Venvy

Have never used Venmo but learned a new word reading this story. It seems like social media of all stripes have the default setting of "enable voyeurism" and this meets user expectations for the most part. 

There are hoops to jump through to gain some illusion of privacy. Real privacy is simply not possible in an environment where the likes of Facebook leave passwords in plaintext for years and think nothing about it. Clearly impact to users is not a priority - they need to better spend their resources learning how best to control the minds of those who spend time on their assets. The venvy situation is a very curious one. 

After Facebook and Instagram no surprise that the logical next step in the culture of over-sharing would be to show the world how and where you spend your money. Maybe we fundamentally crave the village mode of living where everyone was in everyone's business and there was no real notion of privacy. There was no way to feel alone as no one was truly individual. When these interactions happened in real-time with people you lived in physical proximity to, it did not appear bizarre. 

When you scale up to the point you can stalk Venmo payments of people who you know nothing about, likely never met and never will, the village style prying appears somewhat unhinged. But it maybe entirely normal - humans are behaving just as nature intended.