Of course it's business, but it invalidates the premise that people chose "mostly" because of the quality. If that was the main driver, Google could just pay ze

Of course it's business, but it invalidates the premise that people chose "mostly" because of the quality. If that was the main driver, Google could just pay zero, 9 Billion for few hundred million users is quite an hefty sum. The other option is that Google does not pay to get the Apple users, which might come otherwise, but to prevent Apple to try something funny, either directly or indirectly. In any case, the "build a better product and people will come" mantra is flawed when companies in the space pay each other billions for distribution.