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Google Wallet API For Digital Goods Will Be Retired On March 2, 2015
An anonymous reader points out that Google plans to shut down Google Wallet API for third-party digital purchases. "Google has quietly revealed it plans to retire the Google Wallet API for digital goods on March 2, 2015. The company plans to continue supporting the sale of apps on Google Play as well as in-app payments, but users will not be able to purchase any virtual items offered on the Web through Google Wallet. We say "quietly" because there is no official announcement from Google. Furthermore, Google says it has no plans to proactively communicate the change to Google Wallet users; buyers will simply get 404 errors when trying to check out after support is pulled."
But it is!
Google says it has no plans to proactively communicate the change to Google Wallet users; buyers will simply get 404 errors when trying to check out after support is pulled.
So, any of the Google zealots want to take a moment and explain (as in, communication, not downmods, not insults) why they trust this company?
Google had some competing thing of paypal, for credit cards I used quite often and they retired that too years ago. It was something I used quite frequently.
They retired that too. Thing was my business depended on it and it took a while to find a nonpaypal solution.
All this type of stuff does is remind me to not rely on google for merchant options. Business want stability.
Google is a scam. Walled garden garbage.
Are they planning to buy Paypal?
You must be crazy.
Google do everything with Wallet quietly. I bet a good chunk of Android users don't even know Wallet exists because Google never market it, which is a shame because it actually works really well.
I'm unclear from what I've read if user-to-user payments will still be permitted/supported as an alternative to Paypal for example....
This is just killing a very small function in wallet that mostly no one was using anyway. It does not in any way kill Google Wallet NFC payments or Wallet itself.
According to sources, Google code hosting will get killed off early next year. Go (the language) is moving to git and github, which also hosts most (if not all) of Google's other open source code.
Who could imagine that source forge would outlast them! Of course, I'm not sure why source forge is still a thing, either. Maybe the domain is set to auto-renew and nobody noticed the bill.
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I spent a lot of time coding a good checkout solution that worked with Google Checkout, so I was pretty mad when all the work I did went down the drain when they discontinued it. I was fortunate to had already integrated Paypal and Amazon checkout before it was discontinued, so the business impact was pretty small.
But it did teach me to be 10 times more careful when investing time to integrate with a third party platform.
But this also shows an interesting trend away from APIs and "Mashups." 5 to 10 years ago, providing an API for your startup was considered an essential way to promote your platform by having it integrated all over the place. I suspect too many developers got burned in the way that I was with Google Checkout, and stopped trying to "mashup" APIs to the point where there was no longer much benefit to provide them.
Because they're about to integrate bitcoin support.
(A guy can dream...)
Nobody commenting that this is simply for the purchase of DIGITAL goods? Your shitty eZine has to get paid for some other way.
Real goods can continue to use Google Wallet.
Here yesterday, gone today.
... for the google product graveyard.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Which is silly, if you think about it. I've been buying all my Humble Bundle purchases (and yes, I did pay better than average every time...) with Wallet and I guess now the Humble Bundle bunch will have to take that out and offer something else. Not everyone likes PayPal, which lean towards criminal in conduct in many ways.
How is this not killing Google Wallet? NFC still works, but it has pretty much 0% market share. I had a phone with NFC, but it got replaced before Google got things working.
That leaves Google Wallet as a payment solution for Google Play. Which is pretty much part of Play, and not a payment processor any more.
So yes, this kills Google Wallet.
"Googled" seems to be a word that is mutating.
Used to be it was used as "She googled for the answer, and the link was on top of the results."
Now, it's more like "You've been googled, I'm so sorry that happened to you."
0% market share -- you know, except every NFC enabled POS terminal, vending machine, or electric car charger.
Most grocery stores, many chain convenience stores, nearly every Coke machine with a credit card reader...
True, but they kill the exact small function that was the only one I'm utilizing. I understand why - nobody is using it anyways. My online game (below) is taking payments in a few different formats, plus a few more I'm planning or working on, but frankly speaking, it's PayPal and then nothing for a very long time. I think one person purchased game credits with Google Wallet this year. Two more paid with Bitcoin. Everyone else uses PayPal. Yes, people ask for other options, but generally they ask "do you have something else except PayPal?", and not for something specific else. They just don't like PayPal.
But Google Wallet, for my case, was not even worth the time it took to integrate it. I can completely understand why they kill this function.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"People that could use Google Wallet" != "Market Share".
"That leaves Google Wallet as a payment solution for Google Play."
No, it leaves Google Wallet is a valid payment option everywhere that there's an NFC-enabled POS terminal, and, frankly, everywhere that takes a regular old swipe card, since you can get a physical Google card too.
https://support.google.com/wal...
Google to me is simply fragmenting itself in too many directions. They have no focus, although they have plenty of ideals and directions to go. They act like a kid on Mountain Dew, and speed when it comes to products. Many of which die simply because the kids on speed comes down and get's bored with the product. Google is like a automaker who builds great cars but never develops a good way to sell them. Reminds me of another great talent Tesla motors. Well produced cars but want to fight the very way the US sells cars? Maybe the problem is that Google really makes it money on ad revenue and its products are simply a accessory rather then a primary product. No one at Google see's anything as so important other then ad revenue that they need to focus harder. Chromebook's, Android, Web apps and such all help Google in gaining users. But the end game for Google is still ads. Its like a rich millionaire's kid who gets a hefty allowance and pretty much does whatever and never has to worry about anything. Google is that rich kid, who has a good flow of cash with ads and can dabble in whatever. If it sticks great, if not then move on to something else. Kind of makes me not want to use any Google products.
it's discontinuing a service that nobody uses
That strikes me as an incredibly poor choice just as Apple is starting to allow users to do exactly that same thing via ApplePay... you can already see how well it works with app store purchases. My online buying will now lean heavily to using ApplePay where possible primarily because I don't have to give the merchant a CC number.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As it's already been said, Wallet NFC and the user app are not going anywhere. It just makes no sense to have a product that takes a cut from vendors, when you can now send mony by email (via Wallet) to anyone for free. Thus a dedicated api for 3rd party purchases no longer makes sense.