[Paul Heinzman]

They were oriented towards using Palm Pilots to "beam" money to pay for meals at restaurants.

Since Diner's Club had been doing that since the late 50's I'd say you were correct that they needed a new business model. I wasn't dissing you, sorry if it came across that way.

[PJ-Comix]

No, I didn't think you were dissing me but it did bring back memories of PayPal. BTW, check out this PODCAST interview with Jack Selby. The first seven minutes are about the early days of PayPal. As you will hear, that idea of using Palm Pilots to "beam" payment really didn't work out. Plus Jack also states that they didn't take off until they oriented PayPal towards auctions payments. And they didn't do that until YOURS TRULY contacted Selby and suggested orienting specifically towards eBay auctions and using PayPal auction banners. From that point on, PayPal went thru the roof in terms of subscribers and ended up becoming the primary method for online payments.

Any enterprising business reporter out there is welcome to dig into this account of what really made PayPal a success.