8 ms·

Forgive me, but isn't this what Google Wallet was, at one point? Then at some point Google Wallet was split out into Android Pay. And now it's Google Pay? It's

by untog 9y ago

Forgive me, but isn't this what Google Wallet was, at one point? Then at some point Google Wallet was split out into Android Pay. And now it's Google Pay? It's made all the worse by the fact that these names/logos/etc are reflected on actual physical hardware distributed to stores around the world. Those old names aren't going anywhere soon. Google has done this so many times now (Hangouts/Allo/Messenger, anyone?) that I wonder if there is anyone behind the wheel any more.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Forgive me, but isn't this what Google Wallet was, at one point? Not exactly, as it includes things that were never part of Wallet. > Then at some point Google Wallet was split out into Android Pay. And now it's Google Pay? Android Pay was a renamed acquisition that was originally intended to be merged with Wallet but was kept apart (but Wallet’s NFC payment feature was retired as Android Pay was brought online, which made it look like Wallet was being split up.) But Google Pay seems to merge in a number of other siloed app-specific Google payment features as well.as Wallet and Android Pay (these clearly have been integrated behind the scenes for a while, since their “pay with Google” feature leveraged payment methods you had registered through any of them or Wallet or Android Pay), so this looks like the UI and branding catching up with backend integration.
- chauzer 9y ago
  What acquisition was Android Pay?
  - mattmcknight 9y ago
    I think they just purchased some patents from Softcard in 2015.
trendia 9y ago
The most Google thing to do would now be to deprecate Android pay, no longer support merchants who don't upgrade their point of sale systems, and provide no contact line for support.
- cmurf 9y ago
  And thus ensure in another 2 years, another person will be promoted to the Google global payments VP, and another product manager will think he's god's gift to solving the payments problem, and will have another product and rebranding cycle. Mark your calendars.
- usaphp 9y ago
  Happened to my android google tv from Sony, completely made it unusable , even YouTube app is not working. When Logitech did something similar everybody gone crazy about it. Google seems to be getting away with this kind of behavior every time
  - andymcsherry 9y ago
    I had this TV and just bought a new one for Christmas. To be fair, the TV was released in mid-2010, the YouTube app was supported for over 7 years. Many other apps on the TV still worked when I got rid of it a month ago. There's a lot of valid complaints about smart TV software not being updated, but I think this is a stretch.
    - thinkingemote 9y ago
      It wouldn't be much of a stretch to follow that line of reasoning and propose that people should never buy smart products ever again. They should instead rent them. maybe that's what Google wants also.
    - aembleton 9y ago
      7 years isn't that old for a TV. I'm happy that I've bought a dumb TV, and then have a chromecast which is a small and cheap device that I can easily upgrade.
      - andymcsherry 9y ago
        Looks like the average is about 5 years. It still fell back to being a dumb TV just fine, I had a chromecast and an Apple TV hooked up. http://www.tvnewscheck.com/playout/2014/07/npd-displaysearch-study-underscores-urgency-of-next-gen-tv-standards-work/ http://www.tvnewscheck.com/playout/2014/07/npd-displaysearch...
jrs95 9y ago
Don’t you get it? The fact that they’ve done all of this with it just makes it a very Google thing to do. Therefore, Google Pay.
skywhopper 9y ago
Google has caught MMD (Microsoft Marketing Disease), in which companies endlessly rebrand and rename products that are successful, but not market-leading, in an effort to become the market leader, but end up fragmenting their own brands further by alienating existing loyal users and confusing late-adopters and casual observers who don't follow the branding news. This marketing-driven disease spreads to other parts of the business, as engineers see a rebranding as a legitimate time to break backwards-compatibility, but they aren't given the lead-time or budget for a full rework, so the new product is similar enough to the old product that it's obviously just a rehash, but different enough so that nothing that worked with the old thing will easily work with the new thing. MMD keeps managers, marketers, product teams, and engineering leads busy, and makes executives believe progress is being made since all the metrics look good: there are tech blog articles, Twitter mentions, Hacker News threads, maybe a mainstream media hit or two; all the teams have finite task lists that are getting done; and there's an initial jump in brand awareness and new user engagement. The actual damage to the brand doesn't happen until long enough down the road that the brilliant minds who came up with the idea have collected their bonus checks, awards, and promotions, and moved onto better things. And now the executives start talking up the need for a new marketing strategy... lather, rinse, repeat.
- mikestew 9y ago
  Google has caught MMD (Microsoft Marketing Disease) Microsoft was exactly my first thought when I read this. "Are they pulling a SkyDrive here, and it's just rebranded Google Wallet?" And I use SkyDrive as an example because I lost count of how many times Microsoft renamed their online storage, to the point that I just gave up and used Dropbox. It must work, or companies wouldn't do it. But it just alienates me. Is this the new boss, same as the old boss? Or a new product with new things I should take a look at? Does it work better than when I tried to use Google Wallet when I had Android? Aww, fuck it, I'll just keep using Apple Pay.
  - laken 9y ago
    Not to try to invalidate your point (because Microsoft is definitely guilty of this practice), but SkyDrive was rebranded for legal reasons*, instead of marketing reasons. https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/28/uks-bskyb-wins-judgement-against-microsoft-over-use-of-skydrive-name-in-europe/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/28/uks-bskyb-wins-judgement-a...
draw_down 9y ago
It’s extremely confusing because sometimes they just take something and rebrand it, sometimes they combine multiple things under one brand, etc.
simooooo 9y ago
Google apparently create competing apps on purpose to see which team wins
rhizome 9y ago
Google is bad at product, period.

by untog 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Forgive me, but isn't this what Google Wallet was, at one point? Not exactly, as it includes things that were never part of Wallet. > Then at some point Google Wallet was split out into Android Pay. And now it's Google Pay? Android Pay was a renamed acquisition that was originally intended to be merged with Wallet but was kept apart (but Wallet’s NFC payment feature was retired as Android Pay was brought online, which made it look like Wallet was being split up.) But Google Pay seems to merge in a number of other siloed app-specific Google payment features as well.as Wallet and Android Pay (these clearly have been integrated behind the scenes for a while, since their “pay with Google” feature leveraged payment methods you had registered through any of them or Wallet or Android Pay), so this looks like the UI and branding catching up with backend integration.

chauzer 9y ago
What acquisition was Android Pay?
- mattmcknight 9y ago
  I think they just purchased some patents from Softcard in 2015.

trendia 9y ago

The most Google thing to do would now be to deprecate Android pay, no longer support merchants who don't upgrade their point of sale systems, and provide no contact line for support.

cmurf 9y ago
And thus ensure in another 2 years, another person will be promoted to the Google global payments VP, and another product manager will think he's god's gift to solving the payments problem, and will have another product and rebranding cycle. Mark your calendars.
usaphp 9y ago
Happened to my android google tv from Sony, completely made it unusable , even YouTube app is not working. When Logitech did something similar everybody gone crazy about it. Google seems to be getting away with this kind of behavior every time
- andymcsherry 9y ago
  I had this TV and just bought a new one for Christmas. To be fair, the TV was released in mid-2010, the YouTube app was supported for over 7 years. Many other apps on the TV still worked when I got rid of it a month ago. There's a lot of valid complaints about smart TV software not being updated, but I think this is a stretch.
  - thinkingemote 9y ago
    It wouldn't be much of a stretch to follow that line of reasoning and propose that people should never buy smart products ever again. They should instead rent them. maybe that's what Google wants also.
  - aembleton 9y ago
    7 years isn't that old for a TV. I'm happy that I've bought a dumb TV, and then have a chromecast which is a small and cheap device that I can easily upgrade.
    - andymcsherry 9y ago
      Looks like the average is about 5 years. It still fell back to being a dumb TV just fine, I had a chromecast and an Apple TV hooked up. http://www.tvnewscheck.com/playout/2014/07/npd-displaysearch-study-underscores-urgency-of-next-gen-tv-standards-work/ http://www.tvnewscheck.com/playout/2014/07/npd-displaysearch...

jrs95 9y ago

Don’t you get it? The fact that they’ve done all of this with it just makes it a very Google thing to do. Therefore, Google Pay.

skywhopper 9y ago

Google has caught MMD (Microsoft Marketing Disease), in which companies endlessly rebrand and rename products that are successful, but not market-leading, in an effort to become the market leader, but end up fragmenting their own brands further by alienating existing loyal users and confusing late-adopters and casual observers who don't follow the branding news. This marketing-driven disease spreads to other parts of the business, as engineers see a rebranding as a legitimate time to break backwards-compatibility, but they aren't given the lead-time or budget for a full rework, so the new product is similar enough to the old product that it's obviously just a rehash, but different enough so that nothing that worked with the old thing will easily work with the new thing. MMD keeps managers, marketers, product teams, and engineering leads busy, and makes executives believe progress is being made since all the metrics look good: there are tech blog articles, Twitter mentions, Hacker News threads, maybe a mainstream media hit or two; all the teams have finite task lists that are getting done; and there's an initial jump in brand awareness and new user engagement. The actual damage to the brand doesn't happen until long enough down the road that the brilliant minds who came up with the idea have collected their bonus checks, awards, and promotions, and moved onto better things. And now the executives start talking up the need for a new marketing strategy... lather, rinse, repeat.

mikestew 9y ago
Google has caught MMD (Microsoft Marketing Disease) Microsoft was exactly my first thought when I read this. "Are they pulling a SkyDrive here, and it's just rebranded Google Wallet?" And I use SkyDrive as an example because I lost count of how many times Microsoft renamed their online storage, to the point that I just gave up and used Dropbox. It must work, or companies wouldn't do it. But it just alienates me. Is this the new boss, same as the old boss? Or a new product with new things I should take a look at? Does it work better than when I tried to use Google Wallet when I had Android? Aww, fuck it, I'll just keep using Apple Pay.
- laken 9y ago
  Not to try to invalidate your point (because Microsoft is definitely guilty of this practice), but SkyDrive was rebranded for legal reasons*, instead of marketing reasons. https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/28/uks-bskyb-wins-judgement-against-microsoft-over-use-of-skydrive-name-in-europe/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/28/uks-bskyb-wins-judgement-a...

draw_down 9y ago

It’s extremely confusing because sometimes they just take something and rebrand it, sometimes they combine multiple things under one brand, etc.

simooooo 9y ago

Google apparently create competing apps on purpose to see which team wins

rhizome 9y ago

Google is bad at product, period.