Google Is Pulling the Plug On Paid Chrome Extensions Over the Next Year (9to5google.com) 18
Google has announced that paid Chrome extensions will no longer be available and will be phased out over the next year. 9to5Google reports: Following a temporary suspension on paid extensions this year due to fraudulent transactions, Google will pull the plug on paid extensions entirely over the next several months. Developers haven't been able to submit new paid extensions since March, but this week's announcement confirms that paid extensions won't be coming back at all. Further, the free trial option offered by the Chrome Web Store will go away on December 1. On February 21, 2020, all paid Chrome extensions will lose access to payments through the Web Store. Sometime later in the year, too, Google will pull the plug on its licensing API that enables developers to verify that a user has actually paid for the extension.
For developers who still want to monetize their extensions, Google says they'll need to migrate to both another payment processor and a new licensing API: "The Chrome Web Store payments system is now deprecated and will be shut down over the coming months. There are many other ways to monetize your extensions, and if you currently use Chrome Web Store payments, you'll need to migrate to one of them."
For developers who still want to monetize their extensions, Google says they'll need to migrate to both another payment processor and a new licensing API: "The Chrome Web Store payments system is now deprecated and will be shut down over the coming months. There are many other ways to monetize your extensions, and if you currently use Chrome Web Store payments, you'll need to migrate to one of them."
Opposite of Apple (Score:4, Funny)
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Google wants nothing to do with paid extensions... Apple wants a cut.
The revenue from paid extensions is negligable, so not worth the hassle.
Re:Opposite of Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Browser Extensions is a poor business to be in. As your biggest business partner (the browser maker) is only one update away from making your extension worthless. The more popular your extension is. The higher the chance that it will be a new feature in the next browser version.
This is the same as with the System Utility Market. Norton Commander, DoubleDisk, Desqview, Quemm all for DOS quickly became mostly redundant in the next version of the OS's. While there is credence in say that Norton Commander is superior to DOShell in nearly all aspects. However many people got Norton Commander just so they can navigate folders easier. Desqview was popular with BBS operators who wanted to run multi-node BBS on one PC. or in my case a single node BBS and still wanted to use the computer. Was far superior at multi-tasking than Windows 3.1 where you had to bend over backwards to get a window to run in the background. (As well back in the olden days, your mouse movement could interfere with your modem setup, as they will often share the same IRQ. Sometimes when the modem was stuck, I would move the mouse, that forces an interrupt for it to force a retry.) so the Keyboard control of Deskview was a big selling point. But Windows 95 and NT quickly made that obsolete too.
There were a lot of talented programs that were built that after a quick spark of popularity had gotten eaten up by the OS makers. The browser today is much like a virtual OS for your computer. Extensions can be quickly deemed obsolete with a single patch from the big browser company.
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Apple wants a cut for all profit generated on their devices.
Somebody else's problem (Score:4, Insightful)
So they are stopping them due to fraudulent transactions, but not actually prohibiting paid extensions entirely - they are still fine as long as the payment processor and licensing are someone other than Google?
This seems to be blatantly shifting the problem to someone else to deal with. Nice evil there Google!
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I wouldn't say Evil. Sometime the best you can do is make sure criminal activity isn't happening on your back yard. They just painted the browser extensions Pink and put a SEP field around it.
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Spoken like a true Apple cuck. Choice is bad! Make my decisions for me!
Market for browser extentions still exists (Score:3)
The juice isn't worth the squeeze (Score:2)
Re:The juice isn't worth the squeeze (Score:4, Insightful)
Google would really rather that browser extensions don't exist, because the most popular ones are privacy protectors, and companies like Google are privacy invaders. But they have to support them because otherwise people won't use their browser. They have to distribute them because otherwise people will be going to some other site to get them. Most extensions aren't paid, so this won't drive a lot of traffic anywhere else, but it will save Google some headaches.
Let's add it to the list ... (Score:1)
Next up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice work quoting the article (Score:1)
On February 21, 2020, all paid Chrome extensions will lose access to payments through the Web Store.
How hard is it to simply copy-and-paste from TFA?
Google wants the entire market (Score:3)
Google knows that Chrome can't own the market if you have to pay for it, or even part of it. It needs to stay free to be pervasive.