If Google or Apple collect the payment, you're paying Google or Apple, they take a cut, then a portion goes to Tinder.
Guess which one results in Tinder raising their prices?
You could argue that the app stores aren't a charity and don't operate for free - that they need money to exist. I'd argue that the app store model itself doesn't need to exist and that it's a form of greedy rent-seeking and power thirst. Besides, neither Apple nor Google are hurting from their phone monopoly.
A true first class distribution model would allow you to install directly from the web without messing with settings. Perhaps even running as WASM seamlessly out of the box, never once switching contexts into a storefront.
If we'd done it this way from the beginning we'd have true cross-platform apps written in WASM with full native experiences. Microsoft still might have their phone, too. But things didn't evolve that way, sadly... Apple and Google wanted their control and walled gardens.
Of course, to reach true parity now we'd have to remove the app store to let web distribution catch up in the minds of consumers. But that will never happen unless we can lobby for antitrust breakups of these titans.
Edit: just reread grandparent, the tinder tax doesn't make sense and your example was valid. Apparently I haven't had enough coffee to read properly yet.
That the robber baron who owns the papers can say what he wants doesn't mean much to the man who is a black list for the rest of his life.
Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences indeed.
The biggest improvement on the smartphones in this regard is not the app stores themself, it's the very tight sandboxing of apps that is the real enabler of the ecosystem. With such a good sandbox we could be installing apps from anywhere on the web as we did on windows before but at the same time not risk our whole system in the process as we did before.
A step in the right direction for software as a whole.
The AOL/compuserve internet that we all thought we won against is here again. The walled garden is our reality.
This new trend could be the start of crumbling of the second wave of walled gardens. Open platforms allow for freedom (as in speech) and innovation that isn't so easily snuffed out by incumbents - a good thing for consumers.
Tinder and others averting the rent-seeking behavior of google signals that companies have realistic options in the fight against their sharecropping lords.
This movement could also help win the fight for opening up the iOS platform in the coming legal battles - the fact you can do this on android and not iOS might be significant.
The net is consolidating and so the wheel will turn again. Long live the decentralized, open net!