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While this seems bad from the title, it's actually pretty good. They are consolidating redundant systems into one system: Google Wallet.
But Google wallet can't be used if you sell physical things.
Or go meta: make an app which makes apps for ordering an item.
If you think Google shuts down APIs this quickly and casually now, wait until after the stock market bubble bursts.
http://www.slashgear.com/google-checkout-to-be-retired-novem...
http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/20/google-checkout-for-merch...
Which prompts the question - should you bother signing up for Google Wallet (if applicable, i.e. digital goods only). Since that may just end up suffering the same fate.
I can't imagine ever building something that relies on a Google service at this point. There is a lot of collateral damage when they do things like this, damage that hurts them when even when it comes to developers like me who've never written a single line of code that integrates with Google Checkout.
Yeah, but how many business was using Google Checkout as only method of payment? This decision will hurt only those businesses. Rest of businesses using Google Checkout will remove one of payments method. Not a big deal, and we may guess that this method was probably not so popular already.
I can't imagine ever building something that relies on a Google service at this point. There is a lot of collateral damage when they do things like this, damage that hurts them when even when it comes to developers like me who've never written a single line of code that integrates with Google Checkout.
Yeah, but how many business was using Google Checkout as only method of payment? This decision will hurt only those businesses. Rest of businesses using Google Checkout will remove one of payments method. Not a big deal, and we may guess that this method was probably not so popular already.
This is surprising to me, but I wonder if Google Maps could close down....
Is there any way that Google can even be thought of as not evil anymore?
I'm slowly shifting everything away from Google. I'm using an iPhone 3G as my main smartphone; switched to DuckDuckGo as my search engine, and have switched my email to private hosting for anything confidential and Outlook for public email.
There's really nothing they could do, good or bad, to get me back at this point. They've proven, time and time again, that they don't care about the customer, and frankly, I'm tired of it.
I can't imagine ever building something that relies on a Google service at this point. There is a lot of collateral damage when they do things like this, damage that hurts them when even when it comes to developers like me who've never written a single line of code that integrates with Google Checkout.
Yeah, but how many business was using Google Checkout as only method of payment? This decision will hurt only those businesses. Rest of businesses using Google Checkout will remove one of payments method. Not a big deal, and we may guess that this method was probably not so popular already.
That being said, any other services could be shut down via an aqui-hire, or other reasons. Maybe this is the prevailing problem of small time developers like myself, and there's no other way around it apart from getting your idea bootstrapped with these services, and hopefully by the time any of those services gets shut down (if ever), you'll have a migration / backup plan of some sort.
Checkout isn't mentioned on Gwern's predictions for google product closure: http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns I hope he updates the page now that we have this additional data point, I'd love to see how his predictions performed.
That's because his post is newer than the announcement that Checkout would close. It was probably in his "Dead products" list.
From my notes, I'm confused about how to treat it. The discussion in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5740447 among various HNers suggests that it's sorta like Checkout is becoming Google Wallet, but also sorta not, so I'm not sure whether to consider this one of the transition/renamed products or whether Checkout was killed and Wallet happens to have some similar functionality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, but how many business was using Google Checkout as only method of payment? This decision will hurt only those businesses. Rest of businesses using Google Checkout will remove one of payments method. Not a big deal, and we may guess that this method was probably not so popular already.
My startup for a time being was only using Google Checkout. Here lies the problem. Can't trust Google with building APIs when they reorganize. This is surprising to me, but I wonder if Google Maps could close down....
No. Google has bought what must be dozens of companies at this point just to support and improve Maps (Waze being the latest), it's reportedly profitable & popular, with the continued rise of mobile I'd expect it to become more important, and my little survival analysis (http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns) gives it 87% odds of surviving to May 2018 (which IMO is too low).