Back in 2020, Google announced that it would require all apps in the Play Store to use its billing system but later delayed that to this month. Google will soon allow Android apps to use their own payment system as long as Play Store billing is an option alongside it, with Spotify notably the first “User Choice Billing” partner.
Regulatory pressure is mounting, and it’s clear it’s been working. This is a major concession by Google, and a very welcome one. We’ve still got a long, long way to go, but things are, at least, changing for the better. Slowly.
Thom Holwerda,
Yes, this is good news. Things still need to go further to fix the imbalances caused by strangleholds that all dominant companies have placed on competition for so long. Anti-competitive behaviors should not be tolerated from any of them!
Sorry but this is not enough. Select number of companies to make some special deal with Google. It already worked like that in the past. One example being Amazon. This is hence just some PR stunt and in reality nothing worth mentioning was achieved.