Venmo: The Scourge of Reciprocity — Models and Morality

The existence of apps like Venmo make it very easy to pay your friends when they buy you something small. This means the likelihood of me and a friend reciprocally buying things for each other is much lower. If I buy you a coffee, you can just Venmo me the exact amount the coffee cost instead of just buying me coffee the next time. If we split a Lyft when going somewhere, you can pay me for half of it — to the penny — instead of just letting me cover it, and then you paying for the Uber on the way back.

The kind of reciprocal spending that Venmo has made less commonplace is usually done in a pretty approximate way. We wouldn't worry that each of us was spending the exact same amount on the other. I just do you a favor when I get you coffee, you do me a favor when you call the Lyft, and things generally even out in the end. (Note that you can have a lesser version of this reciprocity with Venmo if you just pay each other approximately what things cost — e.g. you paid for my $2.99 dinner, and instead of calculating tax and tip I just send you $4. But if you are a to-the-penny Venmoer, you don’t even have this).

I think the decrease in this kind of reciprocity is not necessarily a good thing. There’s a nice feeling I get when I do you a favor, and know that we have a relationship in which I can expect you to do me a favor in the future, without us needing to tally up exactly who owes each other up. But because Venmo makes money transfers so easy that it feels a little like you’re showing off your deep pockets if you tell people they don’t need to Venmo you for something.

So we have here a situation where Venmo makes something more convenient, but the fact that this thing was inconvenient before actually brought people together in a certain way. This is a general pattern that you can see in other places areas affected by technological advancement:

Instead of needing to visit your friends when they are sick to make sure they’re alive, you can just call them. And if they’re locked up at home, there’s no need to bring them groceries or hot soup, because they could just use DoorDash
It’s so convenient to navigate on Google Maps that there’s no need to ask people on the street for directions
Facebook alerts you to people’s birthdays automatically, which means that if someone wishes you happy birthday, you can’t be certain that they remembered it themselves, which might make it a little less meaningful
Because so many facts are so easily Googled, there can be a sense of purposelessness around having an idle debate about something random (“is the climate in France colder or warmer than in the US?”) because if you really wanted to know the answer, you could just Google it
The existence of sturdy, waterproof rain boots means that there are far fewer men spreading their jackets across the mud so that ladies can walk without dirtying the bottoms of their dresses (okay, maybe there are other reasons contributing to the decline of this habit)

Basically, many advancements make it easier for us to be independent. On balance I think this is a positive thing. But there is great spiritual and emotional value in having to rely on other people for things — in being interdependent. So maybe it’s worth looking out for situations where you can do small favors or ask for small favors from people, even when it’s relatively easy to avoid the need for favors. It’s nice to help and it’s also nice to be helped.

Thanks to Connor for suggesting this topic! And sorry I don’t have many insights beyond what we talked about