send money from one country to another... It's slow and expensive. Not to mention, very exclusive. Not everyone can get a PayPal account, and not everyone can get a bank account. Even if they can, not everyone can send cross-border payments without going through some convoluted process like KYC.
Enter Hive. We have an incredibly powerful blockchain, capable of processing millions of transactions, with zero fees. Not only this, but literally anyone on the planet can get a wallet set up in a couple minutes without having to submit their ID or anything stupid like that. Hive is inclusive of everyone. Simply being able to get an account without having to provide ID is powerful. Try walking into a bank without an ID to open an account.
Getting an account is one thing, but sending assets across borders is another. If you have ever used PayPal or MoneyGram to send money anywhere, you've been eating fees. Send money to a different country, and you're going to pay an arm and a leg if you can even get through the KYC process. Then it's going to take some time for that payment to process and you have to worry about currency exchange rates... It's just a highly inefficient system.
With Hive, we have instant payments, zero fees, and we have a stable coin called HBD (Hive Backed Dollars). It's also entirely permissionless and decentralized. Anyone can use it from anywhere in the world, with no one in the middle saying what you can and can't do. This is just scratching the surface of the power that Hive holds as a payment platform.
I don't know about you, but the moment we have a sort of "Checkout with Hive" option, I'll quickly drop the PayPal option. PayPal is antiquated in my opinion, despite their efforts to keep up with the times. I think we will see the slow decline of the company over the next 10 years, and the rise of permissionless payments. What are your thoughts on PayPal's future?
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