141–150 of 179 posts
This is the first of Google's product cancellations that will affect me personally. My wife and I have been using Google Wallet cards for budgeting - we transfer our spending money to the cards each week to help track our spending. Honestly there's no reason Google Wallet was superior for this - I expect Simple will solve our problems better anyway. Should have seen this coming when they split it off of Android Pay.
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Tell me more: what's this service about?
It's a bank startup which doesn't have physical locations. They're partnered with Bancorp, so your account is backed by FDIC, and they have a large number of ATMs. You can read more here https://www.simple.com/
Basically, imagine the envelope budgeting system as an actual part of your account, combined with a daily savings option. Assuming that you enter your bills in correctly (and it's, erm.. dead simple), you know immediately how much cash you have is safe to spend.
Great CS as well. Actual humans who speak English and who can solve your problems.
Can't recommend them enough.
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Completely wrong when it comes to adopting new technologies unless you are a real youngster. My debit/credit card pairing hasn't been cancelled or changed in the 10 years I have had it unless I have specifically engineered that change. The reality is that you just shouldn't trust google for anything that appears long term, and consider them as a casual partner, not a long term relationship.
Relative to all the startups that compete with them, Google and Microsoft products are much safer to rely on. They will at least give you a migration path and a generous time allowance for that migration. Most of the startups who shut down their services do so with with no notice.
I am perfectly fine with people saying that Google, a multi-billion dollar corporation, cancels things less often than a company with a completely uncertain future and no profit.
I am also fine with saying that comparison is not fair to the startups or to business that try to deliver a faithful product to their customers.
Google Reader thought me long ago not to depend or invest much time on Google services. Nowadays the only product that would cause me a huge problem if they decide to cancel it is Gmail.
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+1 for Simple!
Tell me more: what's this service about?
I'll specify a certain amount like 500 or 1000 dollars to be set aside by any date. It will move over small amounts daily without you noticing. In reality, the money is all in the same account but mentally I do way better with this scheme. I've built an emergency, a car repair fund, saved for AC for my home, and more without seeing a huge loss in my daily balance. It helped me learn to budget and save and that's the value they provide.
If you already are an amazing budgeter, no need to sign up.
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I'll vouche for Simple. Their app and Goals feature are great, but the thing I love is the real time purchase notifications. It's kind of amazing to me that no bank (that I have used yet) have apps with this functionality. It's incredibly comforting to get a notification everytime I buy something. It also helped me identify falsified purchases the moment they happened, which enabled me to put a hold on my card and fi…
I get real time notification from my Amex card and my Capital One visa.
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It's a UI layer on top of an old-fashioned bank. It offers worse rates, perks, benefits and service than Ally, Schwab or Fidelity. Good if you want something pretty on the side, I suppose.
I disagree about the service being bad. I've had nothing but positive experiences with Simple's support team. Also, they offer a JSON feed of my transactions, which isn't something any of my other banks provide.
All these services that Google has or will eventually shut down were at one time at the "go/no go" stage. When Google was still a start-up that "go/no go" decision might be based off of resources or a particular group of programmers passion. Now a mature company, this decision is generally made based on calculations as to how a particular project will fit into the overall portfolio and impact the bottom line.
Some projects, no matter how much a passionate group of programmers might lobby, may never get off the ground because there isn't a sufficient argument in terms of the larger picture. But, and here I finally get to my point, some projects are surely proposed purely to protect the bottom line from competitors or to hedge against changes in the marketplace; i.e. Google+ was purely to protect against the trend of Facebook becoming a growing percentage of a user's on-line experience and walling off content to Google's search engine.
Another example, still unfolding, is that of their Nest acquisition. And this is where the real damage gets done. Google sees the growth of the IOT market, and so acquires Nest so as to get a foothold into that market.
Now both Google+ and Nest are dying horrible, slow, shot in the stomach movie deaths, and everyone is forced to watch. What could have been accomplished by the engineers working on these projects if their primary goal was to serve a remote master, the bottom line of Alphabet? Perhaps, if these two products where not born out of a proxy war to buttress the revenue of Google Search, perhaps we all could have seen great things born out of their endeavors.
Instead, having served their purpose, the fiscal responsibility due to the shareholders of Alphabet having been fulfilled, the Alphabet PR machine gently asks that we look away, and look to their next amazing product.
hmm, not even sure what that was. I know this sounds like sour grapes complaining so feel free to read it in Verruca Salt's voice if you want... This is why I am scared to try anything new from Google. I know why they do it, I know how they do things, I totally get it, but it does not make it better. I know they like trying new things. I know they're not afraid to get rid of things that aren't performing like they wa…
Now we have Google, that's almost as big but not as contentious, and they're canceling things left and right, and that's causing problems too. So now I'm not sure what my position is on the topic.