Google is the master of leeching and rent-seeking. Just as they pit advertisers against each other to drive up prices for impressions on third party sites, for

Google is the master of leeching and rent-seeking. Just as they pit advertisers against each other to drive up prices for impressions on third party sites, for which they keep a large middelman fee, they use the same tactics on Google Play. Developers get to bid on the #1 search result spot, while Google is milking them for 30% of gross revenue for providing a rather abysmal ZIP file download service. They are only able to charge such high fees because of the exclusivity and network effects from being pre-installed on every GMS Android phone. Other examples of similar rent-seeking platforms are Apple App Store, Windows Store, Steam.