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Google Launches PayPal Rival
Google Checkout Launched
Roy van Rijn informs us that Google's new online payment system is now online. "Under the name Checkout, the venture offers an incorporated manner to search, advertise and pay. If you buy something on Checkout, 2% and $0.20 go to Google. Paypal, the biggest competitor uses 1,9% and $0,30. Analysts compare Google/Paypal to for example Visa/Mastercard living peacefully together, while others predict the end of Paypal."
W3K adds "You can use your Google account to store an unlimited number of credit cards and addresses. The service allows you to track all your orders and shipping in one place," and adds a link to a quick video tour.
NYT times also has a interesting article on this with quotes about Google's plans on what they want to do with this product.
Plan 9 from Bell Labs.
I'm not sure gBay agrees.
Just like GMail meant the end of Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and the myriad of other online mail services. And how Google Maps meant the end of Mapquest andd MS Maps (??). I know that Google has created some welcome competition to many online services, forcing them to improve their offerings, but it hasn't completely killed the competition. Most people I know haven't switched from their current providers. However, I'm sure they would have if Hotmail stuck to 2MB, and Mapquest didn't touch their interface. I'm happy google's here, because it makes everyone else have to try harder. Let's hope the same happens to E-Bay. They haven't changed their interface since their inception.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I think the most important thing about this entire endeavor is that it is the first Google product that plans on actually introducing a revenue stream besides advertising to the company (especially since the Google Pay Video system has more or less fell through at this point in time.)
I'm not quite sure what that means for the long-term health of the company, but I suspect that the more streams of revenue a company has, the more likely they are to become conservative, entrenched, and reluctant to embrace change. Google has managed to avoid all that because they've had a strong beam focus on a single revenue stream (ad dollars) - as they start matriculating, I suspect that beam focus will dissipate.
But then again, they're Google - they just work smarter than basically every other company out there today. So I put nothing out of their reach.
OK, I acknoledge that I'm paranoid, but the thing that makes me nervous about google services is that thay use single account for all purposes. This not only allows to keep track of my whole life, but also allows a person, who hijacks my email account, take control over my mail, internet messenger (IM was used for several famous frauds in Russia), and now money directly!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
Before Google Checkout has much hope of usurping PayPal, they'll need to accept more payment options.
Paypal currently allows payment direct from a bank account (I don't expect Google to need this), Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Delta, Maestro, Visa Electron, Solo, Discover, and more if you count their other services. That's at least 10 ways to pay.
Google, on the other hand, accept Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Discover. With only 4 ways to pay, I suspect Google Checkout is not an option for many people.
Disclaimer: I live in the UK and this is based on my experience with the UK PayPal service. I also agree with the sentiments of paypalsucks.com, and would like to see Google smash PayPal to pieces if they can Do No Evil. YMMV.
If by "Google launches PayPal Rival" you mean, "Google launches a service for merchants to process credit cards". Then yes, this is a PayPal rival. This service does not allow you to transfer money from person-to-person, nor does it allow you to pay by check, bank draft, etc.
Learn the difference between "Gpay is useless" and "Gpay is useless to me". I would pay for your English lessons, if I could use Gpay to transfer funds from Greece.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Name 412 of them.
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Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Big difference between paypal vs google and the competing mail services. People have had a choice for years. No one complains about free email its reliable, its there, its ubiquitous. What irritates people with Paypal is the rather random enforcement of buyer and seller protection coupled with their stranglehold on ebay that pretty much makes any other method of payment impossible. After paying listing fees, final value fees, paypal fees, extra paypal fees if you want to be able to take credit cards, and dealing with buyers protection which is in my experience used in scam attempts as much as in real disputes, the ebay/paypal racket is hardly a bargain.
After all that, I still use it on occasion because I have no choice, thats the difference.
The 1,9% and $0,30 rate for Paypal is if you recieve more than $100,000 to your account and you have a merchant account!
Normally, it's 2.9% + $0.30 USD. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display -receiving-fees-outside
The difference between 1.9% + 30 cents (ebay) and 2.0% + 20 cents (google) might not strike you as significant, but google now works out to be cheaper for all sales under $100.00
Don't think that the "ebay power sellers" aren't keenly aware of the difference. They know how ebay nickel-and-dimes them to death, and if they can save a few dollars a week AND stick it to ebay, they will.
Example - item at $10.00
eBay: 49 cents, google:40 cents. Difference: 9 cents.
Do 100/week, and over the course of a year you're looking at $468.00 in savings ...
I bet you don't accept African Express.
You, like some other posters, seem to think that PayPal's prices are fixed in stone forever.
Don't put words in my mouth - I never said that. Here's the reality ...
Then there's the whole regulatory issue - ebay has had to make deals with regulators in almost 20 states ... google will just go out and BUY a bank. Then they'll issue their own credit cards, etc.