Google is a juggernaut which has never shied from twistingthe arms of its ecosystem to attain its ends. In past, when Google wantedexcessive user permissions for its YouTube app, it started forcing users to waitfor 30 seconds without moving the phone in a then-latest update. Making its userswho did not want to update their app jump through hoops exposes that the companywill get what it wants, by hook or crook.
Now, Google allows for gambling on apps listed on its appmarketplace, Play Store, to adults only in UK, Ireland, and France and that toosubject to certain conditions. Indian businesses Paytm, Zomato, and Swiggy hadbeen providing something similar to gambling in the later parts of their purchaseworkflow, based on the international cricket matches IPL (Indian Premier Leagure) going on.
The recent days have been witnessing a tug-of-war betweenGoogle and the Indian apps with the former either removing an app from thePlay Store or sending notice to the companies. All the companies had claimedthat Google is not being fair in its handling of the Play Store policies.
Now, while the food delivery aggregators of the three apps haveapparently calmed out after releasing their statements and taken out theportions of the app in question, the payments processor, Paytm, is not restingeasy and has accelerated its updates to counter Google’s stance on the issue.
Paytm, which was taken down from the Play Store for a fewhours, had later removed the controversial portion of the app, has now notonly 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 appdevelopers. Some of the names that have already joined hands with Paytm forthis are Domino’s Pizza, Rapido, Ola, Decathlon, Park+, 1MG, NetMeds NoBroker, andFreshMenu.
Paytm has not turned the project into advertising or aselling point for itself but is looking at the mini app store as the company’scontribution 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 Bankand UPI are free of any transaction charge. The other payment options will becharged at two percent.
Implementation-wise, standard cross-platform technologies HTML(Hypertext Markup Language) and JavaScript have been used to give an app-likeexperience with a custom-built website. For the user, there will be no need todownload or install any other app (as the interface will be an optimized websiteand not a native app)
The business initiative by Paytm demonstrates effectivenessof free market by allowing one company to check the dominance of one company byallowing another to innovate.