Google announced decreasing its standard 30 percent cut down to 15 percent, which it receives from each digital purchase on the Play Store for all Android developers worldwide. The policy change, as per Google, is for the first $1 million of revenue a developer earns.
The cut in fee announcement came from Google following the change in policy by Apple last year when it said of bringing its charges down to 15 percent for the developers who make $1 Million and under one year. However, if a developer makes more than that, he/she would be subjected back to the old 30 percent rate. As per Google, “a need was felt that applying the reduced fees to all companies was a fair approach in line with Google’s goals to aid developers of all sizes.”
Since first appeared as ‘Android Market, Google has been charging a 30 percent cut on all purchases. Now, it is announced to put that percentage toward its ‘distribution partner and operating fees.’
Earlier, this happened once when google said of bringing its Play Store cut down to 15 percent for subscription goods after users had subscribed for an entire year.
As per Google’s findings, only 3 percent of the android developers charge for downloading their produced application or in-app purchases, and only one percent of those developers make more than $ 1 Million a year. This makes it that only a handful of developers will be charged the old 30 percent cut. Others would only pay 15 percent of their profits to Google.
The cut-reduction to 15 percent comes at a crucial time when Google and Apple store policies are under intense pressure. Both the digital stores faced a major setback with removing Epic Games Fortnite and are also facing a lawsuit from its developers on subsequent antitrust.
Google and Apple are advised to offer alternative software distribution methods and payment options to their users as soon as possible.
Epic Games, however, still criticizes that Google’s new measure isn’t sufficient, marking that it “does not address the root of the issue,” and saying that “Android needs to be entirely open to competition, with a real level playing field among contesting developers, app creators, and service providers. Competition in payment processing and app distribution is the only path to a fair app marketplace.”