Bad surprise when shopping: Amazon has massively restricted its Android app. Certain purchases are no longer possible, the online retailer refers to their own website instead. Behind the innovation is a dispute with Google: it’s about money.
Servers, software developers, electricity costs and more: running the Google Play Store costs a lot of money. Google gets this back in the form of commissions. The US group usually holds out its hand for every app sold and every in-app purchase. Amazon is now drawing the consequences from this.
Amazon restricts sales of digital goods in the Android app
The online retailer Effective immediately, its Android app no longer allows the purchase of digital goods such as e-books. If you want to buy a book in digital form, Amazon will instead refer you to its own website (source: BBC).
“Due to Google Play Store policy, you can no longer purchase new content through the app. Create a reading list in the app and buy content from Amazon through your browser,” the app says (see image above).
For every app sold and every in-app purchase Google normally charges 30 percent commission. However, the search engine operator has so far turned a blind eye to industry giants such as Amazon. After a rule change in April, that’s the end of it. In order not to have to give Google a part of the cake when it comes to e-books and other digital goods, Amazon has now simply stopped selling via the Android app.
Interestingly, this step only affects the Amazon app. Within the Kindle app, other e-books can still be purchased.
Amazon Prime offers a whole bundle of advantages:
Same policy on iOS
Amazon hasn’t allowed the purchase of digital goods on Apple’s iOS platform for years – for the same reasons. iPhone and iPad users have to go through the Amazon website. From an Amazon point of view, the step is certainly understandable, for customers it is Detour via the website an inconvenient annoyance.