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Article(s) on Googles New Pay Service, controversies, and my experiences

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mouser:
I think it's natural that google will be getting into pay services, especially since they have a lot of trust from people, and trust is a big part of this payment middleman provider thing.

My views on google are very very mixed.  They clearly care about hiring very smart people to create some very cool stuff and are probably more moral than most companies.  But on the other hand I think they are benefiting from a completely out of whack publicity system on the web that makes every whisper of a new service a worldwide glorious event akin to the resurrection of jesus.

And they get away with things that have to make microsoft cry every day.. this approach where they don't tell people how they decide to pay them for showing adsense ads, and this scheme they get away with by calling everything beta is a master stroke that i hope doesn't catch on.. here is the screen i got when trying to apply for google payment thing for DonationCoder:

but hey it's beta, so what do you expect  :tellme:

Anyway, i still think that the new pay service might be a good thing.  Here's the cnet article:

Google on Thursday unveiled its much anticipated online payment processing system designed to offer shoppers with a Google account a quick way to pay for things.

Web sites and merchants can integrate Google Checkout into their sites as an alternative payment processing method to existing checkout and credit card processing systems, said Salar Kamangar, vice president of product management at Google.
Consumers with a Google account can type their credit card and billing information into Google Checkout once and then pay for purchases thereafter with practically one click on any Web site that features the system, Kamangar said. As things now stand, he said, "If I buy five things from five different merchants I have to fill out five different forms. This process can take three, four, five minutes" for each form. Google Checkout is meant to change that.

Once they've purchased something through Google Checkout, consumers can track their orders through the system, which will be live starting Thursday at Checkout.google.com.

Merchants using the system will be charged a processing fee of 20 cents per transaction, plus 2.2 percent of the relevant purchase price. Customers who pay for search-related keyword ads through Google AdWords will be able to process, free of charge, transactions that add up to 10 times the dollar amount of their AdWords spending, Kamangar said. Beyond that, they pay the 20 cents plus 2.2 percent. Kamangar said the regular transaction fees are less than those charged by credit card companies, which can be about 1 percent higher.
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http://news.com.com/Google+Checkout+checks+in/2100-1038_3-6089351.html?tag=nefd.lede

mouser:
from zdnet blog today:

It's official: Google launches 'Checkout' with predatory pricing model aiming to 'increase advertising spending'
As I postulated Tuesday in my “Google GBuy online payment system to lock-in AdWords advertisers and usurp consumers via discounts and rebates “, Google has officially launched its ecommerce payment service with a predatory pricing model to lock in its advertisers, increase advertiser spend with Google and attract new Google advertiser customers.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/index.php?p=178

mouser:
just to sum up my interpretation of the claim of "predatory pricing", it means that
google is willing to take a loss on any profits directly from this service, so that they can hook in more advertisers using adwords.

in essence this is kind of my impression of google as a whole:
if the entire google company is really a giant machine designed to make money from their advertising, with everything else serving to aid this, is this something to be concerned about?  i'm not sure about the long term implications of this but it makes me a little uneasy.

superboyac:
I agree, mouser.  It's fine and natural for google to want to make money in general, and as long as they making a net profit when it's all said and done, then google is perfectly happy, and that makes sense.  However, from a idealistic standpoint, it sucks because it's like they are purposefully putting poor products out because they know there is still a net profit.  From a user's standpoint, we just don't want to see anything put out if the quality is not good, but that's not thinking like a businessman.

mouser:
i don't think they are putting out poor products on purpose.  in fact i think most people i've talked to have generally been extremely impressed with google stuff so far (gmail, maps, etc). so kudos to google.

i think the concern might be however, that if the only goal is publicity and advertising dollars, and the products are really just ways of getting attention and press - then it means that once a product enters that relatively quiescent state where it's not getting monthly free press, does it suddenly become the ugly stepchild and get kicked to the curb?

in other words, if everything google does is just to get attention and feed their advertising beast - then does the game become to keep releasing a new beta program every month, and let the old stuff just die and wither on the vine?  it's too early to know.

i guess i'm just wary about this whole advertising driven business wave we seem to be riding on.

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