
Google Pay - dfabulich
https://www.blog.google/topics/shopping-payments/announcing-google-pay/
======
untog
Forgive me, but isn't this what Google Wallet was, at one point? Then at some
point Google Wallet was split out into Android Pay. And now it's Google Pay?
It's made all the worse by the fact that these names/logos/etc are reflected
on actual physical hardware distributed to stores around the world. Those old
names aren't going anywhere soon.

Google has done this so many times now (Hangouts/Allo/Messenger, anyone?) that
I wonder if there is anyone behind the wheel any more.

~~~
skywhopper
Google has caught MMD (Microsoft Marketing Disease), in which companies
endlessly rebrand and rename products that are successful, but not market-
leading, in an effort to become the market leader, but end up fragmenting
their own brands further by alienating existing loyal users and confusing
late-adopters and casual observers who don't follow the branding news. This
marketing-driven disease spreads to other parts of the business, as engineers
see a rebranding as a legitimate time to break backwards-compatibility, but
they aren't given the lead-time or budget for a full rework, so the new
product is similar enough to the old product that it's obviously just a
rehash, but different enough so that nothing that worked with the old thing
will easily work with the new thing.

MMD keeps managers, marketers, product teams, and engineering leads busy, and
makes executives believe progress is being made since all the metrics look
good: there are tech blog articles, Twitter mentions, Hacker News threads,
maybe a mainstream media hit or two; all the teams have finite task lists that
are getting done; and there's an initial jump in brand awareness and new user
engagement. The actual damage to the brand doesn't happen until long enough
down the road that the brilliant minds who came up with the idea have
collected their bonus checks, awards, and promotions, and moved onto better
things.

And now the executives start talking up the need for a new marketing
strategy... lather, rinse, repeat.

~~~
mikestew
_Google has caught MMD (Microsoft Marketing Disease)_

Microsoft was exactly my first thought when I read this. "Are they pulling a
SkyDrive here, and it's just rebranded Google Wallet?" And I use SkyDrive as
an example because I lost count of how many times Microsoft renamed their
online storage, to the point that I just gave up and used Dropbox.

It must work, or companies wouldn't do it. But it just alienates me. Is this
the new boss, same as the old boss? Or a new product with new things I should
take a look at? Does it work better than when I tried to use Google Wallet
when I had Android? Aww, fuck it, I'll just keep using Apple Pay.

~~~
laken
Not to try to invalidate your point (because Microsoft is definitely guilty of
this practice), but SkyDrive was rebranded for legal reasons*, instead of
marketing reasons.

[https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/28/uks-bskyb-wins-
judgement-a...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/28/uks-bskyb-wins-judgement-
against-microsoft-over-use-of-skydrive-name-in-europe/)

~~~
mikestew
Yeesh, out of all the choices available, I had to pick the worst example, eh?
Feel free to substitute "Live Mesh" or "FolderShare". :-)

~~~
booleandilemma
Lync / Skype for Business?

~~~
discordance
Lync -> Skype for Biz -> Teams

~~~
indemnity
It’s been renamed again? Word of this has not yet trickled down to my group.

I wish they’d put some of the renaming energy into improving the reliability
of their Mac and iOS apps....

------
eagsalazar2
<WTF rant>

\- cards listed are only viewable as huge generic CC images and you can't
customize either the image or even give it a name. Why this terrible
skeuomorphic mess? I have different cards for different types of purchases and
they all look identical and I have to scroll through them because they are
huge. WTF?

\- When making payments there is no quick way to select which card you want to
pay with. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who sometimes uses different
personal cards, credit vs debit, or company vs personal. WTF??

\- There is no user purchase validation step! I just swipe my phone and
transaction is done. I get this is the same as using a CC but in theory there
is such a huge opportunity to improve the experience. How about popping up a
thing where I confirm the purchase, even add a tip or sign for some purchases?
WTF???

\- Pretty much zero updates for _years_. WTF google????

</WTF rant>

Honestly any of these issue are almost deal breakers but I do use it mainly
because I get a geeky thrill out of it still when it works. Are some of these
limitations imposed by the CC companies and banks? Like Wells Fargo saying
they'll only participate if Google uses the exact full size card image? Or is
this just an example of insanely bad UX in a totally dysfunctional product
team? I have no idea but the current app is mind-blowingly crappy.

~~~
freditup
> There is no user purchase validation step! I just swipe my phone and
> transaction is done. I get this is the same as using a CC but in theory
> there is such a huge opportunity to improve the experience. How about
> popping up a thing where I confirm the purchase, even add a tip or sign for
> some purchases? WTF???

I disagree with you here. I want the payment to be as fast and painless as
possible. A "tip" screen, a "sign" screen, etc. would all be very annoying. I
suppose adding these optionally somehow could work though.

On a technical note, it's not quite the same as swiping a CC. There's some
authentication to start - you must authenticate on your phone (via fingerprint
or pattern or whatever lock mechanism you have) before you can make a payment.
In addition, a one-time token is sent instead of your actual CC number, so the
retailer couldn't reuse your payment info. In other words, it's much more
secure than "signing" ever was and you get some nice security benefits by
using your phone as opposed to swiping a credit card.

~~~
eagsalazar2
Good points. About validation step, how about a notification that counts down
and auto accepts unless you cancel or something? Never thought about it before
but having a guy in a random skeezy mini mart say "3.75" then I just tap and
it is done without me every seeing if he ripped me off seems sketchy. And that
is more sketchy than most CC machines because usually it actually does ask you
to confirm the amount which google pay does not.

~~~
abecedarius
Exactly. Buying with a card is like handing over your wallet for the cashier
to fish out the correct amount; a new system using a phone should be taken as
an opportunity to put you back in control. The only friction would be _one
tap_ to confirm. The tap could double as your action of choosing which card to
pay with.

(Confirming on the vendor's reader still requires you to trust their machine,
not yours.)

------
sergiotapia
Buyer beware. Your one Google account is trendils into everything. For
example: I uploaded some clips of an old 90s show and got flagged for
copyright. Now I can't upload/comment/sign into Youtube.

How does this affect Google Pay? What about Google Domains? Bleh. I don't
really like all-in-accounts anymore. Much rather have separate silo'd
accounts.

~~~
OkGoDoIt
I agree. Over a decade ago when I was a freshman in college I participated in
an AdSense click ring with my dormmates. We made $200 or so each, which was
cool at that age. Within a few months we got caught and banned from AdSense.
Now I have a YouTube channel with tens of thousands of viewers but I can’t
monetize it at all, even though YouTube wasn’t even part of the same company
as AdSense when my silly freshman experiment went down.

~~~
ajross
Sorry, why should that matter? Google doesn't trust you to honor your
advertising contract because you didn't in the past and they know it because
they literally caught your fraud themselves.

You seem to be arguing that a technicality should allow you to use other ad
mechanisms, but that's not how real work risk analysis (or morality!) works.

You get the same treatment from banks: default on one loan and they'll tell
the others (via credit reporting agencies), because that information is
something they need to make good business decisions.

~~~
mattzito
> You get the same treatment from banks: default on one loan and they'll tell
> the others (via credit reporting agencies), because that information is
> something they need to make good business decisions.

At least in the US, negative events on your credit report disappear after 7
years.

~~~
megy
Try going to the same bank you defrauded and getting a loan?

~~~
dazc
True. The statute of limitations (or whatever the consumer credit regulations
equivalent is called?) doesn't extend to what individual organisations already
know about you.

------
dfabulich
Google's payment solutions are shockingly diverse. Google Checkout, Google
Wallet, Android Pay, and now Google Pay. Checkout failed so they replaced it
with Google Wallet; Wallet failed and they replaced it with Android Pay.

The Google Pay API developer site
[https://developers.google.com/payments/](https://developers.google.com/payments/)
has the audacity to call it "The newest way to pay with Google." I wouldn't be
surprised to see yet another brand (and yet another API) within the next three
years.

~~~
provost
Also, they have had Hangouts, Messenger, Talk, Voice, Allo, and Duo... most
with the same functionality. What is up with Google's product management? Is
there a strategy?

~~~
jonny_eh
You forgot Google Meet: [https://meet.google.com/](https://meet.google.com/)

~~~
edaemon
Which is also branded as one of "Meet" [1], "Google Meet" [2], or "Hangouts
Meet" [3], depending on where you go.

[1] [https://meet.google.com/](https://meet.google.com/)

[2]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+meet](https://www.google.com/search?q=google+meet)

[3]
[https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id1013231476](https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id1013231476)

------
drumhead
They're not stupid, surely they must know that constant change and
fragmentation of their products just weakens thier offer to the consumer?

Whats their gameplan? Are they just throwing as much as they can against the
wall to see what sticks, a survival of the fittest attitute to their apps?

~~~
manigandham
In this case, it's a welcome consolidation of different existing
wallet/payment products.

All large companies seem to have trouble with branding as politics take over
and each group wants to have its own spotlight. Apple arguably had better luck
due to strong centralized leadership, although that's also become undone in
recent years.

~~~
dfabulich
This is quite literally a consolidation in name only. "Google Pay" is a brand
name for all of those products, not a unified API. Hopefully a unified product
strategy will follow…

------
amelius
Their lack of customer service makes me cringe at the idea of paying through
them.

~~~
praneshp
For the only Google service I pay for (Project Fi), customer service is
_stellar_.

~~~
eagsalazar2
Google in general has become pretty amazing at customer service. You can get
someone competent on the phone 24-7 for Home also.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
Yeah I think we can conclude that they are good at customer service if you are
paying for the product.

Good luck getting your blocked GMail unblocked if you weren't lucky enough to
have the blog post detailing your story go viral.

------
orliesaurus
I think I've only seen one person pay with Apple Pay in the last four years.
It was at Walgreens. Maybe I'm missing something obvious but please do tell me
HN readers do you use Apple Pay or Android pay at all ? and if you do use it
how often every month?

~~~
untog
America is _far_ behind the curve compared to the rest of the world. About the
only place I use Apple Pay in the US is at Starbucks. But in the UK, I
literally use it for everything. Restaurants, the London tube, taxis, pubs (to
pay for a round of drinks!). It's incredibly useful, and it amazes me that
America is taking so long to adopt it.

Even more amazing is that the US even changed payment systems to a chip-based
system just a couple of years ago, but apparently didn't mandate that everyone
adopts contactless payment when updating their hardware. Foolish.

~~~
kiliankoe
Ha, you should visit Germany. Apple Pay doesn't even exist here [0].
Contactless payments with debit cards are slowly becoming a thing, but that
seems to be the height of it.

[0]
[http://isapplepayavailableingermanyyet.com](http://isapplepayavailableingermanyyet.com)

~~~
lobster_johnson
Visiting Germany earlier this year, many (perhaps most) stores I shopped at
had contactless terminals. Maybe it's unevenly rolled out?

~~~
kiliankoe
Yeah, you're right. They mostly are a thing now, at least in bigger stores (as
in chains). But I do have a feeling Germany is one of the last countries where
there's loads of stores where cash is the only accepted option.

------
sevagh
The toughest part of immigrating from Canada to the U.S. was figuring out the
mess that was Google Play Store, Google Wallet, Google Payment Profiles, and
Google Pay to get myself recognized as being in the U.S. and thus able to
download U.S.-only apps.

~~~
kyrra
(I work for Google payments, opinions are my own)

I believe this process has been improved in the last year to more easily
change your country. I'm not sure when you went through it, but understand
that it can be a complicated problems due to different regulations for payment
related activity and digital goods. Like some countries Google is required to
verify your tax id with the government to even buy 99 cent app.

~~~
rndstr
I wasn't able to get my country changed after I somewhat accidently opened a
merchant account years ago. I have never used that merchant account. It also
didn't tell me that I won't be able to change my country if I open one.

I've now been living in the UK for six months and three months ago I had a 3hr
phone call with a very lovely support lady that tried to help but we didn't
manage to change it. She told me that maybe I could just open a new account
but then I said that my whole life is on this account and that is not an
option. If I have to start over I'd rather make sure this won't happen again.

------
zitterbewegung
Are they trying to manage their projects with some kind of AI? Google works in
mysterious ways and I don’t understand most of what they do outside of Google
search.

~~~
myaso
There is probably a lack of executive tlc to go around for all their stuff. I
don't get it either, they break things that work already -- I simply cannot
trust anything they put out that isn't search/Android/Google AI stuff anymore.
Wasn't there some heuristic that a large company can only have 3 strategic
priorities? Guess these 3 are it.

------
kazuki
They shouldn't keep renaming products, especially when they don't control the
ecosystem. I know a few apps and many merchants that still have Google Wallet
branding - which should have been updated to Android Pay two years ago. Now
there is another layer of confusion.

------
clhodapp
Why did Google cut Android Pay out of Wallet if they were just going to do
this? It's as if Google's consumer product teams all turn over every 2 years
and each one reverses the vision of unity vs fragmented, specialized, self-
competing products, executes their vision, and then leaves...

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why did Google cut Android Pay out of Wallet if they were just going to do
> this?

They didn't. Android Pay was a renamed of an acquisition that was originally
planned to be integrated with Wallet but wasn't (well, until now), it just
looked like it was cut out of Wallet because they killed Waller’s similar NFC
payment functionality. From the fact that they now for a while have had “pay
with Google” that can use cards from Wallet, Android Pay, and some other
superficially siloed single-app payment systems at Google, I would assume
they’ve actually finally integrated everything to use the same infrastructure
as Android Pay, so now the siloes can go away.

~~~
clhodapp
Very interesting insight into what happened on the technical side!

The progression of events certainly does make a lot more sense with that
perspective, though understanding the details of what actually happened inside
the backend doesn't really change the fact that, from a customer perspective,
we really did see public-facing messaging indicating that one app was split
into two and then later public-facing messaging indicting that (more than)
those two apps where then brought back together again a couple years later.

------
Talyen42
Glad they've finally started to recognize app duplication as a problem for
consumers.

How many messaging apps does Google have again? I can't keep track.

~~~
joekrill
I'm not sure they've recognized _anything_. They go through this consolidate-
branch cycle pretty regularly with so many of their products.

------
zmmmmm
I am at least happy they are going to stop abusing the "Android" brand.
Android became popular primarily because it offered an open source solution
that manufacturers and phone byers could heavily customize (you can argue
whether that's a good idea, but that was its main value proposition
nonetheless). That Google took as a brand and then started exploiting it to
push products that are entirely closed and have no real connection whatsoever
to the actual core value proposition associated with Android has always irked
me.

------
shekyboy
The screenshots look like they did a find and replace apple logo with the G
logo...

Probably makes it easier for all the merchants who might be getting tired of
all this repackaging and rebranding

------
Rafert
This bit is a little buried, but it's the biggest win IMO:

> With Google Pay, it’ll be easier for you to use the payment information
> saved to your Google Account

On the web/in Android apps this allows you to pay with any credit card stored
on your Google account. If you're on an Android device you can use your
Android Pay card as well. Both with the same API for an ecommerce website or
app.

------
ballpark
Hey Google, You got your fingers in too much of my life already. I'm going to
avoid you also being my bank.

~~~
ehsankia
G Pay is not a bank, it's payment processor like Stripe. They don't hold any
money. Though you are right that this gives them information about what you're
purchasing.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Well, it's not exactly a payment processor either. They're like a payment
initiator. They funnel the payments through your processor in the end,
according to their docs:
[https://payments.google.com/solutions/onboarding/](https://payments.google.com/solutions/onboarding/)

------
criddell
Has Google said what they do with the information they collect when people use
Google Pay? Does it get added to my profile? I don't see anything under "My
Account" on the Google website.

------
cmurf
I'm not surprised there's yet another rebranding in Google world. You can
pretty much track rebranding, not based on features or coherency, but rather
someone being promoted. And on top of it, the Peter Principle has been thrown
out the window so we get shit that's constantly being replaced with different
shit, because when you're not improving Ux the only thing left to make your
job relevant is to make the Ux different.

------
pavanlimo
Is it just me who read it as Google Play instead of Pay?

------
andmed3
One thing to consider: Google Pay, at least now, checks if bootloader is
unmodified. This means it wont't work for you on many devices if you prefer
installing pure android (like AOSP) instead of vendor provided. Uniting online
payments under one google Pay umbrella will make experience for such people
(me including) worse. Would be nice if Googlers would consider this.

------
ryen
FYI, linked from the post is a support article for

"Get $5 off your Fandango tickets with Google Pay" and others

[https://support.google.com/googlepay/answer/7625564?p=tc&vis...](https://support.google.com/googlepay/answer/7625564?p=tc&visit_id=1-636510568382544558-4236394179&rd=1)

------
igravious
The alt attribute text for the large "G Pay" logo is not "Google Pay" as one
would expect but the cheerful "Google Pay Lockup". Who or what is being locked
up is up for you to decide.

------
27182818284
Glad they're doing this. I found myself wondering just last week, "Do I want
Google Pay or Google Wallet? Which is which? Can one hold my library card bar
code?"

------
anilshanbhag
Across their diverse payment solution names, they actually have all the tech
to build a Stripe competitor. Looks like they finally got their act together
(hopefully!).

~~~
atonse
Except I would trust Stripe a thousand times more than Google.

Edit: trust them not to cross reference me to hell and track my every move.
Security would be as good on either side.

~~~
amelius
And their CSS is better :)

------
prepend
How does this relate to Samsung Pay? If a retailer takes Google Pay do they
automatically take SamsungPay with Samsung phones? Or vice versa?

------
polskibus
I wonder if a payment service provider is using google as their cloud. If so,
they should consider moving !

------
esaym
I'll stick with Samsung Pay since it actually works with legacy credit card
swipe machines.

------
dingo_bat
Does this offer anything above existing solutions like Apple Pay or Samsung
Pay?

------
ecesena
Will this work on ios? I’m using wallet and it would be great to continue
using it.

------
songco
So another google service we can't access from China.

~~~
bschwindHN
Sounds like a China problem.

~~~
songco
Yes, the GFW blocked all google services...

------
fiatjaf
Does it work for Brazilian merchants?

------
dvh
For Google products please always put in the title if it is new product or
discontinued product, thanks.

------
Avery3R
Sticky header and sticky footer. Only 60% of my screen is being used for the
article content...

~~~
yupyup
I think frontend designers should design with a 13" laptop and NO ADITIONAL
MONITORS... only the laptop screen.

Then you wouldn't see more designs like this one.

~~~
nottorp
There are some that seem to work like that. And then their site is a tiny
thing lost in the middle of your 24" monitor... :)

You.cannot.win!

------
arkitaip
You know what bothers me about giants like Google? They can absolutely suck at
delivering an app or service for many years but because of their vast
resources, they can keep throwing people and money at their projects until
something sticks. Makes it very difficult for even very competent startups to
compete against them.

------
brndnmtthws
I might start caring about Google/Apple pay if they add support for Bitcoin
and lightning network payments. Until then, there's really nothing new or
innovative to be seen here.

~~~
bpicolo
You ready to deal with paying capital gains tax every time you purchase
something?

