'The New Google Pay Repeats All the Same Mistakes of Google Allo' 46
In regard to the new Google Pay app, "Google is killing one perfectly fine service and replacing it with a worse, less functional service," writes Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo. "The fun, confusing wrinkle here is that the new and old services are both called 'Google Pay.'" From the report: The old Google Pay service that has been around for years is dying. The app will be shut down in the US on April 5, and if you want to continue using New Google Pay, you'll have to go find and download a totally new app. NFC tap-and-pay functionality won't really change once you set up the new app, but the New Google Pay app won't use your Google account for P2P payments anymore. You'll be required to make a new account. You won't be able to send any money to your new contacts until they download the new app and make a new account, too. On top of all that, the Google Pay website will be stripped of all payment functionality in the US on April 5, and New Google Pay won't support doing anything from the web. You won't be able to transfer money, view payment activity, or see your balance from a browser.
In addition to less convenient access and forcing users to remake their accounts, New Google Pay is also enticing users to switch with new fees for transfers to debit cards. Old Google Pay did this for free, but New Google Pay now has "a fee of 1.5% or $.31 (whichever is higher), when you transfer out money with a debit card."
Google is currently sending out emails to existing users detailing all this. There's also a support page link and a notice at the top of pay.google.com. On the Play Store, Google has already started hiding the old Google Pay app from search results, renamed it "Google Pay (old app)," and updated the app home screen with a message to sign up for the new app.
In addition to less convenient access and forcing users to remake their accounts, New Google Pay is also enticing users to switch with new fees for transfers to debit cards. Old Google Pay did this for free, but New Google Pay now has "a fee of 1.5% or $.31 (whichever is higher), when you transfer out money with a debit card."
Google is currently sending out emails to existing users detailing all this. There's also a support page link and a notice at the top of pay.google.com. On the Play Store, Google has already started hiding the old Google Pay app from search results, renamed it "Google Pay (old app)," and updated the app home screen with a message to sign up for the new app.
Story looks familiar (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Story looks familiar (Score:5, Funny)
It is replacing of perfectly fine old article with a worse, less functional one.
Re: (Score:2)
A dupe? Allo?
Michelle said specifically: "Listen very carefully, for I shall say zis only once!"
Re: Story looks familiar (Score:1)
Where did I read this before? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where did I read this before? (Score:5, Funny)
They removed that story and replaced it with another with the same name, enticing users to switch to another platform.
Re: (Score:2)
You must be new to the Internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, didn't you hear that the brown acid tablets [urbandictionary.com] are bad! On a more serious note, I'm not sure just just how mixed up you can be and still use complete sentences, but I think you have hit the max.
Easy Solution (Score:1)
Don't us Google Pay. Problem solved.
Google is dying (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Google is dying (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
"sheep queue up to be slaughtered and complain when the knife is dull"
Blunt weapons are far more painful to suffer from.
A few years ago I remember reading about someone who was murdered by a drug cartel in Mexico.
They killed him with a phillips screwdriver.
I strongly suspect by the end he wished they had used a sharp knife.
Re: (Score:3)
Which end?
Re: (Score:2)
They killed him with a phillips screwdriver.
I strongly suspect by the end he wished they had used a sharp knife.
Or at the very least Pozidriv.
Re: (Score:1)
Well, Ron Amadeo despise Google and Android, so everything he writes is like this.
And then go to the comment section and see all the apple cult members shitting even more on Google.
IBM-compatible PCs were more standardized (Score:2)
Windows 3.x and Windows 9x ran on PCs that used what at the time was an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) with standard baseline hardware (VGA, keyboard, mouse, COM, LPT) at standard physical addresses and a standard BIOS boot process. ARM-powered smartphones had no such standards on which to fall back.
Malevolent AI (Score:2)
I think oneissue at Google (Score:3)
Re:I think oneissue at Google (Score:4, Funny)
Re: I think oneissue at Google (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In the beginning they made so much money that it felt natural to spend a lot of it on cool technologies, but eventually the spending catches up and spending has to have a return on investment or at least have the potential to improve an existing initiative's return on investment.
The low hanging fruit of growth is gone and its now about maxing out Chrome, Android and Search for maximum financial return. Everything else is in support of this or its gone.
Don't be evil Google (Score:2)
Disconnected from Google Account? (Score:2)
Does this mean that your Google Pay account will be disconnected from your Google Account, i.e. your Gmail account if you have one? Having to make a 'new' account makes this seem like a possibility.
For somebody like me with an abandoned Gmail account this could be a positive thing.
Re: (Score:2)
> Read the rest of this comment...
No thank you, I already have enough indigestion.
Why do they even try (Score:2)
to make consumer-facing products anymore? We all know the story: they put out something half-assed, they don't support it, and then they kill it.
Maybe all these "products" are really just "experiments" that drive some kind of deep customer data that they then sell to advertisers. Like they know ahead of time they'll shut down or replace Google Pay, they just wanted to watch people use it so they could build a statistical model or learn about purchase trends or something.
Re: (Score:2)
It's simpler than that. Google is an advertising company. They happen to have lots of programmers, so they make some software stuff that they hope you'll use so they can sell you ads. If it ends up that the doohickey doesn't push enough ads, they kill it and move on.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe all these "products" are really just "experiments" that drive some kind of deep customer data that they then sell to advertisers.
Google+ turned out to be a beta for functionality for Google Teams. I wonder if any other "cancelled" projects simply became for-pay products?
The *new* Google (Score:5, Informative)
This is now a repeating theme at Google. They kill a “standard” product and replace it a “sub-standard” product. I don’t have a catch-all explanation for why, but knowing what I do know from first hand accounts of the code base, I believe they adopted anti-innovation patterns (mono repo, everything-is-an-interface, my-way-or-no-way) and are now paying the price for those decisions. I’ll admit It took longer than I thought for the wheels to start falling off, but it was always clear to me that at some point the rigidity and cognitive complexity would peak and lead to technical paralysis. They systematically eliminated innovation harbours in search of efficiency and now every change requires a detailed analysis of the inheritance and call chains to ensure nothing regresses among the 50+ projects linking that single change in. I’ve seen this pattern often and it always ends the same way. Flexibility and limitation of scope are how great technologies grow, complexity and indecipherable scope is how once great technologies die. Keep your stuff siloed, simple and easy for developers to fearlessly refactor, or you eventually get caught in a cycle of endless rewrites.
Re: (Score:2)
We've got lots of terms for this.
"Loss leader"
"The first hit is free"
"Bait and switch"
Re: (Score:2)
Caveat Emptor.
Re: (Score:2)
Easy come, easy go.
What Google giveth, Google may taketh away.
Re: (Score:3)
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but once they're used to coming for the honey, you can swap in dogshit and they won't leave.
Re: (Score:2)
Lol. You win.
Re: (Score:2)
Is it even just Google? And at least they have the courtesy to just kill the perfectly good version of the application instead of wedging their lousy new unwanted, broken features into the existing application and pretending it's an upgrade?
I see the problem you're describing constantly, but usually it's because an app grew quickly based on its original, tight vision, and now the team is flailing because they're no longer sure what they're competing against. Also, they almost certainly didn't design around
Killed by Google (Score:2, Informative)
Allo, allo?! (Score:3)
Allo, allo!?
What did you say? I'm an old woman and hard of hearing [gstatic.com]
And I have no idea what Google Allo was.
Self-fulfilling prophecy (Score:1)
Therefore Google Pay will simply keep being downgraded until hardly anyone uses it, after which it will quietly retired.
It's about offering less and collecting more (Score:2)
This is SOP at google. Offer less, which of course requires less developer time and monetary investment, all while collecting even more information about users, which is the profit engine at google.
Zelle has become a very good platform for P2P payments. There is no cost, and you don't have to surrender any information that your bank does not already have. It is also "within a minute" instant. As in, the money is in your account AND available to spend right away.
I would venture a guess that most people have