So, Google didn't originally plan on making money off of the Play Store

Don’t you hate it when you start an app and you’re inundated with prompts and pop-ups pushing you to pay for microtransactions? As you can imagine, all of the people making these microtransactions each year are filling Google’s pockets to the brim. That’s about par for the course today, but it seems that Google didn’t plan for it to be this way at the start. Google didn’t really plan on making money from the Play Store.

Right now, Epic Games is still working on suing Google for its alleged monopoly over the Android app landscape. the lawsuit has been going on since 2020, and we have no idea when to expect a conclusion.

In any case, big cases like these tend to leak long-buried secrets about a company. Just look at all of the information leaked during Google’s massive anti-trust case that’s going on.

Google didn’t plan on making money off of the Play Store at the start

Back in 2008, when Google first established the Android Market, Eric Chu, the former head of the Google ecosystem, wrote the FAQ for the marketplace. Nowadays, Google takes about 30% of the income from developers for itself. However, back in the day, the company took a substantially smaller portion. It had a 70/25/5 split. 70% of the income went to the developers and 25% went to the carriers. This means that Google only pocketed 5% of the profit for itself.

This was mostly just to cover the cost of upkeep. However, no one could have anticipated just how lucrative the mobile phone market was going to become. Back in 2008, a person spending thousands of dollars on an app was unheard of. Now, apps like Genshin Impact and Pokemon Go have raked in billions of dollars from microtransactions for their companies. The mobile app market brings in more money than the console and PC markets combined, and it’s only accelerating.

The trial is still raging on, and it could have some serious implications for the company. Only time will tell how this massive trial will turn out.