Google is finally opening the Play Store to outside payments

What happened

According to The Verge’s source item, Google is finally opening the Play Store to outside payments, While the court still hasn’t signed off on the massive settlement resolving Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against Google for having a monopoly over Android’s app store with Google Play, the tech giant says it will start rolling out changes to the way it handles billing for developers worldwide. As announced in March, the flat 30 percent […] While the court still hasn’t signed off on the massive settlement resolving Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against Google for having a monopoly over Android’s app store with Google Play, the tech giant says it will start rolling out changes to the way it handles billing for developers worldwide. As announced in March , the flat 30 percent billing fee is being replaced by “lower, decoupled fees” that partially decouple the billing and the app store. How much of a cut Google will take from transactions now depends on whether it’s for a user whose first insta

Context

The development sits in VINI’s Technology file for readers following technology, science, product policy, markets, infrastructure, and the public consequences of innovation. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-06-24T17:36:44+00:00.

What to watch

Open questions include whether primary sources issue follow-up statements, whether local or market impacts become clearer, and whether additional reporting changes the timeline or adds material context.

Source

Primary source: Google is finally opening the Play Store to outside payments via The Verge. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.