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PayPal vs Google (Buy)
pc-facile.com writes "While Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt confirmed in press accounts that the company was building a payment service, Mr. Schmidt also denied it would directly compete with PayPal. Mr. Schmidt said Google didn't intend to offer a "person-to-person, stored-value payments system," which many people consider a description of PayPal's service. Mr. Jordan (PayPal chief) says he and his team immediately "dissected the wording" of Google's statements. He says he doesn't believe Mr. Schmidt..." There's also a more in depth WSJ article about the service.
pc-facile.com writes
Right. It's bad enough with submitters copy and paste from AP or Reuters reports, since that's mostly what the big news sites do anyway, but when you copy and paste someone's blog entry, we're just asking for speculative posts.
That said, I really wonder if there is much to this. With the Google-Skype deal, you'd think Google and eBay would be getting along better than to have Google launch a service directly competing with another eBay company. But then again, this is Google - how long until you can get "it" on GBay?
Look, after the various horrendous stories about Paypal (http://www.paypalsucks.com/) could we FINALLY get a worldwide viable alternative to Paypal?
I cancelled my account with Paypal after they decided to freeze the money people were donating for hurrican Katrina on somethingawful.com.
However I still cannot pay everywhere with a creditcard and to be honest, I'd rather not use my credit card everywhere.
PLEASE come with an alternative service Google, and one that I can use with my bank in the Netherlands please, since you have worldwide offices anyway.
Thanks.
Good news for the Internet services users. The more companies competing in the same area, the best prices for the users.
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Unless Google can compete with eBay, it is going to massively lag behind PayPal, on account on PayPal's inertia from Ebay business and current use (eBay Paypal ties). The sites that Google links to typically accept Credit Card payments. PayPal, of course, allows such, but is necessary specifically for normal everyday people to accept credit cards (the eBay process). How does Google fit into this?
Are you seriously implying that paper money was a bad idea forced on us by shady deals in the boardrooms of greedy oligarchies? Take off the tinfoil hat dude.
Google is providing good services in most of the areas they've ventured into, PayPal has a rocky history, and most PayPal users have at some point been frustrated by their service. However due to the nature of financial transactions they require a lot of security, and security and service don't always mix well -- at the very least we can say it takes skill to combine the two well. Maybe it's not PayPal's fault that we've been frustrated?
Hopefully Google's foray into this market will bring us some innovations like micropayments, which we've been awaiting for years -- and although we can only speculate on that, we can all be sure their involvement with payment systems will result in better products for us, whether it be from them, or competitors that are forced to enhance their services. I'm excited.
On the other side of the transaction - Google can tell what I've searched for, seen which of those searches actually turned into cash, and push yet more ads at me geared towards exactly what I pay for.
I hate the idea personally. You'd feel like you were in a shop all of the time you're looking for things on the net - a problem I already feel to some extent. I can see why both the placer of and the seller of an advert would love it however.
Cheers,
Ian
Most of those stories come before eBay bought Paypal. I use paypal extensively, and also did before the buyout, and I find eBay really cleaned up their act.
As for the Katrina thing, it was perfectly valid and the right thing to do. Somehtingawful was not a registered charity and thus paypal had no way to differentiate what it was doing with the hundreds of scams going on at the time to defraud people. I actually applaud them for their pro-active approach in dealing with it - they *could* have just done nothing and let the fraudsters get away with it.
One thing Paypal does not do well is micropayments, or payments under $1, but it's something Google does very well. Consider the millions of virtual pennies they daily count for AdSense. (or is it AdCents?!)
The virtual wallet metaphor has been tried many times with no success, but Google has the clout and expertise to do it. There are thousands of web publishers that want to charge 2c to read a page (NYTimes?) but have no effective means to do so. A micropayment system might even be a necessary prerequisite to a hosted applications model -- some prognosticators are convinced Google will begin selling PCs with a Linux-based OS, hosting applications on a subscription or pay-per-use model. Would you pay 1c every time you opened Google's continuall-improved word processor?
Also, Google enjoys loads more user trust than Paypal. I've moved over $10,000 through Paypal, but they wouldn't lift a finger to help me when I was the victim of a $500 fraud. There are many stories of unduly locked/suspended accounts and a severe lack of investigatory dur diligence on Paypal's part. If Google brings a "Do No Evil" alternative payment system, you better believe I'll switch.
Finally, eBay might not like Google developing a competitor to Paypal (assuming it actually will be... RTFA), but eBay's bread and butter is listing and final value fees, not Paypal transaction charges. I'd bet eBay is much more concerned about Google Base than about a payment system. Of course, the combined threat (of Google Base and a Google Payments) is massive.
roderickm
It will most likely be a Paypal/MS Passport/Yahoo Wallet type service where you can shop online but only have to give out your card information to a single company.
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They definitely would have to let 'em use it - or face sudden competition from all the ebay-wannabes that were suddenly more attractive because of their acceptance of gPay.
Is it possible Eric Schmidt is telling the truth? Maybe they are actually going to only be in the business of securley storing and transmitting credit card info. Maybe going as far as being in the gateway business. Being a merchant of record as is Paypal is a huge step and is most unpleasant. Do they really want to be in the business of chasing down fraudsters and dealing with angry customers over chargebacks? Becoming a bank simply does not fit the mission statement in my view.
Anytime you buy a product that is made is China you have aided the government of China in thier domination of the Chinese people. Are you going to quit buying anything made in China? - good luck with that endeavor.
While (mostly) all of us would like to see the Chinese people free, it's not gonna happen overnight or simply by us wishing upon a star. It will either happen quickly with war (damn unpleasant affair) or much more slowly with (ever growing) free markets. Every little thing that causes the Chinese people to improve their own standard of living will pressure their government to get more of it - the Chinese government likes being in power because that is where the wealth is in that country. Create a generally higher level of wealth and the country will become a better place, because the people there are far bigger than their government.
All perceptions of value are ultimately backed up by violence. Even gold has no value to you if you cannot keep others from taking it. Saying that there is nothing backing U.S. currency strikes me as very naive.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
and just perhaps, the relevant bit is "payments from user to user"
if they have been trial running it with merchants who sell stuff, perhaps they will only take payments from people and to businesses, not multiple individual to individual payments.
or something akin to microsofts original idea for 'microsoft wallet' where google keeps your cc info private to them, and authorizes payments to individual merchants in aggregate..
or micropayments tracked by google, billed to you every X days, (or paid in advance) in lump sum amounts that then make the cc discounts surviveable to the merchant charging (google finance)
there are more niche needs for financial transactions, than just paying for ebay items.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Money is very easy to understand, but it's not time--it is a placeholder for value.
.did the BMW take 3 times as long to make as the Hyundai? Consider salary differences...if money==time, why does a CEO make so much more money than you?
I'm not sure I agree with you -- I've looked at the Austrian, Keynesian and a multitude of other market theories and I don't see money as a store of value. For all of us, when we do a job ourselves, it is because we can do that job cheaper than paying someone else. Some mow their own lawns, others pay others. Why would someone pay someone else to do something? Because it would cost them more to do it themselves.
You can call this "value" but I call it time-savings. When I buy a toaster, I am saving time over building one myself (or toasting bread the old way). When I buy a car, I am saving time in transportation and I am saving time in building my own vehicle. For me, money is time -- time saved and time redeemed. Money is not only my time but the time of others.
Monetary value is imaginary--without human agreement it does not exist.
I completely disagree! Money is real -- the time you save when you use money for the time of others is very real. If money is stable and market driven through competitive standards, you'll be more easily able to value a product. The problem with using fiat currency (ie, paper dollars backed by nothing), you have no idea how many dollars are in existance as government continues to add more to the market. If someone drops US$100 in your pocket today, you'll spend it or invest it or put it somewhere. Now picture everyone getting US$100 more at the same time -- we'll all want to spend it, chasing prices higher. This is inflation, caused by central banking and fiat currency. You can't create gold out of thin air, though.
Whereas if I want to buy a certain amount of gold, someone has to sell it to me.
Yes, this is a good thing. Instead of creating money out of thin air (causing everyone else's money to drop in value), you have to find someone willing to part with their wealth! This makes investors more likely to think about their investments rather than have some imaginary placeholder to use. When we make investments today, we think "what will one dollar be worth in 20 years?" With gold, we don't have to do that -- $1 today is $1 tomorrow is $1 100 years from now. From 1800 to 1913 when we were on the gold standard, $1 was $1 was $1, EXCEPT the War between States when Lincoln created fiat currency and the dollar dropped (until we returned to the gold standard). From 1913 to 2005, $1 became $0.04 in just 92 years.
What "time" is represented by the rapid valuation of that company?
Their products save you time -- instead of writing a physical letter, you send a gmail. Instead of looking in 100 books for an answer, you use the search engine. They save you time. I believe they are overvalued against real currency because of the inflation of dollars, though.
A BMW does take 3 times as long to support as a Hyundai. BMW dealers offer quick service, free loaners, coffee and donuts, stronger build quality and many other aspects. Over 10 years, the BMW likely will offer more time savings for those who can afford it than the Hyundai can. A higher quality car would cost you personally much more time to make (go through materials, check for compliance, check for quality install, etc, etc) plus the enhanced support.
Why does a CEO make so much more? I am a CEO -- the work I perform is much more difficult than my entry-level worker. I have to have knowledge of more than just "type program into computer" -- I have to be on top of what my competitors are doing, what they might do, and where they are heading. I have to watch consumer prices and demand for my product, and make decisions to keep the company profitable. I have to understand how to manage my managers and my employees, and I save my investors the time of running their o
A non-interactive virtual terminal would suit the industry much more. Example: Paypal system current use their (PayPal's) trustworthiness and not the business, since it hides the consumers CC from us. A virtual terminal would need to be approved based on such things as credit ratings to avoid shady business from over-charging or errounously charging customers CC's because with a Virtual terminal we (the business) have the CC # in order to process this.
What would be more beneficial would be to have a combination of the two - allowing the customer to check-out, provide their personal information and CC information. Then when we've determined tha exact amount to charge, we'd access the limited virtual terminal. Enter the amount to be charged, the customer receives a confirmation email asking them to accept or deny the charges. They accept and we get paid.
I'm sure this has potential holes in it yet, but the foundation of what it could pave in regards to new doors opening for lower level new businesses, and home based businesses that have concepts that are working, but do not have the credit history to back it up with conventional means.
For the professionalism alone I'd pay .25 extra per transaction. The demand is there, it's just time until someone with the large bank account can deploy it. Hopefully this will be Google.
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
You sir, are a fool. Using a money order is THE quickest way to get scammed short of sending cash. There is no real recourse if you do not receive your merchandise. You say it turns into a mail fraud case as though that will help you recover your money at all, but the truth is, they care even less than PayPal does to return your money. As the system stands, your best bet is using your credit card through something like PayPal where you have more than one line of defense if something goes wrong.
Im sorry to hear you are stuck in the 1990s before e-tranfers got big, but clearly you dont understand the risks associated with using a money order online and i cant sit here and let everyone read your post as fact and then lose $2,000 like many i know have by sending money orders to sellers on eBay.
Derek