The Schrodingër’s Cat approach to Google’s 30% cut

Through both my work and personal digital habits, I have surely contributed to the whopping $50 billion Apple grossed from its App Store last year alone. This year, as Apple trotted towards an unprecedented $2 trillion market cap, US regulators intensified their scrutiny of Big Tech for antitrust violations. Apple, along with Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook, were declared monopolies by a US House judiciary subcommittee on anti-trust. This week, it filed a landmark lawsuit against Google for alleged anti-competitive practices. Even in the EU, French anti-trust authorities have fined Apple $1.2 billion for restrictions it placed on wholesalers.

So, when Google recently announced that it would soon start forcing every app on its Play Store to exclusively use its billing system, it caused quite a stir. It means Google will take a 30% cut on almost every transaction done through Android apps. While Apple has been doing this for years, this particular revised policy announcement caused an expected amount of noise in India on the eve of the Indian Premier League 2020, when Paytm’s Android app was taken down from Google Play Store for policy violations.