This is the 2nd time that we've personally been affected by Google change in its pricing structure. Just not good. Google does note in that blog about new features, but we don't know what those features will be. Hopefully, it'll be recurring payments. But why change the pricing structure before releasing the features? That would just turn away anyone considering Google Checkout for its lower costs, since as Michael mentions, doesn't offer any advantage over PayPal.
Google's Postini (mail filtering service) used to be $3/year/user. Now its $12/year/user. 400% increase in pricing. I seem to recall Google Apps hosting service has also undergone some kind of pricing restructuring. We haven't used that service, so we don't know for sure.
In all of the cases, Google never mentioned about the pricing changes before hand. I am sure their reasoning is that the rate increase is to cover the extra costs of its service. But, isn't this vendor lock-in? Simple case of, sell super low, so people start using it, and jack up the price later. It takes money and effort to integrate Google services into our own infrastructure. So, when we hear that Google is increasing its pricing, we have no choice but to comply.
What if they charge 4 or 5 percent for the checkout transactions? Just something to think about when using these Cloud services, especially a giant like Google.
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