Google preps mobile payments launch Reporters in New York are dusting off their outdoor clothes for a Google “partner event” which rumours day will be the venue for the launch of a mobile payments platform. Mobile payment is a Holy Grail of the tech sector: phone makers get a feature that will differentiate their devices for a week or so; the card giants get a …
... it isn't for lack of trying.
Methinks that as soon as monies is involved the people supposed to make it work start to behave like greedy bastids, just like everyone else. Invariably at the cost of the customer.
Where's the simple anonymous payments that don't require yet another sackload --as for some reason it's never just *one*, not even google-- of verisign-trustable type third, fourth and fifth parties to make it work?
Or just something that makes every actor in the system a first-class citizen?
Or even something that doesn't involve Ts&Cs that the devil himself wouldn't want to read nevermind agree with? (hi paypal!)
In short, what is wrong with you people? Are you trying to solve a problem or to create more problems for your customers by erecting artificial barriers around your brand spanking newly created niche with fat margins and no competition?
.. micro payments, the problem is the mechanism itself. There is a solution, but until that finds an investor to turn $90M into well over $1bn in Y3 this sort of stuff will keep creating mini headlines and then die.
The problem is that such solutions look perfect from one perspective, but as soon as you walk around the shiny idea you realise that you're looking at the MS approach to selling crud: ignore fundamentals and market the crap out of it to sell it regardless. As we have seen with Vista, you eventually pay heavily for that approach..
Anything as long as it doesn't mean having to use (or rather, being entirely unable to use) that godawful Checkout thing. I'm a Maestro card owner. I'm not going to change bank for the sake of a few toys on my toy phone or toy slab. Every single other business I deal with has absolutely no problem taking my money via the plastic I already have.
Anyway, Android is out-selling iOS devices now. Why haven't we got Android Market pre-paid cards in Tesco/Wal*Mart/insert supermarket here?
The real issue isn't just a payments mechanism...but Google's involvement in it.
Right now, as the leading search engine, Google knows more about our desires and wants than most anyone. But they only really know our interests...they cannot track that into conversion (i.e., sales) information, unless Checkout is used. And that is very little really.
But by being a partner in a micropayments solution, they get access to low level sales transaction data that is personally identifiable. For anyone that cares to think about it...that is a very, err, interesting proposition...all that concentrated power and data. We should be thinking about that, really...
@"Real issue is DATA"
I totally agree the data is what Google are after. The Holy Grail of the tech sector listed in the article misses the Holy Grail for Google, which is opening up yet another big new way to spy on everyone.
Everything people buy (and where they buy it, and when) will soon be streaming into Google. They can already associate who you are via your phone a lot easier than people using a desktop with a web browser just using google.com, as the Android phones are riddled with ways to monitor and leak your data back to Google. They are going to find it a lot easier to tie all your data to you via the phones.
Its one more way to spy on us and then they sell that spying data.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
