Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

snaky wrote: post #213

lotsofpulp wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the proportion of Apple’s profit in the mobile phone and App Store market versus Google’s profit, I would say there is no golden goose period for Google. Or, the golden goose is shoveling ads and obtaining data from all their users, but I’m not bullish on the value of that long term, especially if your users trend on the lower side of disposable income.

This is extremely shortsighted. Globally, iOS is in decline, and Android is on the rise, and there's nothing that could change the tendency. The main driver for mobile growth is 3rd world, where Android is a king. > Apple continues to face challenges in terms of unit shipments—a trend that is unlikely to be fixed soon. Apple shipped 35.3 million iPhones in the second quarter, down 14.6 percent from 41.3 million units…

I don’t know what you mean by “decline” and “rise”, but for discussions regarding future business viability, I look at net income instead of units sold.

One company is in the business of selling devices and services, the other is in the business I’d giving them away to siphon data to support their ad business. Margins on advertisements are going down, and if people with disposable income aren’t on your platform, then the ads aren’t worth much either.

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

#222

Post by manigandham » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

jbarham wrote: post #100

manigandham wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

That's for reaching a basic customer support line that'll do little more than tell you where to put in your credit card info. If you need serious help, especially with account problems, you better know someone inside.

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

#223

Post by dwild » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

julianee wrote: post #171

dmitrybrant wrote: post #65

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…

I actually had the reverse experience to this. My app was 1.5 years old and had 4mil+ downloads with ~200k monthly active. After updating my app, they banned my app instead of the other clones and crapware. Citing "Repetitive and Duplicative Content". The clones were so bad to the point that they literally decompiled my app, loaded in their own assets and published it. Appealing did nothing and I got the exact same r…

> The clones were so bad to the point that they literally decompiled my app, loaded in their own assets and published it.

Why not send a DMCA to Google?

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

#224

Post by ufmace » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #128

ufmace wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. For whatever Amazon's other faults may be, they will do stuff like assign actual human salespeople to your account, who have the time to listen to you and the authority to do things. You can create problem tickets for their services, which go to skilled engineers somewhere that have the time and authority to run down and address any weirdness you encounter with their services. Plus they keep even their old servi…

Is this not the case for GCP? I recently switched to a company running on GCP and I don't have tons of exposure to our infra, but from what I've seen, GCP reps are VERY hands-on. Even in my non-infra role, I've been exposed to several different instances of them being hands on: in setting us up, in discussing our resource needs (we're a very heavy GPU compute customer), in tracking down issues (even when the problem…

I don't actually know - I haven't used it myself. I've read a few comments in various places suggesting that GCP support is as nonexistent as the support for other Google services. I think somebody said they were hosting their whole company's data and services on GCP, and their entire company's account was killed because supposedly some malicious activity was detected. No details of what the activity was or why it was thought to be malicious, just poof, all of your servers and data gone, and nobody you can talk to about it.

It's possible that was misleading or they've improved since then, I don't know. Your claim that they do have quality support for corporate accounts is an interesting point on the other side though.

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

#225

Post by HillaryBriss » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

cameronbrown wrote: post #98

justin66 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> they're somehow complicit if they don't

i've noticed over the last several years that thousands of Google employees at least seem to feel complicit for the corporation's choices (e.g. giving a big cash payout to someone who was suspected of sexual harassment, trying to start project dragonfly, working with the US DOD, etc). these employees protest, walk out, demand change.

IMHO, these employees should also be critical of the poor customer service the OP documents. this sort of behavior hurts the public too. and Google seems committed to continuing it.

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

#226

Post by sli » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

dmitrybrant wrote: post #65

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…

Just recently there was news about Google removing 85 apps like this from the Play Store. I have no idea why that was news, that should be just another day, because 85 adware/malware apps is basically nothing compared to the size of the Play Store and the sheer amount of actual junk you can find on there.

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

#227

Post by e12e » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #151

lstamour wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone SE is $238 in India, $299-449 in the US. Similar pricing exists for the iPhone 6 & 6s, and the iPhone 7 is quite good while still well under $1000 most places.

The average wage in India is a little above 5 dollars a day. That's about 160 dollars a month. Translated to American wage standards, the $238 dollar iPhone would cost about $6000 (1.5 the average monthly wage). A $238 dollar smartphone is inaccessible to most people in India. A "well under $1000 dollar" iPhone much less so. Dollar values don't really translate as well to other countries as much as we'd like. Transla…

You'd probably want to use median rather than average for such comparisons - I don't have those on hand right now, but it'd be interesting to compare/contrast.

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

#228

Post by egman_ekki » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 3:35 PM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #89

HenryBemis wrote: post #85

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.

Not to defend Google, but I have rented a movie once, saw it does only have subtitles in languages I don't understand and was able to speak to a customer support via live text chat and get the refund on the same evening. It's frustrating as hell, though, that I can't tell what subtitle languages are included with the rental...

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

#229

Post by RugnirViking » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

amputect wrote: post #156

mav3rick wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are enough cheap to mid range devices that do the job in Android. I dont think you understand the value of even 100$ in a developing country. Most people don't care about updates in this scenario. They want a phone that works. And far more people in the lower strata have access to cheaper Android phones than Apple.

I have a genuine question: what are some of the "cheap to mid range devices" you're thinking of here? Honest question, not trying to be a jerk, I genuinely want to know.

If you are looking for a brand-new phone in the solidly mid-range for around $250, you can look at pocophone or OnePlus for smaller but still well-known companies making excellent phones. These phones compete in pretty much every way with the more expensive offerings by google or samsung, and have no vendor bloatware.

OnePlus's latest models have become a bit pricier, going on $450, but you can still buy the oneplus 6 straight from them for a good price.

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

#230

Post by ggg3 » Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

ggg3 wrote: post #86

dmitrybrant wrote: post #65

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…

perverse incentives. if you have good SEO you do not have to pay google. Ironically. so by allowing the copy cats, they kill the value of your good SEO and force your hand to pay for premium placement, generating revenue that wouldn't exist to them without the malicious clones.

LOL. hi downvoting google employees.