“Our proposal is to price the service fee for devs not using [Google Play Billing] at 5% less than those using GPB — essentially replacement value,” Google wrote in a proposal.

“Of course, as we noted, at a reduction of 5%, we don’t think this solves the problems of any devs who are complaining about price,” reads another line from the same document.

Why? “A key element of this optionality proposal is we don’t want to give any artificial reasons to incent devs to switch off Play Billing.”

Excepting any sweetheart deals, Google wound up launching User Choice Billing at a 4 percent reduction, not even 5 percent. And in an old deposition, Kochikar admitted that devs wound up paying the same effective service fee in the end — apparently because they still have to pay an alternative payment processor in addition to Google’s rate.