Google is a juggernaut which has never shied from twisting the arms of its ecosystem to attain its ends. In past, when Google wanted excessive user permissions for its YouTube app, it started forcing users to wait for 30 seconds without moving the phone in a then-latest update. Making its users who did not want to update their app jump through hoops exposes that the company will get what it wants, by hook or crook.
Now, Google allows for gambling on apps listed on its app marketplace, Play Store, to adults only in UK, Ireland, and France and that too subject to certain conditions. Indian businesses Paytm, Zomato, and Swiggy had been providing something similar to gambling in the later parts of their purchase workflow, based on the international cricket matches IPL (Indian Premier Leagure) going on.
The recent days have been witnessing a tug-of-war between Google and the Indian apps with the former either removing an app from the Play Store or sending notice to the companies. All the companies had claimed that Google is not being fair in its handling of the Play Store policies.
Also Read: Paytm vs Google; Digital war over online casinos & sports betting in India
Now, while the food delivery aggregators of the three apps have apparently calmed out after releasing their statements and taken out the portions of the app in question, the payments processor, Paytm, is not resting easy and has accelerated its updates to counter Google’s stance on the issue.
Paytm, which was taken down from the Play Store for a few hours, had later removed the controversial portion of the app, has now not only reinstated something similar to the earlier-removed allegedly gambling activity, but also went ahead and launched a mini-app store inside its app. For the participating app, this mini app store is isolated from Google and is especially targeted to Indian app developers. Some of the names that have already joined hands with Paytm for this are Domino’s Pizza, Rapido, Ola, Decathlon, Park+, 1MG, NetMeds NoBroker, and FreshMenu.
Paytm has not turned the project into advertising or a selling point for itself but is looking at the mini app store as the company’s contribution to ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.
The Paytm mini app store allows any debit or credit card, net-banking, UPI (Unified Payments Interface), in addition to Paytm Wallet, Paytm Payments Bank for payments. Of these, Paytm Wallet, Paytm Payments Bank and UPI are free of any transaction charge. The other payment options will be charged at two percent.
Implementation-wise, standard cross-platform technologies HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and JavaScript have been used to give an app-like experience with a custom-built website. For the user, there will be no need to download or install any other app (as the interface will be an optimized website and not a native app)
The business initiative by Paytm demonstrates effectiveness
of free market by allowing one company to check the dominance of one company by
allowing another to innovate.