WEBVTT - How Money Became A Form Of Social Media 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:14.360 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd LODs podcast. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.560 I'm Joe Wasn't Thal, and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, It's 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.760 time for another episode about one of our favorite topics. Money. 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.320 It's gotta be money, It's gotta be money. It's always money, 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.160 I mean, all of our inner sense. I guess all 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:29.840 of our episodes are money. But how could you talk 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.599 about things about money if you don't even know what 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.080 money is or where it comes from? I agree that 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:37.320 all of our episodes are money in that what was 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:43.600 that film you suppord money n Swan where people were going, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:48.440 you're so money swingers, Yeah, swingers that one. Our episodes 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.919 are money in that sense, but they're also about money. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.000 They are. And of course there's one of our favorite topics, 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.040 and today we have um. I think we're going to 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.080 explored with a slightly different angle than we sometimes do. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.840 So we sometimes talk about the origins of money? Does 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:08.240 money come from the state? Is money inherently credit based? 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.720 What are the different kinds of things that we call money? 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.720 I think we're gonna attack the question from a slightly 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.959 different angle than we normally do. Yeah, I think this 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:19.920 is going to be a really interesting episode because it's 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.920 actually going to bring together a lot of the different 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:26.280 discussions we've been having about specific types of money, so 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.720 cash versus cryptocurrency, or different types of cryptocurrency like bitcoin 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:36.039 versus something like libra, uh, the currency that Facebook is 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.720 currently working on, and what the different use cases are 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.520 for each of those, but also what the different sort 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.679 of I guess societies that they create actually are, if 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.480 that makes sense. Yeah, I like the way you put 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.600 that society is that they create. And of course, like 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.760 money is just like really interesting because obviously people pay 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.000 pay for things with money, but you know, people do 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.080 new things with money that they hadn't always done. So 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.280 it's like people paying venmo to their friends and they 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.200 leave funny messages along with their venmos, Like that's a 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.600 new thing that wasn't always the case. So within this 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.240 thing like payments or money, how we use it, what 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.160 its role in society is, how it connects us. It's 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.480 always evolving. Yeah, absolutely, And there's a big inclusion discussion 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.600 to be had there as well, So who has access 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.400 to different types of money, So I'm interested in touching 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.760 on that as well. So today I'm really excited once 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.079 again we have a past guest we had. I think 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.000 it was probably a couple of years ago now, but 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:35.520 we have her back. I'm very excited we're gonna be 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.560 speaking with a Lanta Swords. She's the professor of Media 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.880 Studies at the University of Virginia. She's also a fellow 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.400 at the Burguing Institute, and she is the author of 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:49.040 a recent book called New Money, How Money Became Social Media. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.839 So it will be interesting a different angle than we've 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.000 typically had. But a Lana, thank you so much for 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.680 joining us, Thanks for having me. It's good to be back, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.760 you know. So, like we said this, we like this 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.720 topic what is money money? But there is some question 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.680 that arises sometimes, I think, which is why bother, like 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.200 why do we talk about this question? Like why is 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.400 it interesting or why is it important? From your perspective, 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.079 tackling this question from a different angle, and we'll get 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.399 to this the content of your book about money as 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.160 social media? Why is it even a thing we're studying 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.200 in the first place? In your view? Well, I know 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.760 for me, so I started my PhD program um right 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.160 kind of in the aftermath of the last global financial crisis. 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.400 So I was really in this moment of like I 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.320 was entering into a moment of scholarly study when it 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.960 seems like the whole world was asking that question, you know, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.480 what is money? Why is money? Why do governments and 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.800 traditional financial institutions have like the say over what gets 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.120 to be money? And that kind of like post two 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.560 thousand eight moment was when we saw, I would say, like, really, 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:58.960 the emergence of what we now call fintech, what we 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:00.760 now call the sharing a con to me, what we 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.320 i'll call um, you know, the gig economy, like all 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.880 these different ways of doing money differently, of course, the 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.280 crypto space, and so it suddenly seemed like like everybody 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.280 was asking that kind of question, and so I became 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.680 really interested in it at a time where I could 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.599 also study people who were really interested in kind of 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.760 questions of money nous um and at a time when 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.960 people were starting to build new infrastructures to do money 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.240 and do the economy differently. Um. And of course, my 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.120 as you mentioned, I'm an assistant professor of media studies, 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:35.000 and my background is in thinking about communication media technologies. 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.840 So I, prior to that point, had been, prior to 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.320 kind of turning to money, had been looking at the 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.440 emergence of social media. UM, you know, what do cell phones? 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.280 What do social media networks? Um? Mean for any number 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.960 of different social questions. And I realized that there was 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:56.440 almost no one inside the economy, inside academia, inside kind 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:01.600 of this field of media studies looking at that communication 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.000 and technological infrastructures that make money happen, and we're they 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.720 were undergoing this like kind of tremendous moment of transformation. 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.160 So for me, as someone who studies technologies that move 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.520 information around and um, the kinds of social and cultural 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.120 dimensions of those technologies, UM, I think it's important and 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.840 interesting to study money because typically when we talk about money, 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:25.880 we talked about kind of the politics or cultural meaning 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:27.880 of money. It has to do with questions of like 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.640 who has money, who doesn't have money, who's doesn't have 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.000 enough money, who has too much money? But we don't 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:38.400 usually think about the infrastructures that actually move money around 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.719 and how those infrastructures themselves have meaning and have power, 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.560 and how they're changing. So talk to us a little 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.839 bit more about that point. What exactly is the overlap 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.239 between media and money? Because I think to most people 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.680 it's not going to be immediately apparent Oftentimes when I say, 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.640 you know, my book is called How Payment Became Social Media, Um, 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.400 people immediately go to Venmo. And of course that's true, 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.839 like Venmo, such a cliche, such a cliche, immediately wondering, 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:05.719 and lots of Venmo in the book. So and I 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.479 think Vemo is really fascinating. But you know, Venmo is 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.120 overtly designed to be social media. You know, I've one 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.320 of my students mentioned once and I think that's even 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.560 made it to the book. It's like literally Facebook Blue, 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.200 you know, it's a social stream that you know, turns 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.880 money into into a form of kind of media. But 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.920 if we go back and we think about, you know, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:31.200 the the technologies of money, they have always kind of 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.760 tracked alongside the money the technologies of communication and media 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.920 more broadly. Um, so we could go back to thinking about, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.400 you know, the way coins, the way tally sticks, um, 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.240 the way any number, whether you know big rocks that 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.640 you you know, keep an oral history of of who 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.359 owns it in the case of the TIV and the well, 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:52.360 the isle of Yap. You know, those are all kind 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.160 of information systems. And however we kind of keep track 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:01.080 of information, whether it's through bits of shell or just 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.880 kind of oral history is kind of the remit of 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.000 what media and communication study scholars are interested in. But 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.840 if we think a little bit more more recent so, 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:14.520 paper currency does many of the same things that scholars 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.240 in my field talk about paper UM culture print culture 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.120 more generally doing so, you know, Benedict Anderson, who is 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.080 a UM scholar of the printing press, talked about how 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:31.280 the print and newspapers created an imagined community. It's his term, 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.560 like the skies and scale of the nation state. So 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.400 we kind of learned to think about ourselves as members 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.640 of nations through the consumption of printed media. And similarly, 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.559 print currency is covered with iconography of the nation state. 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.360 It tells us an efficiently sanctioned past, and it allows 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.000 us to project into kind of a shared future UM 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.240 as kind of a community of shared faith. If we 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.680 then you know, think about okay, like move forward into 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.080 what you know, the technologies of money have been and 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.080 so you know, the telegraph, you know, we think about 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.640 Western Union is being primarily a money transfer service these days, 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.440 but it's also you know, one of the most important 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.200 you know, communication systems. More broadly, moving forward into the 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.680 twenty later in the twentieth century, the very same computers 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.720 and in some cases some of the same engineers who 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.560 built the early Internet. We're also um building the Visa 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.080 master Card network, which is this kind of you know, 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.080 global communication system. So and you can still hear in 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.280 some like I haven't been to a bar in a 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.240 really long time, but um, but you can still hear 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.200 from the back and like the back a t M 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.240 of some sketchy bar like modem noises coming out of 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.080 a t M s And it kind of reminds us that, 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.080 you know, this is an Internet of sorts. You know, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.600 I'm old enough to remember that you couldn't you know, 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.880 you couldn't swipe a credit card or my mom couldn't 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.040 swipe a credit card when someone was on the phone 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:55.880 at the store in the eighties and nineties. And so 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.040 now when we talk about new payment systems, we're looking 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.080 at mobile, we're looking at the Internet. We're thinking about crypto, 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.280 which is like in many ways, there's a reason why 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.360 we call it. You know, people jokingly call it magic 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.360 Internet currency and that sort of thing. So I try 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:17.400 to say, all right, let's rethink money as communication, you know, 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:22.000 think about transactions as literal like transactions moving across from 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:25.080 one account to another UM and then look at the 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:30.680 systems that power that communication, whether they are tally stick paper, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.079 you know, UM, telegraph, Internet, whatever the case may be, 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.520 and say, all right, you know what are the politics 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.600 of those systems? Who manages them? How do we use 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.920 them to create meaning in our everyday lives. It's interesting. 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:47.880 You may not know this, but on a recent episode, 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.040 so Tracy after years and years of skepticism or recent 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.680 episode turned her into a bitcoin bowl. She she converted anyway, 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:01.280 But it's interesting thinking about, like you mentioned, imagined communities 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.800 and Benedict Anderson in the printing press sort of reifying 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.000 the state because obviously you look at physical currency, icons 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.680 of the state, founding fathers, other symbols that sort of 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.400 emphasize this. It's interesting to think of like sort of 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:17.880 like bitcoin and crypto, is this sort of like post 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.679 nation state currency which fits with the Internet. Is this 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:27.120 sort of like you know, post newspapers posts, sort of 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.800 like post post print communities. I guess yeah, And you know, 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.400 I I will say I'm not, you know, hugely bullish 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:39.160 on crypto myself. I've been I've written some academic articles 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.400 about UM, bitcoin and blockchain going back many years now, 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.560 I'm old in bitcoin time, I guess, and I do 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.960 think that a huge part of what UM appeals about 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.800 about bitcoin or about crypto is the kind of community aspect. 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.800 So this like sense of being part of a shared 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.760 future that looks a particular way. UM. You know, I 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.280 have said, I've written that, you know, all money is 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.920 a stake. UM. It allows you to stake your claim 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.160 in a particular future. Like all money is kind of 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.200 a prediction market in some ways, because if you're willing 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.400 to accept and hold money, you're kind of betting on 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.840 a particular set of outcome. So if you do believe 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.120 in the future that is as folks talked about in 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.679 the nineties, like homesteading on the electronic frontier UM, and 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.760 that you're the pioneer UM, then why wouldn't you kind 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.400 of put your money where your mouth is, so to speak, 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.040 and and start thinking about what kind of monetary systems 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:55.880 would that would entail. So my time frame might be 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.080 slightly off here because I haven't lived in the States 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.000 for a while now, but from what I remember, like 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.080 even five years ago or so, it was kind of 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:09.720 difficult to send money very quickly to just a random person. Um. 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.000 You know, you could do a wire transfer, you could 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.160 do a money order, right, a check, things like venmo 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.600 or um other sort of instantaneous payment methods, maybe sending 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.600 bitcoin over the internet something like that. They weren't really 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.320 around yet. Why was that the case? Like, what is 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:33.760 the justification for making money transfers that slow for so long? Yeah, 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.200 whenever I speak to, you know, talk with folks in 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:38.800 other parts of the world, they're always like, they don't 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.520 really quite get venmo, because, um, it doesn't quite make 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:44.960 sense that we haven't yet had a good way to 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.959 send friends um money quickly and easily. And the United 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.199 States has kind of historically been behind in P two 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.360 P payments. And I I think there's kind of a 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.199 couple of different answers to that, for you know, in 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.880 terms of the reason why, um, you know, one is, 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.320 as you know, just general lack of public investment UM 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.440 or general lack of of you know, infrastructural investment that 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.640 would enable something like that. In a lot of places 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.480 in Europe, there is just they're more public options for 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.920 peer to peer payment UM. But also I think one 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:16.719 of the things I write about the book is that 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.360 the Visa master card network was developed at a time 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.360 that imagined a much more um kind of dietic economy. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.360 So like there were consumers which were people, and there 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.640 were merchants that were businesses, and there were there wasn't 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.520 really away for a person to be a merchant um 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.680 or and therefore a person to kind of accept payments. Um. 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.200 And so we have as you may know, and I 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.640 could really geek out about this for a very long time, 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.160 but people tell me, um that not everyone is like 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:50.800 Super in the credit card acquiring value change. So with 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.559 credit cards, um, every everyone has a bank that represents themselves, 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.160 that represents them as they enter the kind of credit 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.960 card network. So people have a bank that's their issuing 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.560 bank that issues them a credit card. UM. Let's say 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:07.000 I have a Chase UM Sapphire Cards, so chases my issuer. 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.760 And then if I am a merchant, UM, I have 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:14.439 an acquiring bank who you know, maybe let's say oftentimes 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.160 it's also Chase, but um, you know, it could be 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:21.000 Bank of America Merchant Services, and that acquiring bank, you know, 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.080 acquires payments on my behalf but also kind of holds 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.560 the risk for me. And what that means is that 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.600 if a customer wants their money back UM, then they 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:37.000 will UM ask for chargeback through their issuer, who will 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.520 then go through the network and then go to the acquirer, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.520 and the acquirer, under the rules of the network, typically 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.440 is mostly obliged to just give them their money back, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.880 so UM, so the acquirer essentially pays the issuer and 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.800 the issuer then issues a refund to the customer. So 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.800 then the acquirer has to then go to the merchant 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.400 and say, hey, I've issued this chargeback, I need money 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.240 from you. And if the which happens all the time, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.440 it's not usually that big a deal. UM. But if 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.720 for whatever reason, the merchant faces a ton and a 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.040 ton of chargebacks, or the merchant goes out of business, 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.760 or the merchant was a scammer, the acquirer is left 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.200 holding the bag for all of that risk. So acquiring 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.800 services are priced according to risk. So if you're an acquirer, 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.360 one of the ways you make money is by um 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.120 doing higher risk payments. UM. So anyone who, for the 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.080 most part, who's an issue, who's a merchant, can find 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.520 an acquirer who like matches their risk appetite. But historically 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.400 that has not been so there's no has not been 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.800 any real way for individuals to have their risk assessed 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.280 by an acquirer. And there has never been a kind 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.360 of acquirer for people. Um So, there has never been 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.760 a way for people to accept payments through the Visa 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.840 master Card network. And then you know, the big innovation 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.840 in that space was PayPal in the nineties. Um And 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.560 of course PayPal rides the rails not primarily of the 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.200 Visa master Card network, but of the A C H network. 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.880 UM So that's why you know, PayPal prefers it when 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.960 folks use their checking account rather than like having to 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.280 access and having to pay fees to access the network 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.320 the Visa master Card network. So it we never it 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.600 was built in a time. The Visa master Card network 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:24.120 was built in a time in the you know, nineteen 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.760 seventies when we didn't have as much of a peer 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.320 to peer economy, didn't have as much as a person 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.440 to person, we didn't have as much of a press 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.360 person imagination for how the economy would work. And I 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:37.680 think that that has a lot to do with our 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.880 media infrastructure. So I mean the Internet in many ways, 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:46.240 like allows us to imagine ourselves as economic actors um 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.480 as people, and so the internet kind of had to 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:50.400 figure out a way to allow us to get paid 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.160 and to pay so and I'm just wondering. So, you know, 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.440 when Facebook launched Libra, which is sort of like the 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.480 next iteration of a lot of what we're talking about, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.080 there were a lot of cynics out there who were saying, well, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.400 this is just a way for Facebook to get additional 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.359 data on its users. I'm curious, like how much of 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.840 these new payment systems are about learning more about the 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.280 individual to your point, versus you know, just dealing with 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.800 the merchant. Yeah, I mean absolutely, UM. I think that 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.600 that like anything else coming out of the tech industry, 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.840 you know, there is a data imperative, there's a data 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:34.480 play UM. Merchants, as I mentioned, pay to receive payments 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.480 and if and for the most part, we don't you know, 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.119 people don't pay to be paid, nor do we UM, 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:44.960 nor are we willing to really pay to pay UM. 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.080 So there has to be some way that like this 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.320 is being monetized UM. And so for the most part 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.040 that has been you know, imagined like everything else as 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:56.840 and I kind of when I say how payment became 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.159 social media, A big part of what I mean, is 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.640 like social the Silicon Valley, since the term which means 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.119 that there is a social data component um. And you know, 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.679 for a long time, folks in this kind of like 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.680 new payment space talked about like mobile payments as kind 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.800 of the holy grail of social data sets, because there 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.400 was this kind of dream that if you could actually finally, 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.040 um you know, close the loop between targeted message to 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.479 actual purchase in real space and time, UM, then you 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.320 would um you know, do something you know, no advertiser 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:33.760 has ever done before. I think that some of the 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.080 business models have moved away, um to some extent, from 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.359 the kind of like direct advertising type of targeted advertising 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.280 type of business model to thinking about things like developing 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.320 new systems of risk analytics, UM, you know, just kind 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.880 of applying data to whatever data can be used for. 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.520 And and in some cases I've been somewhat convinced by 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:01.119 Tim Wong's new book that that basically are argues that 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.680 it's possible that we don't we can't actually get as 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:08.520 much value out of all of these um data sets 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:10.400 as we may hope, and then we may see something 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:12.439 we may be in the middle of a data bubble. 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.200 But nevertheless, the kind of Quest for Data, which you 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.119 guys should have him on the podcast. He's really interesting. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.439 We should. I was just thinking, what's the name of 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.919 his book is called I Can see it? Sub Prime 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.080 attention crisis advertising and the time bomb at the heart 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:32.200 of the Internet. Sounds good? Is this like how I buy? 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.199 Like I bought like a new Dutch oven the other 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.520 day and then now all I get is ads for 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.560 Dutch as if you were a Dutch oven collector. Wait, 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.600 if we collector, it might make sense. But if it were, 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.040 like if it were some theoretically efficient market for data, 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.840 someone's getting screwed. Like someone's buying a lot of impressions 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.560 that probably they wish they weren't, you know, as all 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.040 of the right exactly, and as all of the almost 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.919 every major social media company has tried to do payment 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.240 it's over the last ten years, um, with varying degrees 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.240 of success, and they've all applied kind of their standard 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.359 m o um too the what they think they're going 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.080 to do with it. So you know, Google has imagined 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.760 that they will sell like AdWords type of thing as 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.160 it relates to payments. Facebook has imagined that they would 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:19.679 kind of hoard it and figure out what they were 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:21.960 going to do with it. Venmo is kind of interesting 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.520 because Veno has a public api. Um, it's quite easy 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.320 to browse Venmo data. There's a lot of interesting art 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.040 projects that UM kind of ticket exploit this so um 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.480 that one of my favorites is called public by Default, 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.680 and that is by an artist called UM but named 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:45.639 hand the Duke, and she basically um downloaded all Venmo 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.960 transactions from the year seen and used it to create 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.560 portraits of individual people. She calls them the humans of Venmo, 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.080 and she profiles like young lovers obviously getting into an 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.960 argument and then making up and breaking up, and this 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.040 one woman who's seems to spend an inordinate amount of 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.240 money on junk food, and someone who is almost definitely 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.199 a weed dealer. UM, and she kind of and she 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.959 kind of uses it to to say, like, you know, 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.480 which the reason why I think this is so interesting 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:15.440 is that, yes, she's using it to say we should 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:19.480 probably be making this private. But it also shows, you know, 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.679 really how like poignant the stories are money tells are 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:27.919 and how these are like lived experiences. Yeah. So I know, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.399 you say, like it's a cliche and everyone goes to Venmo, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.679 but there's obviously a reason for this because it's just 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.959 so obvious and like I use Venmo, but you know, 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.720 like I don't put like clever things in my messages. 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:42.840 I just like say straight up if I like, if 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.919 I'm splitting lunch, I'm splitting lunch. But obviously people do, 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.080 and they like use emojis or you know, tongue in 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.600 cheek jokes. Why like why is and you see, like 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.320 it's kind of weird that it's people are default public 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.440 or that they let themselves, especially when you can then 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.199 reverse engineer you can figure. You know, there was some 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.480 site that I saw it was basically just like every 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:07.520 like trains, yeah, vice mobized yeah Vice. So like why 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:10.159 and when when you when people research this, what is 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.680 it about the desire to make it fun their transactions, 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:15.359 or to make it public, or to even reveal a 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.280 legal activity that people are so comfortable doing. Yeah, I 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:20.680 mean I do think that the I do think that 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.800 money is fundamentally social, Our transactions are, and I think 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.359