In August 2021, a bill passed in South Korea banning app store operators from requiring their own payment systems, arguing such a requirement was monopolistic and harmed both consumers and developers. Three months later, and before the law changes were set to come into effect, Google announced that apps which chose to use an alternative payment service would have to pay a new fee for using their app store. Its price? Four percent less than the old fee—almost exactly the cost of its old fee, less the fees charged by Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal. As such, any developer who chose to use another
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