PayPal may presently be number one in the eyes of many online payers but not so in the eyes of the many small business payees that invariably bear the brunt of PayPal’s clunky, unlicensed, unregulated, uninsured, faux banking operations. The fact is, “PreyPal” is, in the main, little more than a “merchant of sorts” (PayPal’s own words) operating a credit card merchant account via a real, licensed retail bank.

Regardless, undoubtedly, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, et al, will soon enough overwhelm PayPal’s petty and clunky contribution to mobile payments (next time you visit Home Depot, ask the cashier how "Pay Here With PayPal" is going—LOL); methinks Facebook Payments will likely soon bury PayPal in the person-to-person (C2C) payments sphere (David Marcus certainly made the right move); and the new online retail payments offerings direct from the retail banks via MasterCard ("MasterPass") and Visa ("Visa Checkout") will eventually bury PayPal’s online payments operations also—except on the likes of the eBay marketplace where PayPal’s "spin-off" from eBay—a spin-off that Johnny Ho fought tooth and nail against—will go down as the greatest commercial confidence trick of the twenty-first century …