Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Venmo will no longer let you pay or charge your friends on its website

By

If you’re looking to Venmo your friend for that pizza you ate most of, or need to send your monthly rent payment via the PayPal-owned peer-to-peer payments service, you’ll now have to do it via mobile. Venmo is phasing out support for its web service, which likely won’t affect all that many users. But if you are one of the few folks who use Venmo by going to Venmo.com, begin making alternate arrangements, like downloading the Android or iOS app.

Venmo alerted users to the change via email. If you read your monthly transaction history email, you would’ve seen the following message:

Recommended Videos

NOTICE: Venmo has decided to phase out some of the functionality on the Venmo.com website over the coming months. We are beginning to discontinue the ability to pay and charge someone on the Venmo.com website, and over time, you may see less functionality on the website — this is just the start. We therefore have updated our user agreement to reflect that the use of Venmo on the Venmo.com website may be limited.

Today, you can log onto the Venmo website in order to see your transaction history, as well as charge friends or make payments. You can also send payment reminders, interact with transactions (via likes and comments), add friends, edit your profile, and other such actions. But moving forward, you’ll only be able to charge friends or pay them via the Venmo app. This will make Venmo a bit more distinct from parent company PayPal, which relies more on a web interface, and arguably less on a mobile app.

It’s not an altogether surprising move for Venmo either — after all, the service started as a mobile-first platform, and was geared toward mobile-savvy millennials. In many ways, Venmo’s decision is something of a homecoming.

Of course, there are those who are already bemoaning the change (though they’re likely in the minority of users). Some folks have tweeted that they only use Venmo’s web app, while others have questioned the necessity of the decision. But as a Venmo spokesperson told TechCrunch, “Venmo continuously evaluates our products and services to ensure we are delivering our users the best experience … Most of our users pay and request money using the Venmo app, so we’re focusing our efforts there. Users can continue to use the mobile app for their pay and charge transactions and can still use the website for cashing out Venmo balances, settings and statements.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Lulu Chang
Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
With swappable battery packs, this power station lets you take your juice to go
The Runhood Rallye 600 power station set on a table outdoors having a battery pack removed.

Runhood has announced a new kind of modular power station called the Rallye 600. This 600-watt station boasts the usual assortment of outputs, like two QuickCharge 3.0 USB-A slots, two 100W USB-C slots, two 800W AC plugs, and a 12-volt car outlet.

The real kicker is that the two 324-watt-hour battery packs themselves can be popped out the back of the housing so you can take them with you on the go. You need to swap a cap onto the end that was making contact with the power station, but that module has four USB plugs to handle whatever needs charging.  An AC module is available as well.

Read more
Updated Steam mobile app lets you download games from your phone
The Steam remote mobile app shows details for Control.

Valve has released the updated Steam mobile app on Android and iOS, revamped with improvements to its framework and user interface design. The new and improved app also comes with new features, including the ability to download Steam games remotely from your phone and log in with a QR code.

Introducing the updated Steam Mobile app

Read more
Meta teases new wearable that lets you control AR with your brain
Meta prototype of wearable using motor neuron signals to control AR on glasses by viewing messages

Meta announced some big things during its Meta Connect presentation, including the Quest Pro and other technologies revolving around the metaverse. Toward the end of the presentation, Meta showed off an early prototype of a new wearable that seems to work in conjunction with future augmented reality (AR) glasses — allowing you to control AR with your brain and motor neuron signals.

What was shown was very brief and clearly a super early prototype, so it probably won’t look the same whenever this does come out. From what we were able to see, the wearable appears to go around your wrist, similar to a smartwatch like the Apple Watch or Google Pixel Watch. It features a very large square display, and it looks like some bits of information may show up on the display, though it could have also been glare.

Read more