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Comment by sorenjan | Hacker News Reader

I see that they've added integrated chat. If Google would've had a coherent chat app strategy they could've integrated it there, but I guess separate chats in every app is almost as good.

There's no chance I'd use a service like this from Google by the way. I would probably had been interested if it had come from Google 15 years ago, but they have too much badwill since then, with all their cancelled services and stories of banned accounts.

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This should not be seen as chats, but transaction documentation.

The dialogs associated with informal or semi-formal transactions may not belong in your personal chat space; quite often that set of dialogs exists only before and during the transactions and never after that.

> ..but they have too much badwill since then..

Google pay is the market leader in India in fintech. It is perhaps most trusted brand. The notion of "Google is evil", "Kills of products so would not use its services" only exist in HN bubble, if we leave this space and go to emerging markets Google absolutely rules.

>> if we leave this space and go to emerging markets Google absolutely rules

I can understand why! Google services are free, or free-ish, and work extremely well!

Do you think sudden account bans with no recourse are something to be concerned about, or is it a lightning-strike-rare kind of situation: happens, but does not bear worrying about?

I think they're both a rare lightning event, and something that people in emerging markets are probably more used to happening from other sources.

I remember a while ago there was an outbreak of news reports of people being wrongly declared dead in India, which gave them all manner of bureaucratic trouble. I don't know if Aardhar has made that better or worse.

a huge chunk of Indian internet users have got access to internet only in the last 5 years or so, and almost all of them are digitally illiterate. Internet basically means, Facebook, Whatsapp, Tiktok, and Google. I know abundance of users who made a gmail account, just to get started with their android phone and do not understand what email even is.

I was thinking of the same. Tying critical services to a Google account feels like walking with some nitroglycerin in your pocket. Accounts get banned with no recourse and there's no law or regulation holding Google accountable yet.

The court of public opinion is not a real deterrent especially for a company with such power to shape it, to the point where the only way to even be aware of what they're doing is to be very tech-educated and interested in the particular topic.

Nailed it. Why would I use this over cashapp or venmo?

Well, Venmo is owned by PayPal. So there's that. Also US only I believe.

What's the argument here vs. paypal?

This appears to include an API to bank accounts, so perhaps it's trying to compete with companies like Starling or Monzo. If it can disrupt the paleolithic US consumer banking industry it might end up being a net positive.

Indian version of the Google Pay even has games. They have beautifully gamified the payments services.

BTW chat is really useful feature in P2P payments.

Google's brand has become synonymous with privacy violation.

Their services are designed to suck everything knowable about you like an information vampire.

check out the Indian version of Google Pay.

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