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Comment by hodder | Hacker News Reader

As a user of Google search and Android, I want Google to bundle services. Android would, in my opinion, be impaired if it didn't include Google play, gmail, chrome, and Google Maps.

Similarly, Google search would be worse for me if it didn't present me with instantly relevant results like shopping, wikipedia responses, imdb style results, or quick answers to unit conversions and equations.

Yes Google leverages its dominance in search and mobile to bundle services, but is this something that the EU should fine Google for? As a consumer, I don't think so.

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Microsoft said the same back in the day. And it is true - in the immediate term, consumers benefit from a single vendor integrating all their products and limiting competition.

The problem happens when you look a little farther ahead. Anti-competitive measures prevent other companies from offering something even better. Those products might not exist now, but without an open and competitive environment, they won't show up. And consumers are very much hurt if that is the case.

This is where it's not helpful to talk generically about this issue.

I might agree with you on some of the clauses in Android contracts, for instance, but the EU's previously proposed idea mandating cycling through different spammy vertical shopping search engines at the top of the search results helps no one but those spammy search engines, artificially propping a company up for years for the the appearance of competition.

See declan's excellent post below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9382109

Debating details can be useful, but that is the previously proposed idea.

Until we know what the current proposals will be, we don't have the details to talk concretely. So all we can do for now is talk about the general issue.

That's fair, but my point is that it's easy to talk about "oh, the market should be more competitive", but it turns out finding ways to do that is incredibly difficult without also hobbling the original thing to the point that it becomes simply not a good product.

It's also perfectly possible to propose solutions of our own for the purposes of discussion :)

edit:

> Debating details can be useful, but that is the previously proposed idea

it's also worth pointing out that the cycling vertical shopping search site links proposal was apparently rejected not because it was flawed but because those vertical shopping sites didn't think it went far enough.

What Microsoft did was completely different: They coerced OEMs to not include Netscape Navigator or they wouldn't license Windows to them. They prevented users from uninstalling IE claiming technical reasons that were proven false. And the reason they did those things was, as proven from internal communications, to protect Windows' monopoly from the threat of portable Java applications delivered via Netscape Navigator, by asphyxiating Netscape to death.

I'm of the opinion that even if you don't think Google has been evil with Google Apps / Android licensing so far, there's ample legal room for them to do so.

For example, having prevented anyone from developing high quality mapping alternatives by freely (with license agreement) offering Google Maps to OEMs, they decide that in order to install Maps on Android your device must now do the following:

- include additional tracking information and report same to Google

- include a facility to prevent the user from uninstalling or disabling this tracking functionality

... if you do not agree to this then, we're sorry, you'll have to find another mapping provider. Or ship a mobile device without a mapping solution.

Have they deliberately distorted the market in a way that's beneficial for them in the long term by destroying competition? You'd better bet your ass. They've just done it more insidiously than 90s Microsoft. After all, how evil can something that's given away freely (as in beer) be?

> having prevented anyone from developing high quality mapping alternatives by freely (with license agreement) offering Google Maps to OEMs,

Do you have any proof of this?

> - include additional tracking information and report same to Google > - include a facility to prevent the user from uninstalling or disabling this tracking functionality

Any source for this?

I believe you missed the legal hypothetical wording of my post. Although your first question doesn't really need an answer as I'd expect it to be self-evident.

E.g. this Google blog post on the matter: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/07/is-free-antit...

"It is true that if a company has a dominant product, it may run afoul of antitrust laws if it "ties" that product to another -- for instance, by requiring customers who buy that product to buy another product as well. When a company provides products for free on a stand-alone basis, however, it's not requiring anyone to buy anything. It may take business away from other companies trying to charge users for similar products, but that's hardly an antitrust issue."

Which is to say they (surprise!) concluded in 2009 that there can't be anti-trust concerns because anti-trust laws don't cover free products, and Google is giving the things in question away for free.

Which to me is a clever way of saying "anti-trust laws weren't designed in a digital age where the per-unit production costs of a product (ex-development and up-front costs) can feasibly be zero".

To be fair it was quite hard to tell that the second half of your post was still inside the hypothetical.

So, you want to punish them for pre-crime?

Yap, I missed completely, sorry

Sorry, as Dylan pointed out, tense shifts make for poor signals of intent. Should have made that more explicit for easier comment consumption.

Lesson learned!

For comparison, here's what Google did in Germany: After a law was passed requiring all search engines to pay newspapers for using "small sections of text", Google gave newspapers two alternatives: Either they gave Google perpetual, royalty-free access to all their content, or they would be removed from search results.

Given how much of their traffic and online revenue comes from Google they all agreed, rendering the law moot.

That strikes me as a very similar situation.

> Given how much of their traffic and online revenue comes from Google they all agreed, rendering the law moot.

I think "revealing the law was based on a false premise" would be more accurate than "rendering the law moot".

The premise of the law was that by showing snippets, Google was taking something away from the newspapers. If that were true, Google's "give us what we were 'taking' for free or we'll stop taking it" deal would have been rejected out of hand. The fact is, Google was providing the newspapers a valuable service by showing the snippets, which is why, given the choice between Google not doing so at all and Google doing so without paying anything, they chose the latter.

But the value of that service is because of Google's monopoly position in search in Germany (where its market share is in the 90's last I heard; much higher than in the US).

In other words, the newspapers have no choice but to take whatever terms Google offers them. That's a very bad state of competition in the search market. A search monopoly in Germany gives Google a huge amount of power over not only search but other industries, even the news media.

You either have snippet-royalties or you have viable and useful search engines that operate without a paywall. They are mutually exclusive. If royalty negotiations were required for all content before a snippet could be used, either the search engine will index only a few major players (only the head of the long tail), or the cost of obtaining agreements would exceed any potential revenues. It's not because of a monopoly player in the market, the dysfunction applies to all potential search engines. And the minor players in such a regime would be even at a greater disadvantage, lacking the resources to come to arrangements. Be careful what you wish for.

Google News shows headlines and small snippets, but if users are interested in a story, they have to go to the newspaper to read it. It's to the newspapers' own benefit. Google doesn't make money from News directly (no advertising).

What German publisher Axel Springer tried to legislate was the equivalent of forcing Google to pay for sending them traffic: have your cake and get paid to eat it, too.

In my opinion that's a totally valid response. What was Google's other option? Pay to index their websites? That's ridiculous.

Now if Google asked them to pay or else they wouldn't be indexed, that would be a different story.

Now if all sites in the world would join up and ask all the search engines to pay them for indexing, that would be really interesting. Never going to happen though.

> After a law was passed requiring all search engines to pay newspapers for using "small sections of text", Google gave newspapers two alternatives: Either they gave Google perpetual, royalty-free access to all their content, or they would be removed from search results

Source for that?

It's been widely discussed

http://www.dw.de/german-publishers-vs-google/a-18030444

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/05/us-google-axel-spr...

In the end german newspapers gave Google permission to use snippets of content without paying any royalties. They needed Google News traffic more than Google needed them.

Which is the reason why spanish lawmakers made a similar law but with a mandatory royalties clause. Spanish newspapers cannot give an exemption to any company, under the law paying royalties for using snippets is mandatory regardless of the content owner wishes. This law is not currently being enforced, but the consequences are dramatic all the same: Google has shut down Google News Spain, and other content aggregators are under threat of being hit with fines at any moment.

And that's why I'm not currently allowing feedbunch.com users to subscribe to RSS feeds from spanish newspaper publishers, until the situation changes. Anti-monopoly legislation is fine, but sometimes it can be a hammer that the big players use to hit each other instead of a tool to help new players get in the market.

Yes, I know that the law was passed. What I asked for was about the claim about the ultimatum Google offered to publishers

This is the best link I've found with a quick search

http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/10/22/german-publishers-c...

But is still the same, this link doesn't talk about Google given any ultimatum to publishers.

Germany passed a law intending to make Google pay for using news snippets.

Google simply stopped including snippets from german newspapers.

German newspapers reluctantly gave an exemption to Google so that it would publish snippets from their websites again.

What more evidence do you need? Perhaps only a letter written in blood and signed "give us an exemption or else" accompanied with a horse head would convince you about Google's negotiation tactics here?

> What more evidence do you need?

What evidence? An evidence that it is not a law that forbids putting snippets,.

The ones doping ultimatum were the German government and the publishers

> Perhaps only a letter written in blood and signed "give us an exemption or else" accompanied with a horse head would convince you about Google's negotiation tactics here?

Perhaps not the bend of reality that you're doing

I suppose that you also think that in the Spanish case the one doing an ultimatum is also google.

I wrote a similar comment once[1], check those that replied to me. Also, here's an article from Reuters[2] with some details. I'm on mobile, so sorry I can't provide better sources.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8667309

[2] http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0IP1YT20141105?irpc...

Those links doesn't support your claim about "Google gave newspapers two alternatives: Either they gave Google perpetual, royalty-free access to all their content, or they would be removed from search results"

What Google did was what the law required. And, by the way, nothing of royalty-free access to all of the content

Here's an extract from the German Wikipedia:

"Before the [law] came into force on 1 August 2013, Google Germany had written to the press publishers in June 2013. They should tell Google whether they waive all rights under the law on Google News and grant [it] free license. Otherwise, their content would no longer be listed from 1 August in Google News"

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leistungsschutzrecht_f%C3%BCr_...

From your quote: > "they waive all rights under the law"

Really, stop, what you're linking is what the German law says, there is no ultimatum from Google.

Google asked the publishers if they will give the right to publish the snippets without paying or not, nothing less, nothing more. Just what the German law was

What exactly are you objecting to here? "Either you do X or we shut down Y" is an ultimatum. Are you confusing ultimatims with blackmail?

It doesn't have to be phrased as a demand. As a friendly opportunity it's still an ultimatum.

> What exactly are you objecting to here? "Either you do X or we shut down Y" is an ultimatum.

Original situation: Search engines put snippets of news without paying

Germany pass a law: If you don't pay you have to stop putting snippets

Google: I don't want to pay, I will stop to put snippets as the law say

Where the heck is the ultimatum from Google, the ultimatum was from the German govern and a law to the liking of German publishers.

Original situation: Search engines put snippets of news without paying

Germany passes a law: If you don't pay or reach another agreement you have to stop putting snippets

Google: I don't want to pay, you either let me use snippets free or I will stop as the law says

There, with the gaps filled in you can easily see the ultimatum from Google. In the Spain case there is no ultimatum, Google just shut down. In Germany Google looked at the law and then gave newspapers a final choice.

I think it's a fair point, "I'd like to keep doing X, but if you want me to stop, I will" is not really an ultimatum in the traditional sense, because there's no retaliation. I think it's a stretch to say it's retaliation to not agree to start paying someone for something which was previously free.

Example, I use Google Apps for a while and it's free. One day Google says, guess what we're going to start charging for this service in a couple months, if you want to keep using it, enter credit card details here. I don't enter my credit card details, and stop using the service. Did I just "retaliate" against Google? Perhaps, but I can see where Oletros is coming from.

But they're not just not paying. They're offering to perform a search service in exchange for a brand new license. Your description is a much better fit for the Spain situation.

So to continue my (somewhat strained) example from above... I contact Google and offer to continue using Google Apps, but only if they let me do it for free.

I think in this case they are saying, "if you want to be in Google News, you can be, your choice bro." I just can't see any problem with that.

It's just like robots.txt, except German law made it opt-in instead of opt-out. It was opt-out, the law made it opt-in, so, well, now they gotta opt-in! Google really was a neutral 3rd party to the whole fiasco... in this case.

> What Microsoft did was completely different:

FTA: "The report lodged several complaints against Google, such as its practice of displaying content from sites such as Yelp and Amazon on its own competing services. “When competitors asked Google to stop taking their content, it threatened to remove them from its search engine,”

That doesn't sound completely different.

Notice that what I was responding to is not what you said:

> Microsoft said the same back in the day. And it is true - in the immediate term, consumers benefit from a single vendor integrating all their products and limiting competition.

Microsoft's actions that lead to its conviction did not benefit consumers in the immediate term. It hurt consumers both immediately and in the long term. And their intention was, as proven in court, to harm competition in the OS market; not to integrate stuff for a better user experience.

They did the same thing with Google News, too.

I suspect we're overestimating how much end-consumer desire there was for alternatives. Removing the choice of O/S might well have made buying a computer possible ( in terms of internal bandwidth ) for some.

Antitrust arguments famously switch between "harm to competitors" and "harm to consumers" while the empirical case is that with very few exceptions, these are nothing like the same thing.

At least in the '90s, when this really was a thing, people just wanted to go to Best Buy, plonk down their $2k and get on that AOL thingy all the people at work are talking about.

Now? Has anything been more proprietary and closed than iOS? Seems to be perceived as a virtue. When I am among the iOS people, they have trouble with 'em all the time.

Harm to competitors literally means less competition in the market for producing good products for consumers. In the worst case, that means you depend on a single monopoly corporation to produce the best possible product. It is almost a given that that results in lower-quality products for consumers.

Although it might be hard to prove using examples - as the better products that would have existed simply never appear in the first place. It isn't that competitors fail, although that happens too. It is that it is irrational for competitors to even try to spend money on products to compete against a monopoly that will crush them.

Harm to competitors is most definitely harm to consumers.

So goes the theory. There are a great many problems with monopolies, but consumer pain doesn't seem to much be one of them.

The econometrics guys say it's not that simple. One of my go to pieces on this is by Stigler here: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Monopoly.html

I don't know if google stops android phone developers from including a bing maps, or microsoft office app on their phones, in the same way MS was prohibiting OEMs/VARs from including Netscape Navigator or Opera.

I know they require the google experience apps to be kept, or not as a whole in order to be in certain programs though. Just not sure the extent they block other apps from being installed.

Microsoft is reportedly cutting their Android patent fees in return for manufacturers pre-installing apps such as Office, OneDrive, and Skype on Android devices, so it's definitely not prohibited: http://www.androidauthority.com/microsoft-cuts-patent-fees-f...

Samsung is also notorious for pre-installing TouchWiz apps that duplicate functionality provided by Google's apps.

> I don't know if google stops android phone developers from including a bing maps, or microsoft office app on their phones

No, it doesn't. At least in the case of office apps

Android would, in my opinion, be impaired if it didn't include Google play, gmail, chrome, and Google Maps.

Android would be "impaired" if it shipped a general-purpose mail client rather than one designed specifically for Gmail?

It would be "impaired" if part of the setup process was to select an app store[0], a browser[1], and a maps app[1]?

That sounds more like "consumer empowerment" than "impairment" to me.

[0] Google Play, F-Droid, Amazon's app store, etc

[1] Just show that category of programs from the aforementioned app store

More complex setup is a UX quality loss, so, yes, Android would be impaired by your recommendations. (And, on top of that, giving developers less consistency they could rely on on the platform would also be an impairment resulting from that.)

Whether an improved competitive marketplace would result from the changes and yield long-term benefits that offset the cost of those impairments may be a worthwhile debate, but its not a debate you can even have honestly without recognizing the impairments.

It's actually been really nice to remove all the Google apps and find apps with UIs I actually like rather than the Google-branded blinding-in-the-dark stark-white look they're shoving on everyone these days.

The fact that you are able to do that is a strong indicator that even if the apparent claim that "Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications" were to reflect Google's actual intent, it's clearly not working very well.

It's really not, because I'm a career IT specialist, with a degree in software development and a ton of experience. For anyone outside of that, Google makes it very scary and very difficult to do.

Google's "openness" is what I refer to as "just enough rope to hang yourself with". They only are open insofar as they know you can't successfully compete with them.

Android already does ship generic apps and let users install their own app stores, browsers, maps, and so on. In fact, you don't even have to use the Google play store to install them because you can install arbitrary APKs.

In iOS there's no chance of installing an alternate app store by default, and yet with Anroid Amazon was able to make the Kindle devices (fire phone; tablet) that run Android without any hint of Google services.

A user can already choose to purchase a device without those services, it just happens users don't want to. I, as a user, enjoy having Google's services and enjoy that I can install alternatives if I so desire (like alternate and better email apps).

That's one of the reasons I don't use iOS

> Android would be "impaired" if it shipped a general-purpose mail client rather than one designed specifically for Gmail?

Android includes (or at least used to include) a generic email app called Email.

> It would be "impaired" if part of the setup process was to select an app store[0], a browser[1], and a maps app[1]?

You can have all of those, and more, with custom ROMs like Cyanogenmod, or even with AOSP alone.

Phone and tablet manufacturers and retailers do with Android whatever they want, by virtue of it being free and open source. If they thought there was any value (greater than the UX harm) in those measures you propose, they'll do it without blinking. They already modify the hell out of any device that's not a Nexus.

If that were the case, there wouldn't be a problem. But it isn't. Google requires phone makers to comply with a stringent set of 'compatibility' guidelines in order to license any of their closed-source apps. See http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...

It is the case.

Amazon's devices do not have any of Google's services.

However, it's fine... Google isn't doing it for anti-competitive reasons, they're doing it because all of the Google services are needed to have a stable system.

Various custom roms let you install only a subset of the Google services, and that option invariably leads to bugs. Of course Google shouldn't want to support that.

Your complaint is akin to saying that firefox is anti-competitive because to use their XUL interpreter I have to use their mozilla compiler and rendering suite.

There's plenty of freedom already on Android. Plenty of third-party manufacturers bundle their own app stores and users can create and/or install plenty of alternatives.

This is an entirely different story than on iOS.

As it happens, I don't actually believe that Google is being anticompetitive here, I think their actions are pretty reasonable, especially compared to Apple.

But that doesn't mean that every argument that leads to that conclusion must be valid! The statement I was replying to was not. Amazon devices prove the point: as they don't comply with Google's requirements, they are unable to ship any of the Google's proprietary services even as part of the process antsar was suggesting in the GP comment ("part of the setup process [could be] to select an app store" [from a selection including the play store]).

My 2 cents. I had an Android phone since 2011 and an Android tablet since last December. I do use Google Play to install apps and for nothing else. I use Google Maps without being logged in. I don't use Gmail nor Chrome (also on desktop). I search from within Opera (I bet this is very unusual).

I know it's anecdotal but given my experience the only thing that would impair Android is the lack of an app store. Books, movies, music etc don't matter. Only apps. There are alternatives to Google Play and there will be more if for some reason Google decide to shut it down but a search engine and a little QA for apps is convenient. Having to wander through 4 or 5 app stores would be a bad experience (btw, I do use FDroid for some app not on Google's store).

>As a user of Google search and Android, I want Google to bundle services. Android would, in my opinion, be impaired if it didn't include Google play, gmail, chrome, and Google Maps

Even if it was so, the convenience of consumers is less important than having a healthy economic ecosystem.

Isn't consumer convenience the whole point of a healthy economic ecosystem?

We don't want companies to compete for the sake of competing but to deliver better products and services. Failing that, at least cheaper.

I think immediate consumer convenience can turn into a bad consumer experience once the company providing it becomes the monopolist. Monopolies do bad things to customers in the long run. So we can end up with large consumer inconvenience and unhealthy economic ecosystem. I prefer a little less convenience now and let competition improve it a little bit or keep it at a reasonable level.

What can Google do? What is the possible negative long term impact here?

We're talking about a website and a phone OS. You can start using another search engine in five minutes and will probably replace your phone in a year or two anyway. There are plenty of alternatives, including forks of Android that will likely work with your current device.

Gmail at least owns its users' addresses. But here they have nothing except being useful. Local grocery store has me in a tighter grip.

> What can Google do?

Destroy any Internet company whose users do not go directly to their site URL.

Destroy any new Internet company who relies on search results for users to find them.

Consumers don't know what they want until you tell them or they realize they made a mistake.

Indeed. Consumer choice is more important than consumer coddling. And nobody is saying Samsung or Sony or LG shouldn't be able to choose to ship Google Maps on their devices. Just that it's wrong for Google to force them to.

To me, it's really not different from the television industry bundling their stations for carriers... Oh, you want to be able to carry AB Network? Well you also have to carry X, Y, and Z.

As long as the phone manufacturer isn't prevented from also installing Bing Maps, and setting that to the default, and putting that as the shortcut on the desktop, I don't know that there's a big problem... The experience apps have been a bundle for a long time now.

Actually, Google's MADA terms specify what must be on the homescreen by default and how it must be arranged.

That being the case, I have a bit of an issue with it. Despite personally preferring the Google apps, I understand the sentiment.. I just see it in more limited scope than what irks some people.

As a paying customer of Google Apps, of Google Drive, of Google Music and as a user of Android, I want to have choice. And for example it is regrettable that CalDAV or CardDAV are not baked into Android, or that the mail app does not support IMAP Idle. Which basically means that the only usable standard on Android is Exchange.

I also love Chrome and Maps. However I'd like the ability of uninstalling them depending on my mood.

This isn't too say that EU's claims are fair or not. But I also feel that Google has lost its way.

> Android would, in my opinion, be impaired if it didn't include Google play, gmail, chrome, and Google Maps.

Why should Google blacklist manufacturers who produce anything Android-based that lacks their services? If you wanted Google services, what would stop you downloading them yourself?

As someone who's been trying to find a way to not use Google, I absolutely think the EU should not just fine, but shatter Google for. Because even when I moved to Windows Phone, Google bought out my NFC payment app and shut it down, telling everyone to get Android and Google Wallet.

If Google can't crush a competitor in the marketplace, they'll just buy it out and kill it. Which is why rumors they might want to acquire Twitter isn't a shock: They've never succeeded at social.

Softcard was shutting down anyways. They really never recovered from heavily investing in branding a product named ISIS and then having to change their name after that budget had been spent. On top of that, the early adopters that would have spread the word of the product were annoyed that the phone carriers were actively blocking Google Wallet installations in order to push ISIS adoption in the beginning. Google Wallet had to change business models and use a reloadable card because the carriers prevented Google from using the secure element on NFC to store the user's actual credit card on their own device. After Softcard began to fold, Google just bought what was left.

Nobody cared about Google Wallet. It was never more than a tech industry niche item (aside from being an account for Play Store purchases), and phone carriers only blocked it because Google was trying to create a monopoly.

If you understand the history behind the secure element, you'd realize that it was those phone carriers which forced Google to adopt HCE, which allows payment options. Google's plan was to be the sole payment provider across the entire industry.

Source: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/05/01/a-brief-history-of-v...

You're off in bizarro land here. The brave carriers blocking evil Google's payment monopoly by allowing only ISIS payments on their phone? I know you're trolling the rest of this thread, but seriously?

That article is not even a source for what you're claiming! It just says Verizon wasn't illegally acting when it blocked Google Wallet on its phones.

Looking all of their posts in that thread it is clear how much loves Google and how far goes to spin and bend reality

Read the article, magicalist. Particularly the bottom few paragraphs. Google mandated exclusive use of the Secure Element for the payment system on Android. This would have prevented carriers from offering a competing payment service.

In short, carriers were not being greedy by blocking Wallet. Google was being greedy by designing Wallet. Carriers, if anything, saved us from a Google Wallet monopoly. Now anyone can make an app that uses NFC.

> Google mandated exclusive use of the Secure Element for the payment system on Android

The article's only claim in that area is that the Secure Element can only contain the credentials for one credit card (which wouldn't incidentally, lock developers out of using NFC). I'm not sure if that's right, but even assuming that, it appears to be a function of the hardware, not some evil plan to monopolize the phone.

The carriers only saved us in the sense that they forced Google to design around the Secure Element (which, notably, they could have also done themselves, another hole in your narrative...), giving a pure software solution and allowing Google Wallet to not ever be blocked on a hardware level.

I'm guessing you missed this bit?

> Google Wallet is doing something few apps do - asking for direct, exclusive access to a secure piece of hardware in the phone. Not only that, once Google takes over the secure element, it wants total control. Because of the security concerns (and related technical difficulties) involved in sharing a secure element, Wallet and only Wallet is able to utilize the internal secure element on a Wallet-enabled device. That means Google is directly managing every layer of the process.

No, that's exactly what I'm referring to. The article claims that the Secure Element can only be used by one set of credentials. If that's true, that's not locking out other people, that's just using the thing. Note also the "asking" part of that quote: Google Wallet wouldn't have used the Secure Element if you never used Google Wallet.

Meanwhile I'm still not sure how you're rationalizing the carriers as savior thing when they turned around and did exactly that dastardly thing (using the Secure Element) while also mandating that no one be able to decline the use of their payment system and use a different app. It was either ISIS or nothing.

Google Wallet was intended to be installed by default on all their devices, via their MADA agreement to push Google Apps onto Android devices.

Some proof? I live in South Africa, and last I checked I couldn't use Wallet. Was Google going to force Samsung to install Wallet on my phone? As far as I know, all the Google Apps that came with my phone are on someone else's phone in Australia or US.

Wallet is definitely still US-specific. As is Apple Pay, and was Softcard. I have no idea when and if any of these companies will ever expand NFC payments internationally, though some countries have local providers.

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