It's reasonably different, because Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex could outbid for that search placement (and Firefox could arguably offer up as an alternative to Chrome), so Google has to pay at least as much for browser/search placement as it's competitors will.
Meanwhile, if they offer to pay too much, OEMs can replace the app store and the other apps with cheaper alternatives, and just profit off the high incentives to load Chrome and Search, and Google loses it's grip on the Play Store's market.
The license fee adds a lot of incentive for OEMs to consider alternative app markets: Imagine if Samsung offered developers an app market with a 10% cut instead of Play's 30% cut. Would that move the needle on getting developers on board with a competing app market? Sure, Samsung wouldn't pull as much in on it, but they'd be avoiding the license fee to pay Google too. Secondary effect of this that will also spur on competition another way: If this happens, Google might consider dropping it's own rates to compete.
On both sides of this kinda split-bundle arrangement, Google will need to maintain a competitive offer or else competitors will swoop in, whereas before, OEMs didn't have any choice in the matter because it was all or nothing.
Bear in mind, Google has to pay Apple and Firefox billions to keep Google as the default search, but Android OEMs were being forced to keep search as the default for free. So yeah, the Play Store will have a license fee, but Google now has to pay up to hold onto search dominance.
Meanwhile, if they offer to pay too much, OEMs can replace the app store and the other apps with cheaper alternatives, and just profit off the high incentives to load Chrome and Search, and Google loses it's grip on the Play Store's market.
The license fee adds a lot of incentive for OEMs to consider alternative app markets: Imagine if Samsung offered developers an app market with a 10% cut instead of Play's 30% cut. Would that move the needle on getting developers on board with a competing app market? Sure, Samsung wouldn't pull as much in on it, but they'd be avoiding the license fee to pay Google too. Secondary effect of this that will also spur on competition another way: If this happens, Google might consider dropping it's own rates to compete.
On both sides of this kinda split-bundle arrangement, Google will need to maintain a competitive offer or else competitors will swoop in, whereas before, OEMs didn't have any choice in the matter because it was all or nothing.
Bear in mind, Google has to pay Apple and Firefox billions to keep Google as the default search, but Android OEMs were being forced to keep search as the default for free. So yeah, the Play Store will have a license fee, but Google now has to pay up to hold onto search dominance.