Venmo vs. I Am Rich

Welcome back to Gizmodo’s March Madness bracket challenge to name the greatest app of all time! YouTube handily defeated Words With Friends in yesterday’s lineup, taking more than 87 percent of the vote. Now it’s time for two very different money apps to duke it out.

If you’re just tuning in, you can read all about our selection criteria for this historic contest right here. Check out the full bracket of contestants embedded below. And as always, if you think we missed your personal favorite app of all time, yell at us in the comments. Now, let’s get into today’s contestants.

Apple Unveils Its iPhone 15 and Apple Watch Series 9

Our bracket wouldn’t be complete without an app for sending money but it was tough to choose between Cash App and Venmo. The former has more viral name recognition and has been name-dropped in hip hop lyrics for years. But Venmo has been in the game longer and has more users so it ultimately triumphed.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about Venmo, it lets you send money to people you know and that turned out to be very convenient. Its biggest innovation was turning the act of sending money into content for its social feed. Anyone who’s used it knows it can be fascinating to snoop on what payments your friends are sending although that has gotten them into trouble with the FTC over privacy concerns in the past.

Taking on Venmo is a little app you may not have even heard of. I Am Rich was one of the earliest additions to Apple’s App Store. The initial version of the app had the sole purpose of congratulating rich people on how rich they are. It cost $999.99 and when a user opened it, they could click an icon that would then display text that read:

I am rich

I deserv it

I am good,

healthy & successful

It didn’t last long. Its developer, Armin Heinrich, said it sold eight copies before it was pulled by Apple 24 hours after its launch. One person claimed they purchased it by accident.

Years later, an updated version of the app was released for $9.99 and included a calculator but it was poorly reviewed. The whole point of the app was gone. Heinrich has said that the app was a work of art and as with much of the best art, it separated rich people from their money just so they could feel some sense of status.

Since its release, plenty of developers have made creative apps that arguably meet the definition of art. Last month, Gizmodo reported a developer who made a dating app on which you can only date him. And the deranged projects released on the MSCHF app regularly make headlines. They all owe a debt to I Am Rich.

So, reader, what’ll it be? Are you so grateful for the ability to easily split a check that you want to send Venmo to the next round? Or should I Am Rich get one more moment in the sun?