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Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

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Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#91
Previous people/companies getting banned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788450

It seems to be that someone else does some shady activity and then some AI at Google over-generalizes and bans legitimate accounts. And the emails are the same 3 form emails that say nothing.

I wonder if you can get decent support by walking into one of the Google campuses, or if you would get in trouble with security...

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#92

Google is what, a 3/4 TRILLION dollar company, based on market cap! It's absolutely unfathomable that they have such a prolific reputation of non-customer service and inability to contact them. Any other company would suffer massive consequences with customer service that poor. What will it take for them to turn this around? Maybe they believe they are too big for this to matter?

Google thinks they're the smart bunch and the customers are there to serve them. It's just company attitude.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#93

I'm the developer of a relatively popular app (50M+ on the Play Store) and have had very disappointing experiences with the Play Store, but in a rather opposite way from the OP: Once an app reaches a certain level of popularity, you begin to see "knock-off" apps, which are apps with a curiously similar name and icon (and screenshots and description), but which in fact don't do anything except blast the user with full…

Given how amazingly good Google is at filtering or identifying content when it benefits them to do so (e.g. Content ID, and I have never seen anything pornographic break through YouTube's filters), I must believe that it would be extremely easy for them to implement the fix you desire. Edit: Hmmm, assuming the app that you are talking about is freakin' Wikipedia, I'm assuming that if the Wikimedia can't get anyone fr…

Nope, it's not the Wikipedia app, but a different side project. Although there's also no shortage of sketchy third-party "wiki reader" apps that are basically ad delivery systems.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#94
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS app store is a monopoly. Are you arguing otherwise? There's no way to run an alternative store there. If it's really so easy to ship an alternative store on Android and Play Store isn't an artificial monopoly why are there no successful alternative stores? Is it because Google's is really the best possible store and thus a healthy, functioning market produces no competition ? Are people really choosing to be…

Although it is possible to distribute Android apps through other channels, you should not forget that for some applications you are still bound to Google. Due to the changes in Android Oreo regarding background services, you need Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) for a Messenger or other communication app to get the device out of Doze mode and to deliver push notifications without delay. If Google closes your account, y…

Oreo allows you to add an app to a Doze whitelist even if it is distributed outside the Play Store. In fact, it is easier that way because the Play Store review policy restricts why an app can ask for that.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#95
post #55
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform. Now Android is a bit more open than Apple's App store since on can install third party apps outside Google Play, but I personally always got an answer from Apple, even if it took 3/4 weeks, every-time there was an issue with a deployed application. Google? Unless you know somebody there or you are a big shot it's impossible to contact them,…

> It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform. This is so often repeated but by this logic noone should write mobile apps.

> but by this logic noone should write mobile apps

But they shouldn't. 99% of apps out there could just be a PWA, specially in the Android ecosystem that favours them.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#96

My developer account has been getting mails about "apps that are not compliant with permission requirements". The problem is that these are 3 year old, UNPUBLISHED apps. Turns out, you cannot delete old apps . You can only unpublish them. Google will still keep the app up if even one phone has the app installed. I wrote back saying that this is a years-old app that I no longer even have the source code to. The reply…

Can you just publish an empty APK (after creating the project) up to all of them? Or is that not how this works?

That's like the old trick sending a check for $0.0 to finaly get a computer to close an account with a sub cent negative balance.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people wrote below but I didn't see the key words that came to my mind. You are not Google's customer. You are Google's product. The customers are the ad/tracking networks. Unless you pay Google for some services, you are their product. Products don't complain. They sit in the super market waiting for a customer we to pick them up. We have discussed plenty that "if _it_ is free then you are the product", I am af…

This is incorrect. I have rented a movie from Google. I am their customer in every sense of the word. I cannot get customer service for my rental. Whether something is free or not has almost nothing to do with the service you get unless your account is in the tens of millions of dollars.

It was probably worth more to them to know you watched it, than to rent it to you.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you to say what's ethical or not?

We have not yet delegated that task to machines. (You've asked an extraordinarily odd question. There's a context in which such a question might imply that the OP should look to God and religious texts for guidance rather than rely on their own reason, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're not suggesting that the bible/Koran/Baghavad Gita/whatever offers words on the matter of Google employees and t…

I'm more uncomfortable with the implication that Google employees need to apologise on behalf of their company and they're somehow complicit if they don't. Many people just want to do their 9-5 and leave.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#99
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to this. I also have several apps in the Google Play Store. Unfortunately, the knock-off apps are all around our apps, sometimes ranking higher in popular keywords. Some even post a screenshot of our apps! Heck, some apps are so bad that they ruin the reputation of the entire niche (for example, a document scanner app). If the first few apps that a user downloads does not scan documents, he's naturally assuming th…

It's almost like the lack of a competitive market for app marketplaces results in suboptimal outcomes for consumers. But that'd be crazy talk...

[deleted]

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#100
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a Google Ads buyer, Google is easy to contact. If you're a mere Google products user, good luck getting help via their crowdsourced message boards...

Even with Google ads, there are plenty of 7-figure spenders who have trouble reaching customer service.

Hmm, at least where I am in Australia the Google Ads 1800 number is listed three times before I even login: https://ads.google.com/intl/en_AU/home/
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