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| 6. Google Pay / Wallet

Since Google Wallet launched in 2011, they added a physical card, replaced that card with Android Pay, dropped NFC and limited it to Android Pay, merged Google Wallet and Android Pay into Google Pay, launched Tez in India and then rebranded that to Google Pay (which was an entirely different app than the first Google Pay), then rebranded the first Google Pay as Google Wallet, while people in India still use their Google Pay app.

I think. I still can't make sense of it.

Imagine being a store/vendor and trying to make sense of which app your POS supports while just trying to run your business, what an absolute nightmare.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pay_Send

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wallet

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pay_(mobile_app)

https://www.androidpolice.com/google-pay-becomes-google-wall...

I can provide a little bit of insight into the Google Pay shenanigans, though I didn’t work there or interact with anyone there.

The initial Google Wallet launch irked the card networks because they presented their own proxy card rather than a card that clearly advertised the card issuer and the network. (Oh boy do they care a lot about branding…)

I assume they dropped NFC initially because it was done with the first generation tech that was very insecure and simply transmitted card numbers in the clear. Today’s contactless tech is all EMV based, and also needs to depend on a Secure Enclave chip to be blessed by PCI; that might explain why they cut off support for a number of devices. This happened around the time Apple Pay came into the scene.

The rebranding and all that though, well, that’s Google.

Or a customer trying to figure out what the payment app of the week is.

Almost everyone I knew used Google Wallet, which was pretty nice, until they shut down the cards at which time it became utterly useless since you could only use it in the Play store. That's one reason I've never used Android Pay or Google Pay or whatever it is now. Too unreliable.

A lot of us switched to Simple for awhile, but then that went defunct too.

So now we're all back to "Are you on Venmo or Paypal or Square Cash now?" whenever we want to transfer money. And sometimes just paper checks, because ancient as that is, it's still the most reliable (as long as both people have bank accounts). Most of us now have regular credit cards for payment, which are also more reliable than any app.

> And sometimes just paper checks, because ancient as that is, it's still the most reliable (as long as both people have bank accounts).

some XVII century stuff right here... it's wire transfers by bank account and phone number all the way basically everywhere east of the atlantic ocean

> People have this idea that Google hasn't ever done anything successful beside search.

That is a total strawman. I think most people know Google has done other successful products, especially Gmail and Android.

> Enterprises don't want to rely on some startup like Snowflake when their 1-2 years old.

Actually, I think the opposite may be true. A startup like Snowflake has one business, and they are all focused on that business. They will go through hell and highwater to make that business successful. I think the biggest risk with a company like Snowflake is not folks worried that they'll fold, but worried that they'll get acquired and their "goodness" sucked out (see Figma).

With Google, though, basically nearly everything besides ads is an afterthought. Nobody trusts them anymore to keep things around. Which has the ironic effect of making some of their "experiments" invalid, because if all potential customers know it's an experiment that may get killed at the whim of whomever got promoted, they'll be less likely to try it in the first place.

I'm not a Google hater. I'm a big fan of GCP, and also a big fan of Firebase. I do get nervous, though, when I see some simple, straightforward problems that languish for literally years because apparently they're not "sexy" enough to fix. Case in point, Firebase Auth (an Auth as a Service platform) still only supports SMS as a second factor for login, despite the fact that Google itself recommends against using SMS as a second factor. People have been complaining about this for literally years, yet it's crickets from Google/Firebase teams.

> 1. Gmail

2004

> 2. Maps

2005

> 3. Android

2008

> 4. Play Store

Elementary component of the Android business, but well: also 2008

> 5. Cloud

2008 (also)

> 6. Google Pay / Wallet

A requirement for Play Store, but relaunch as general payment solution: 2011

Now the current year is 2022. And yes, they did improvements here and there and in cloud launched more services, but anything big new, with a chance of survival?

Google Drive (2012) and Google Photos (2015), both with >1B users.

Would you bet on Google Photos surviving more than say the next 5 years? I wouldn't.

It's been around for 7 years now with over 1B users and is directly monetized by storage space. I'm a big Apple ecosystem person and even I use Google Photos instead of iCloud so I would bet on it, yes.

Disclaimer: I work at Google. Opinions are my own, etc etc. I have 0 to do with the Photos team.

Google Photos is an amazing product, it has an amazing offering and works extremely well. It's also extremely popular and integral to the Android ecosystem. I'd absolutely bet of it not being shutdown in the next 5 years, yes.

one of the few I would, yes.

The heart of Google Drive is Google Docs which is 2006.

Google Photos was itself a (poor) replacement for Picasa, which they acquired sometime in mid-00s.

I recently found my Dad still uses the Picasa library I setup on a home PC maybe 15 years ago.

Amazing that anyone uses Google Drive with the horrendous user interface. Honestly File Manager in Windows 3.11 is easier to use. You can actually find out how big a directory is in File Manager!

worse when you realize that Maps and Android were both acquisitions, Google hasn't had a genuine home grown win in almost 20 years

In 2 years, Cloud will likely have larger profits than most companies in the S&P 500.

Sure, Google hasn't done anything.

Chrome browser (also ChromeOS)

> Chrome

2008

Google Chrome the most popular browser in the world. Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets) more than 1B users

> People have this idea that Google hasn't ever done anything successful beside search.

I don't even think that search is very successful. Pagerank was successful, and was also pretty quickly made obsolete. They still own search because their competitors died as they replaced the verb "search" with their brand, and then created a browser to funnel people into search. Search is only important because of ads. And buying Youtube after failing with Google Video, in order to show more ads. So it all boils down to buying Doubleclick, building a browser, and buying a popular video site for me. Android is certainly key in this too, but its key was somewhat in funneling people into Google's ads, but mostly preventing Apple or some FOSS upstart from getting between users and Google's ads.

Google was successful at being a significantly better search engine for a very short time. It took the money it made and bought the largest ad company. Then it vertically integrated the entire industry from OS to final purchase (with varying degrees of success) to funnel people into its ads.

The only skill that Google has is taking advantage of and creating monopoly positions, not technology.

edit: Oddly, I think that their greatest success might have been to covertly corrupt Firefox. Without that, Chrome might have ended up a largely USA-locked thing like the iPhone is. Although releasing a brutally locked down and closed mobile OS masquerading as an FOSS upstart is a close second.

Weren't Gmail, Maps (Keyhole), Android all acquisitions?

GMail was internal project.

Gmail was a 20% project apparently.

Google Drive (2012) and Google Photos (2015).

>acquisition

>literally bought

Is it Google's doing then?

YouTube..

an acquisition

An acquisition in its infancy.

Acquisitions happen all the time and later get turned down when they don't flourish. Many stories get posted often with negative sentiment right here on HN.

YouTube was one of the 10 most visited websites on the Internet when Google bought it (IIRC, #4)

With a completely underdeveloped ad business, unclear if it would ever produce any significant revenue. YouTube was purchased for 1b, they cleared 28b in revenue last year alone.