Google, the multinational technology company recently announced that all apps that sell digital goods within Play Store have to use its billing system. This change will allow the tech giant to collect a percentage of in-app purchases as a fee. Google said that while platforms are allowed to use their own payment systems through websites, or other stores, they will have to pay a 30 percent fee if they choose to use Google Play. After noticing this statement, several founders and developers termed the decision unfair, saying that it can hurt businesses in India. Consequently a number of app makers, developers and startup founders in India are calling for setting up an all-Indian app store to reduce the dependency on global tech giants.

“India needs a local app store long term else 30 percent tax will eat up most businesses, is anyone trying to build one?" Harshil Mathur, Chief Executive Officer of payments platform Razorpay, said on Twitter. Harshil’s tweet was met by Akash Dongre, Co-Founder of Indian app store, IndusOS, who plugged his platform in response to the tweet.

Though Google stated that the organization was only providing clarity on its billing policy as there was some confusion, the clarification comes as the firm faces accusations of having anti-competitive policies worldwide. Most recently by Fortnite-maker Epic Games, which has sued the firm after being banned from the Play Store. Closer home, Paytm last week slammed the tech giant’s policies after its app, too, was delisted from the app store. “We want to be sure our policies are clear and up to date so they can be applied consistently and fairly

App makers, developers and startup founders in India are calling for setting up an all-Indian app store to reduce the dependency on global tech giants

to all developers,” stated Sameer Samat, Vice-President for Product Management at Google, in a blog post.

Meanwhile, industry lobby group Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has sought a meeting with startup founders to resolve their concerns. Vishwas Patel, Founder of CCAvenues and Chairman, Payments Council of India, said Google cannot ‘force’ Indian developers to use the Google Billion and payment system compulsorily and then charge 30 percent commission. According to Sudhir Naidu, who runs Indian video-collaboration platform Troop Messenger, everyone wants an alternative but there are no solutions in sight. “Even Microsoft is not considered a competition today. Something completely new has to happen, but as of today, there’s no solution and even if you look for one, there is nothing," he stated. Sudhir also suggested that unless the government chooses to intervene, there may be no other solution. According to tech policy analyst Prasanto K. Roy, the government’s Mobile Seva Appstore has over a thousand apps and 85 million downloads, yet it is unknown among Indian users.

“I’m in the software-as-a-service (SAAS) market, but I could not find anyone who would come out and say that they will make a SAAS marketplace, which is a minute subset of what a Play Store is," asserted Sudhir.

On the other hand, having India’s own app store may not be a solution anyway. Many look at it as a stop-gap of sorts. Prasanto said alternative app stores like Amazon Appstore and Samsung’s Galaxy Store will ‘simply not have the same traction’ as Google Play. He said it’s not just their smaller numbers that will keep them from replacing the native stores, users are also driven towards Google Play by habit.