Although Google has been a somewhat stingy about allowing customers to pay for digital content on the Play Store through their preferred merchant in the past, it has started relaxing these requirements a bit this year. A few months ago, it kicked off a pilot for user choice billing with select developers in select countries, and today, it has shared some positive updates on this endeavor.
For starters, Google's first partner Spotify has started rolling out its test implementation of user choice billing in some countries this week. It ensures that customers can pay for their subscription using Spotify's payment processors rather than being tied to Google Play. Spotify has also stated that it plans to roll out this implementation to more countries in the coming weeks. In the same vein, Bumble has decided to join hands with Google for this pilot as well.
Another big update right now is that the user choice billing pilot has been expanded to 35 countries, with the latest entrants being the United States, Brazil, and South Africa.
Google has highlighted that it is quite pleased with the progress and response on this initiative so far. The company plans to continue iterating over its solution as the program expands in order to make it streamlined, frictionless, and secure for the consumer. Overall, the effort is a step in the right direction, as it gives more autonomy to the end-user and the developer. Apple has caught some flak for being too restrictive in this area already.
