What just happened? Google has announced plans to discontinue its Google Pay app in the United States in favor of Google Wallet. The former will no longer be available to download after June 4, 2024, nor will users be able to make transactions through it after that day.
According to Google, users will no longer be able to send, request or receive money from others through the US version of the Google Pay app after June 4. People wanting to view and transfer their Google Pay balance to their bank can do so until June 4, but if they still have any money left in their Google Pay account after that day, they will have to use the Google Pay website to transfer those funds.
With Google Pay being discontinued, users are being encouraged to migrate to Google Wallet, which will become the company's primary platform for managing digital payments and transactions in the US. In a blog post announcing the transition, Google mentioned that all the popular features of the soon-to-be-discontinued app, such as online checkouts and tap-to-pay, are already available in Google Wallet.
this belongs in the computer history museum pic.twitter.com/47crwHlX8A
– Alex Bowles (@alexqgb) February 24, 2024
Google did not offer a detailed reason for its decision to discontinue Google Pay but suggested that it is part of its plans to "simplify" its payments apps in the country. The company also mentioned that Google Wallet is used by five times as many people as Google Pay in the US. Alongside payments management, Google Wallet also allows users to securely store payment cards, as well as other digital items like transit cards, driver's licenses, state IDs and more.
Google's decision to sunset yet another of its products has elicited many different responses among social media users, ranging from anger to amusement. Some, like Sacha Sayan, mocked the company for abruptly discontinuing many of its products, while confusing users by rebranding other apps and services multiple times. As an example, he pointed out how Google replaced the original Google Wallet branding with Android Pay many years ago, only to replace it with Google Pay before ditching it in favor of Google Wallet yet again.
Do note that Google is only discontinuing Google Pay in the US and not in the rest of the world. The company says that the app will remain functional in other countries like India and Singapore, where millions of people use it to make and receive payments.
https://www.techspot.com/news/102022-google-pay-app-shutting-down-us-replaced-google.html
