Invisible Currency

I manage a team... kinda... that writes e-Commerce applications.

Can I call them something other than e-Commerce applications? I hate that name. It's a crapton of sites that sells stuff. Umm... online storefronts. Yeah. That's what I'll call them.

Anyways, I've always resisted integrating Paypal into our checkout process, mainly because of a) fraud issues b) liability issues and c) I'm busy doing other nonsense, like AJAX. I never saw it as necessary... I mean, who pays out of their Paypal account? No one. They transfer the cash to a checking account then use it from there. Right?

Well... I gotta confess... I paid for something out of my Paypal account. Someone donated something to my pet open-source project, which made me as giddy as a schoolgirl. But I didn't use the donation for anything.

Then I found out that The Office was available via iTunes. I had a steaming resentment in my belly that I hadn't seen any episodes from season 2, so I took a peek at what I could buy.

Whaddaya know... iTunes just recently added Paypal as a payment option. And I had a balance. And I had a burning in my loins to pay a deuce and watch an Office episode. So I transferred money from some stranger via another stranger to a third stranger... and was watching my beautiful episode in a few minutes.

I guess there is a use for Paypal after all. For those of us with less money in Paypal than under our couch cushion, maybe random transfers like these actually make sense.