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:
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.”
