We Need an Apple Pay Donation System

applepay

It should be easier to send money to people.

I am constantly wishing I could send some amount of money to someone. Here are some of the contexts.

  • Tipping at a restaurant

  • Tipping a valet

  • Tipping a concierge

  • Giving a thumbs up to a website (micropayments)

  • Donating to Kickstarter-like projects

  • Donating to Kiva-like projects

  • Sending to charities on an ad-hoc basis

  • Giving to event-based emergency relief funds

  • Giving money to someone on the street

  • Sending money to family or friends

There are ways to do these things, but they’re all horribly antiquated and obtuse.

I don’t like to carry cash. Western Union is expensive, slow, and its authentication system is cumbersome. Apps like Cash are cool, but so few people use them and they still suffer from setup costs/friction.

I’d like to be able to authenticate my purchase using TouchID and Apple Pay.And I’d like for people to be able to receive their purchase by authenticating the same way.

This obviously requires that both sides have an iPhone, but I’m realistically saying we need Apple Pay because Apple is the first company likely to do something like this. But really anyone with a sufficient ecosystem and hardware with strong authentication could be a sender or receiver.

It should be easier to send money to people.

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