PayPal Wars cited in The Economist

This week's print edition of The Economist chronicles the ongoing clash between PayPal and Google's Checkout. I have to admit that I was truly humbled by the article's first paragraph:

IN HIS celebrated book, “The PayPal Wars”, Eric Jackson described how in its early years the internet firm had to battle crotchety regulators, identity thieves, volatile markets, scrappy rivals and even scheming Mafiosi. It has since gone on to become the undisputed master of online-payments processing. Now, however, to stay on top, it must leap from being merely big to ubiquitous. And it will have to do so while fending off new competitors—especially Google.

The piece goes on to document how much eBay Inc. now depends on PayPal as a primary growth driver (which I previously noted), and how Google is subsidizing Checkout with the hope of gaining traction on the market leader.