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Google To Devs: Use Our Payment System Or Be Dropped

Posted by samzenpus on from the company-store dept.

Meshach writes "Google has been pressuring applications and mobile game developers to use its costlier in-house payment service, Google Wallet for quite some time. Now Google warned several developers in recent months that if they continued to use other payment methods — such as PayPal, Zong and Boku — their apps would be removed from Google Play. The move is seen as a way to cut costs for Google by using their own system."

9 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. What about for non-US people? by inflex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would have loved to have jumped on board with Googles payment system in place of PayPal... but there was a slight problem... it was "US Only". It would seem that if I look at the dominant players in various fields, they are players that embrace the fact that the internet and more importantly, consumers, exist well beyond the US alone.

    Soon as Google lets us buy/sell stuff using their PayPal-replacment across the bulk of the world, I'll be interested.

    1. Re:What about for non-US people? by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They will sue you for infringement of 100+ patents if you're successful with it.

  2. Google Wallet vs PayPal by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've used both Google Wallet and I've used PayPal

    And I've used other online payment services

    I find Google Wallet a little bit more "friendly" to the user. PayPal, which I've used for years and years, has become more and more, how should I say - arrogant

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Google Wallet vs PayPal by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      PayPal shut down an account of someone collecting donations from the Something Awful forums for the New Orleans flood victims. The result wasn't a simple misunderstanding. It was weeks of fight and frustrations which ended up with all money being refunded and none forwarded to the charity.

      To say PayPal is "rude" is to say someone who walks in and for no reason punches your kid is "rude". PayPal in my personal opinion ranks as one of the worst organisations on the planet.

    2. Re:Google Wallet vs PayPal by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But increasingly, they are closing the openness.

      I'm not really sure what you're talking about. The only thing that springs to mind is that they didn't immediately release the source for Ice Cream Sandwich, and then everybody was harping about how Android was going to be closed from now on... even though Google said they would release it when it was finished... and then they did release it, and most of those people shut up because they were wrong.

      Paypal is paypal. We know what they are and what drives their motives.

      Yeah, um... misanthropy?

      It's pretty obvious why Google is doing this. Payment services have strong network effects. If all the users have Paypal accounts, all the sellers will accept Paypal. If the sellers only accept Paypal, new users will only sign up for Paypal accounts. Which allows Paypal to steal your money and kill your dog while making you thank them for it.

      The only way to unseat them is for a big player (like Google) to say enough is enough and discontinue doing business with a company with such abusive practices. And of course, then they need an alternative to replace it with, so they created one.

      I mean what's the worst that could happen, Google Wallet starts behaving like Paypal? Seems unlikely. And even then, how is that any worse than the status quo?

  3. Anti Trust Suit by rioki · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do is sense an anti trust suit? Yes I do!

  4. Re:Open by icebraining · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think the market you use has anything to do with whether Android is open or not, as long as you're not locked to that market. I mean, is Debian not open because I can't force them to put applications that don't comply with the DFSG on the main repository?

    --
    Dilbert RSS feed
  5. Re:Google's payment options by petman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The thing is, even if we accept 'beg' as an alternative to 'raise', 'begging the question' is not grammatically correct. Try to replace 'question' with 'money', for example. 'I raise money for orphans' is correct. However, 'I beg money for orphans' is obviously wrong. The correct usage is 'I beg for money for orphans', which does sound awkward, but is grammatically correct. Likewise, the grammatically correct phrase would be 'begging for the question' instead of 'begging the question'.

    --
    Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
  6. Some Clarifications by tangent3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to this article: http://www.i-programmer.info/news/81-web-general/3895-google-insists-on-google-wallet.html

    1. Developers outside the US are exempted
    2. Google Wallet charges a float 5%, Paypal charges $0.30 + 2.9%. Google Wallet is only more expensive if your app costs > $14.28. Considering the prices of most Android apps, I'd say calling Google Wallet "costlier" is a downright lie.