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Comment by andrewinardeer | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure at some marketing meeting at Google, a VP racing for pole posiiton has wanted to green-light the idea of putting advertisements in their Wallet app.

With any luck this backlash against Apple is so significant that a red flag is waved so ferociously that Google will never blast an advertisement out to their Google Wallet users.

As the article outlines, I am sure that due to the sheer number of people who use Apple Wallet there was someone out there who had just bought an advance ticket to Superman and the moment they received a 'Transaction Successful' message this F1 advertisement notification popped up and had them wondering if Apple preserving their privacy really is a competitive advantage.

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While Google may or may not refrain from putting ads in their wallet app due to this incident, the aggressive ways that they use to get me to use the wallet app have been off putting enough.

Every now and then, there is a full-screen popup on my phone that wants to onboard me into the wallet app. The only options I have are "yes" or "later".

Clearly a company that operates on the principle of "If the user doesn't want to, let's just nag them to death until they give up" is not to be trusted.

To be fair, the “Yes, Maybe Later” pattern can be seen throughout Silicon Valley. Tech companies, by and large, cannot accept “No” from users.

What I learned about consent I learned from megacorps...

You're right, and I have seen this pattern elsewhere. Especially on Windows systems (I, personally, switched to Linux decades ago). So Google is definitely not alone here.

But, as already mentioned in the original article, the wallet is an especially sensitive area.

Have you tried going to "App Info" and "Disable" for Wallet?

I love these choices, yes or yes later.

They do the same on my windows computer, ever time I open edge and every time I open a new tab !

This is the kind of behavior I wouldn’t even tolerate in real life, they are really taking us for sheeps.

Using windows and tolerating it’s crap is a choice, my dude. Linux and MacOS are right there.

Windows' sins are the utter lack of elegance and outright hostility to the generic users. And I understand those trigger visceral reactions for many.

Yet macos' polish and elegance just hide different issues, in particular the utter lack of flexibility (Apple's way or the highway) and expecting to solve most issues by throwing money at it (want 3D perfs ? just buy another computer)

I personally couldn't understand why I'd keep paying for both a macbook and an ipad just to have a "real" computer and a touch screen. Microsoft made the Surface Pro a decade ago now.

You can have a non-Mac computer with a non-Microsoft OS. Like I said - choices, choices. All choices have downsides for sure.

Google already has ads in their Wallet. https://madeby.tfl.gov.uk/2025/03/31/google-pay-tube-challen...

Google Photos, which comes installed by default on all Android phones, sends notifications asking you to print an album with your photos through a partner.

That doesn't feel like a comparable violation. I've bought more than one (physical) photo album that came with a flyer in for ordering more copies.

Google Photos is the gallery app that comes with Android phones. Sometimes you will get notifications asking you to buy a printed, real life photo album with the photos that you have in your phone. That album is sold through a partner, which makes this an ad. It’s not upselling you on something you already purchased. It’s telling you to buy a photo album with the photos you took using your phone.

https://support.google.com/photos/thread/162190/how-to-turn-...

My point is that skeuomorphically that app is my photo album. So it's not a shocking place to have an ad. Whereas getting an ad in my wallet is a whole different kettle of fish.

Google was there first. During Euro 2024, the "transaction successful" screen displayed some football-related animation.

Was it an ad or an easter egg, like the "google.com" logo animations you get on new years and other holidays?

Did it send a push notification or bother the user? Got a screenshot or reference, since a quick google doesn't uncover it?

Yeah it was an Easter egg style thing, similar to when the change the Google logo for special occasions. Not comparable to a push add for a movie (which I also haven't seen a screenshot of yet to be fair)

> which I also haven't seen a screenshot of yet to be fair

The article links to https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/06/26/apple-wallet-se...

Which links to these examples:

https://x.com/ParkerOrtolani/status/1937551035825807545

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWallet/comments/1ljbjrs/how_do...

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/24/apple-wallet-notificati...

(and actually a few more too)

ewww how cheesy is that.

It was shown full screen after completing payment, as a distraction, and increasing the time for which Google Wallet takes over your screen during payments.

They have been doing that for years for all sorts of things usually seasonal but sometimes other stuff

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