Bye-bye, Google Pay

Google is throwing in the towel on Google Pay. The company released the news in a press release and a blog post stating that the challenger to Apple Wallet will no longer be available beginning June 4, 2024. Google will continue to support its wallet product, however, which Google says is far more popular than Google Pay.

Google Pay began as Android Pay in 2015, four years after Apple Pay was introduced. It has gone through several iterations in the ensuing years but has remained an also-ran behind Appel Pay.

"Google Wallet continues to be the primary place for people to securely store payment cards used for tap and pay in stores, alongside other digital items like transit cards, drivers' licenses, state IDs and more," Google wrote. The company claims its wallet is used five times more often than Google Pay in the United States.

Google Wallet doesn't support sending or receiving money, nor does it provide cashback on purchases, as was the case with Google Pay. The wallet is a simple a tap-and-pay app that can be used to store credit and debit cards, loyalty cards, transit passes and other important documents, like government IDs.

Unhappy users

The cancellation was not well received by Google Pay users, with many complaining that the company has thrown too many apps to the scrap heap, sometimes only to bring them back under different names. According to the website The Windows Club, Google has discontinued at least 100 apps over the past several years. Among them: Google Answers, Google Plus, Google Hangouts and Google Translator.

"They just can't stop," one Redditor wrote.

"Don't worry, in two years they will come out with a new name and app, and then cancel Google Wallet again. So far it's been Google Wallet > Android Pay > Google Pay > Google Wallet. I wonder when hangouts will come back," joked another Redditor.

"This is basically the last straw for me," wrote yet another disgruntled user.

"Why on earth would they remove peer-to-peer payments," another user complained. "I can't understand removing basic features. It's very annoying."

Google said it is committed to the digital payments space. "We've invested in making payments as fast and seamless as possible," the company wrote. And looking ahead, we'll continue improving payment experiences like these."

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