The use of a blockchain here is going to slow them down... The business model is really interesting but if it ends up working, Google will see it, build a Google Token that doesn't rely on the blockchain, undercut them severely on costs and transfer times, and call it a day.
I don't see Google jumping into this market. Also, it's a lot easier to pay someone in cryptocurrency than in Google token -cryptocurrency is accepted as valid payment in a much more diverse set of places.
The blockchain doesn't need to slow them down if they scale correctly. You'd do most of this stuff through payment channels or a lightning network. And, the lightning network can be made to be cross-chain. You wouldn't even need to pay everyone in bitcoin or ethereum, you could pay them in whatever currency they prefer.
Google wouldn't even need to create a "token", just let you store USD in your Google Wallet and let you cash it out when you want (venmo style). The user already has a way to pay online: their credit card. So: no new merchant integration to build, $0 fees, no security deposit (vs lightning network), no verification documents to submit (crypto exchanges), no network backlog (due to full blocks or ICOs happening).
Lets not forget how many different chat/IM/text applications that Google currently maintains; I'm sure if they had so much as a whim of desire to compete in this market, the MVP is already cooking somewhere on a Googler's hobby lab.
