PayPal

PayPal's signature is the popup that interrupts a merchant checkout: a separate window in PayPal's own chrome, meant to borrow that trust and reassure you the card details never reach the seller. The login-first flow inside it is the real tax. You land on a password screen, then a funding-source selector that defaults to whatever PayPal prefers, not what you would pick. The list is dense and the active method is easy to misread, so people pay from the wrong account. Status after you confirm is honest and fast. But the surrounding account UI carries years of accumulation: nested menus, inconsistent button weights, dispute flows buried under help articles. It works, and it never feels like one coherent product designed by one team in one decade.