Spotify is the first to launch non-Google Android billing in the US
Google is slowly loosening its grip over billing on Google Play. In March, the company announced a pilot “User Choice Billing” plan, which would give users the option to buy things on Google Play through a third-party payment processor. In some countries, the pilot launched in September, with Google taking developer sign-ups in the European Economic Area, Australia, India, Indonesia, and Japan. Today the feature is finally coming to the US, with Google announcing expansion to the US, Brazil, and South Africa.
As announced in March, Google’s first partner for this project is one of its biggest customers, Spotify, which has its own blog post announcing that the feature is rolling out this week. The Play Store has always required developers exclusively use Google Play Billing for app payments, but bigger companies like Spotify and Netflix ignored those rules for years, seemingly deciding they were too big to ban. For years, they were right, but Google announced it would really start enforcing its rules, even for the big companies, in 2022. When the March deadline arrived, though, it also came the announcement of User Choice Billing, with Spotify as the first partner, so it’s not clear that Google was ever able to actually get Spotify to follow the rules.
Spotify has a picture of what its officially sanctioned User Choice Billing will look like, though, with payment buttons for “Google Play” and “Spotify” right next to each other on the subscription checkout page. Tapping the “Spotify” button brings up options to type in a credit card directly or use PayPal. Spotify says it is “the first to pilot” User Choice Billing with this launch, and Google says that the dating app Bumble is the second app to be approved for alternative billing.
Google’s blog post ridiculously frames multiple payment options as some kind of world-first, grand experiment that has never been done before. Google says it wants to “understand complexities involved” in having a second payment option and it needs to “test and iterate on different implementations” of processing a credit card. Every other checkout screen on the Internet has had a PayPal button for like 20 years, so perhaps some of that experience could help Google navigate this murky, uncharted territory. Google says that Spotify’s “initial test implementation” of a PayPal button will “likely evolve over time as they continue to iterate and learn.”
The shifting goalposts for alternative app store billing means it’s not clear if anything’s actually being accomplished here. The original motivation for alternative payments was to dodge Google’s (and Apple’s) app store fees, which take anywhere from 15–30 percent of a developer’s revenue. While Google and Apple are legally compelled to open their payment processing in some countries, the mobile duopoly has ignored the spirit of those rulings and hasn’t really budged on the fees it charges. For third-party payment systems, both app store owners have only reduced their commissions by 3–4 percent, which is about the cost of processing a credit card. The original goal of “saving developers money” has not been accomplished, they only have the option of spending that 3 percent somewhere else.
With today’s launch in the US, Brazil, and South Africa, Google says User Choice Billing is now live in 35 countries. You’ll need to have an app that’s actually approved for the program, though, and Spotify says it’s launching the feature in “select markets.”
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1896688