Sean Hollister

In another, she wrote that Google’s “value exchange models support the hypothesis that custom deals” like Project Hug would be enough to satisfy developers. It sounded like she was in favor of a “policy change without a public change to the business model.”

Kochikar keeps trying to suggest it’s more complicated than this, that Google looked at multiple factors beyond those “value exchange models,” but Epic lawyer John Hueston is reminding her to just answer the questions.

“That was the default.”

“And you didn’t take any steps to change deletion settings for your chat software, correct?”

“Yes.”

“We have seen a decline in payers but an offsetting increase in ARPPU due to the removal of one-day subscriptions and alternative payment methods.”

Watts was also asked if he thought it was a pro-consumer change that Google notified subscribers that uninstalling the app didn’t cancel their subscriptions. He said yes.

We’re moving on to Purnima Kochikar, VP of Google Play Partnerships and formerly Director of Apps and Games.

The judge wasn’t having it.

But we did learn that “there is a rate set much, much lower than the rates you’ve been hearing about at trial.”

It did forecast losses of $40 million to $50 million per year after the forced switch a few years later, though, so I suppose it was eating some.

The actual decline for Badoo on Android was 9.2 percent, it sounds like, but I missed some of the other important context there. One of the hits to Badoo was that Google Play didn’t support one-day subscriptions, Watts testified.

Google announced three months later, in November 2022, that Bumble would be joining the pilot program to allow alternative payment methods on Android. That has since happened, Google spokesperson Dan Jackson reminds me. We’re asking how much revenue Bumble shares with Google.

Watts says the apps used to pay 3–6 percent per user transaction with alternative payment methods — compared to 15–30 percent now. He says the web versions count for less than 10 percent of the company’s revenue and claims no alternative Android store is a viable alternative.

“Customers are used to finding apps within the Play Store, and that’s core to our business.” The Galaxy Store “doesn’t have the same scale,” he says.

“Paddle has a financial interest in Epic winning its lawsuit, doesn’t it? If Epic wins, you’d be able to compete to win tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, right?”

“That would be my hope,” says Owens.

Google went on to use Paddle to help advance its argument that app platforms deserve more money than simple payment processors, having Owens admit that it charges more than PayPal or Stripe because it offers more services.

And that Paddle, unlike Google, doesn’t offer parental controls, budgets, and the ability to save payment info from different developers.