PayPal Launches Virtual Debit Card, Three Days Too Late

On December 27, PayPal announced a “virtual debit card”, letting you make online purchases everywhere MasterCard is accepted. One little problem: Christmas was a few days earlier, meaning the online financial service missed the holiday shopping season for some stupid reason.
PayPal’s move was a smart one, devaluing “exclusive” arrangements like the one Google Checkout has with online merchants (in fact, you could use PayPal and Google Checkout on the same purchase, thanks to this). However, PayPal’s timing was so poor, missing the most important and valuable shopping season of the year, that you have to question their management intelligence, or lack thereof. PayPal, and parent company eBay, makes so many bad decisions, that as stupid as some of Google’s moves have been, you have to wonder if this is not a game of who fights the hardest, but who lakes the least dumb moves.
Hat-tip and inspiration: […]

Original post by Nathan Weinberg