I'm all for Google fixing things and making their service(s) better.. but....

I have no idea if Wallet is better than Checkout, since I haven't used Wallet. For all I know Google made the same mistakes with that service as well.

But the biggest reason I don't plan to go along with Wallet: the complete neglect of Checkout. Checkout launched in 2006. I signed up around 2008. Want to know how many improvements Google has made to the service (excluding minor policy changes)? The answer is 0. The service never changed as far as I could tell. Google never fixed a single issue with their interface. They never fixed the major policy issues.

Shortly after Wallet launched in 2011, Google renamed part of the service: When consumers buy an item using Checkout, they are using Google Wallet. So these services are not completely unrelated. I would not be surprised if Google kept many of their policies and other problems...

It does sound like Google has given Wallet a lot more attention than they did Checkout. But I also remember the hype they gave Checkout when it launched.. and this in many ways feels similar.

Checkout could have been quite good. It could have competed with PayPal (like they wanted it to).. It was probably 90% of the way there... but instead of improving the service, they did nothing with it for 5 years.. then they developed a replacement.. and now they're telling everyone on Checkout that it's dead, and they should move to a new, but very similar service.

> As you say, Google's implementation was flawed from start. Doesn't it make sense then to fix it and make things right?

From their perspective, that's what Wallet is.

The thing is, you seem to see Google Checkout as centrally being "credit card processing" and the implementation problem being how Google handled credit card processing.

Google, more than likely, say Google Checkout's value proposition as "enabling users to pay for goods and services using their Google Account" and the implementation problem being "it required us to be a credit card processor".

1) There was nothing wrong with google credit card processing. 2) the value prop you just wrote was not the value prop google had for checkout. They were clear checkout was to compete with paypal.

wallet fits your value prop.. that came 5 years later