Just wondering what these “high-tech” companies actually do?

I’m really starting to wonder how the US economy continues to hold up, with these supposedly high-tech market leaders who still seem stuck in the 19th century when it comes to payment mechanisms.

Google first – they’re a tempting target

I looked at their AdSense program and started the sign-up process (I’m not actually that keen on the idea of third-party ads on Web sites – sometimes they’re totally and comically inappropriate, but I thought – well, let’s see, shall we?). I tell Google that I live in Japan, and the address field actually provides a pop-up list of prefectures (in kanji, in the middle of an English form, but we’ll let that ride for now). So Google actually realises that not everyone lives in a “state” and they don’t all have “zip codes”. Good – they do know there are other countries out there (so many US companies seem to think the US way of doing things like addresses and phone numbers is the world standard – it’s not!).

So… payment details. Where do I want my checks sent? Checks?? We’re in the 21st century. I haven’t written a cheque (check) for about 20 years. They don’t exist in Japan for personal accounts. When I go back to the UK, I pay by debit card or credit card. Can’t Google credit my credit card? I thought they had a Google payment system (never used it – always use PayPal for things). Can’t they force me to sign up for that? Or pay me in camels and I’ll send back the change in goats? Or something. If someone in Google is savvy enough to know that Japan has prefectures, isn’t someone else in there savvy enough to know that checks in Japan are as much use as a chocolate teapot?

Next, Amazon

First, if I publish through Amazon’s Kindle process, all my payments are made by check. OK, same thing applies. Give me Amazon credit, credit the credit card you have on file, send cash in an envelope, but for heaven’s sake, DON’T SEND ME CHECKS!

Next, the speed of Amazon’s reaction. I realize that Amazon is a large company. They deal in millions of books. They are overworked and they had to attend their parrot’s mother’s funeral. I don’t want to know. Why does it take so long to get a customer-uploaded image file onto a book page (Amazon UK)? And why does it take at least 2 weeks for a book to change status from “Not available yet” to “In stock” and get the description up there on the subsidiary sites? Wouldn’t you think that a book that suddenly hit the top 50 in a particular genre would be fast-tracked into some kind of promotion?

And the Look Inside? Why does it take so long to take a formatted PDF from the publisher and turn it into the Look Inside format?

OK, it’s hot, I’m sweaty and annoyed and waiting for the mailman to deliver my first edition. But I look at Smashwords, which is a small operation (I get the feeling it’s half a dozen people at most) – very busy, and extremely efficient – and pays by Paypal. Why can’t Google and Amazon look at these people as a model of how to deal with suppliers?