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Comment by AdmiralAsshat | Hacker News Reader

> That math is why many book apps like those from Bookshop, Kobo and Barnes & Noble’s Nook haven’t typically let you buy e-books and audiobooks from their iPhone or Android apps. Instead, you must leave the app, buy from the bookstore’s website and hop back into the app to read or listen to it.

Not accurate, at least for Kobo. They accepted Google's billing system, so buying from the Kobo app on Android hooks into your Google Wallet billing method and works without an issue.

It does mean you can't use Kobo gift cards towards purchases made on your phone, but you can always pop onto the website to do that.

I'm actually really glad that Kobo just did that, even if Google is taking a ridiculous cut. Anecdotally I'm buying way more impulse books on Kobo (i.e. a book on sale for $2.99 or less) since they got the app working with Google Wallet.

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Why not add your payment method to Kobo's app?

It's very little effort for doing your part in fighting the oligopoly.

Google Play billing is the only option in the Kobo Android app.

Oh, I misunderstood. I thought Kobo added the Google Pay (Wallet Pay? Google Wallet? God knows with the constant name changes) button / system to the app in addition to their own payment flow. Damn.

That does seem odd given that Google is liable to take a 30% cut of each purchase.

It isn't "odd" it's the only way they are permitted by Google to sell their product. Yes, it's farcical and should be illegal.

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

Most of the big companies probably have better prices negotiated and are not paying 30%

It sucks because it means users can't buy books from Kobo on the app unless they give Google their payment info. I don't want Google to have my payment info, least of all so I can buy something from a completely different company.

If Google insisted on being an option in the app it would be relatively fine. Users who prefer Googles payment system could chose it, but Google doesn't want users to have that choice.

I already gave Google my payment info, though, because I use Google Wallet. And I actually find that more secure, because IIRC the credit card number that is stored in Google Wallet is a virtual credit card number, not the real number that is printed on the physical card (which Rakuten Kobo would store).

Even when I buy books from Kobo, I never stored my credit card with them. I always bought gift cards and loaded the balance onto my account. That would occasionally get cumbersome, since the only vendor for those cards in the US used to be Wal-Mart, until they discontinued their relationship. Now I think Kobo might sell them directly out of Amazon.com--but either way, for the odd $2 and $3 purchases that I do on impulse buys (because a book may be on sale), just having it go through Google Wallet is much easier.

My bank gives me virtual credit cards. Google is just unnecessary expensive middle man. But I live in Europe so US situation might be different.

Why would I want a virtual credit card - US law gives me strong fraud protection and so if my number is compromised I just call my bank and dispute the charges and then I get a new number.

Though I've never had the above happen. I've had a few times where my number was compromised but the bank found out and gave me a new card before whoever got the number was able to use it.

It's great and I'd say essential to have those protections, but a virtual card makes that whole thing much more efficient plus doesn't cause you to have to update your card on file with all the "good" vendors where you have it stored.

You can proactively decide when a card will expire and how much it can be billed ("Sure, NY Times, I'll take a subscription for the trial offer of $4 a month, so let's make sure this card only allows a charge of $4 every month and/or expires when that offer expires.")

I agree. In 20 years I've only had a single fraudulent charge on my card. I called my credit union and it was taken care of immediately. I don't need more, I don't want more. Google is trying to make me afraid to get my personal information.

> not the real number that is printed on the physical card (which Rakuten Kobo would store).

Citation needed!

In 2014 I worked for a small, unimportant ecommerce retailer. We migrated at around that time to storing only a token, using our payment processor (Braintree at the time) - and no longer kept any card numbers in our database whatsoever. If someone had dumped our 'credit_cards' table after that migration, they'd have nothing but useless garbage (the token could only be used by our own merchant account). I think even Braintree didn't need to store the card number itself either, but I'm not so sure of their internals.

Storing a payment card number in your database is considered an incredibly bad practice, is not PCI compliant, and probably violates other important "compliance" things you have to regularly certify as well.

> It sucks because it means users can't buy books from Kobo on the app unless they give Google their payment info.

Google having my payment info is no worry at all to me. Google is on a very short list of companies whose defense against hacking and social engineering attacks I trust.

Google seeing every one of my purchases? Not a fan. I don't think that's the argument you're making here, though.

It is a problem for me. Google is reasonable enough, but I do not want it to be too easy to make a mistake. I want those extra seconds it takes to type in my payment information to think again do I really need this thing. More than once I've realized the "toy" I was interested in wasn't really in my current budget and abandoned the purchase. I never turned on amazon one-click shopping for similar reasons. I want buying things I need easy, but not too easy.

Yes. Fraud protection for online purchases is fine. I have certain cards set up in a way that I will basically hand them out to anyone. Data protection is not a solved problem in that way.

I'm not buying anything from Google so there is NO reason for them to have my payment info. Fuck them.

No need to give Google your CC info to see your purchases.

They get it directly from at least Mastercard.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...

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