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Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

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Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#511

Post by ubermonkey »

edoo wrote: post #499
ubermonkey wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an "if", while Android is literally sponsored by a company that makes money on consumer surveillance, and apparently has a vibrant malware culture, so who's cherry picking again?

I'm not defending Android. I'm just pointing out the platform you consider more stable and secure is likely only so if you are concerned with certain threat vectors more than others.

The threat vector you ascribe to Apple here exists for Google and Android as well, though, so it's not really an advantage of Android's model over Apple's.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#512

Post by bb88 »

dollar wrote: post #3

The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers and still get away with it. My company has a half dozen stories like this about Google in the last year alone. Know what Google is doing to its AdSense partners on a massive scale? They wait until your site has just under the earnings when they have to write you a check, then they terminate your AdSense account for “polic…

> The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers...

Incorrect. The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to identify the number of competitors in that space. Google has at least one meaningful competitor to Android -- Apple -- so it can't be a monopoly.

Anticompetitive behavior would be illegal, except this isn't anticompetitive, since there is a meaningful competitor, Apple, and Google isn't locking this developer into Google's platform -- in fact it's the opposite. This is just merely bad behavior -- also one that could be corrected by the markets.

It's worth noting there was a time where Microsoft was the big bad monopolist, and everyone was clamoring for the government to break them up. In the end, it was deep competition from Apple and Google that knocked them off their throne, not some big FTC antitrust lawsuit.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#513

Post by juliusmusseau »

olyjohn wrote: post #467
JohnBooty wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows wasn't like that. Yeah, and it was an absolute disaster. Until very recently (Win7, roughly, or perhaps Vista) near every Windows install -- unless it had been locked down by an administrator, or maintained by a power user -- was an absolute cesspool of malware and outright spyware. The average Windows machine was literally unsafe to use. That's fine for you to want it, but don't impose it on me. Essentially…

Windows wasn't unsafe to use, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express were unsafe to use. It had nothing to do with a lack of app stores, and more to do with the fact that ActiveX controls were allowed to run rampant on a machine, and that they could install themselves with a single dialog box that nobody ever paid attention to, and sometimes even bypass that. I mean, even with an App Store, IE would have been pushed h…

I remember plugging my windows box directly into my internet cable modem around 1999. My printer started printing dick pics (that I had not asked it to print) -- I had not even clicked on Internet Explorer.

I wasn't a computer person back then. But I quickly learned about SMB file and printer sharing being wide open.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#514

Post by zaroth »

cube00 wrote: post #405
dragonwriter wrote: post #321

Low friction and no support ejection from app markets seems to be a necessary cost of the low-cost, low-friction entry that they allow, and the fact that action against app developers to recover costs due to abuses isn't easy. If we had more upfront costs (both directly to market operators and in surety bond) it would be practical to have a lot friendlier process in the event of apparent violation. But then, we'd hav…

I'd be more then happy to pay a fee if it means an actual human, who actually had access to all the case information, would actually review the appeal and provide a detailed personalized account of my crimes. As a bonus, if my appeal is found to be genuine and my account reinstated I'd like that fee refunded.

That’s an interesting approach - not only do you not want to pay if you get the best possible result, you want to financially incentivize them to find something wrong!

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#515

Post by JaRail »

soulofmischief wrote: post #338
GhettoMaestro wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ideal state of Internet / Tech companies is definitely in the minority contrasted to overall expectations the broader population has put on these devices and services. Yeah, we get it, you're smart. I'm smart. Most people here are smart. But protections still matter. What you're saying is I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car. Sure that is your choice - but I think it is a very foolish one.

Don't strawman this argument into a conversation about intelligence. This is about personal freedom. Not wearing a seatbelt can put others at risk for injury liability. Installing an app will not do that. Let's stay on topic. And while we're at it, you and I both know that majority opinion has never been strongly correlated with truth.

> Not wearing a seatbelt can put others at risk for injury liability.

Wow, I'm surprised that has never occurred to me before. I guess that to most people, such as myself, the trade-off is so obvious from a personal safety point of view that we don't think too deeply over it. This is a great point.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#516

Post by inimino »

mindslight wrote: post #460
inimino wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put! Bad intentions are not necessary to build an authoritarian system. All it takes is enough good-intentioned people being unaware of the system they are building and their role in it.

Being aware of the system itself doesn't even capture it. People need to be aware of the system's effects, from the marginalized perspective .

Right. It's not enough to be aware that there is a system if you remain unaware of its shape, who it excludes, etc.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#517

Post by MrGilbert »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #390
cameronbrown wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason the App Store can't hang around, we just want the ability to sideload. Comparing it to not wearing a seatbelt is a straw man, as it's more like being able to use your car however you like without the manufacturer's say so.

I agree with your desire to side-load. My only caveat I would apply to that is to put some super really scary warnings to the user (as they will be no longer within the security of the walled ecosystem). I don't want users to accidentally side-load something because someone told them to, and not be aware of the extra risk the are potentially introducing.

You mean like the message people get shown when the UAC comes up in Windows, which almost everbody clicks away?

Average people don't care. If you tell 'em to do so or so, they will do.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#518

Post by the_watcher »

echelon wrote: post #242
laingc wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, as an iOS user, I do not want the App Store opened up at all. Currently, I can go to the App Store, install any app, and be about 99.9% confident that the app will do me (or my technologically illiterate mother) absolutely no harm. This is something I value highly, and am happy to pay the “Apple premium” for.

I don't want to live in your locked-down Disney with the death sentence world. That's fine for you to want it, but don't impose it on me. I want freedom and liberty to do what I want with the devices I own. I want to develop without fear that these two megacorps can shut me down on a whim for developing something against their ideology. The web isn't like that. Windows wasn't like that. Today we live in a Fischer-Pri…

I'm of two minds here:

* It's only imposed on you if you want an iPhone * That said, I'm generally sympathetic to caveat emptor, as well as the idea that the provider of the OS should be spending gobs of resources on proactive protection against apps they don't even know are malicious yet. I also don't see why there can't just be a secondary app store where apps don't get the same level of scrutiny and that fact is made very, very explicit. Call it Caveat Appstore

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#519

Post by JaRail »

notyourwork wrote: post #427
echelon wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to live in your locked-down Disney with the death sentence world. That's fine for you to want it, but don't impose it on me. I want freedom and liberty to do what I want with the devices I own. I want to develop without fear that these two megacorps can shut me down on a whim for developing something against their ideology. The web isn't like that. Windows wasn't like that. Today we live in a Fischer-Pri…

The whole premise of mobile apps is flawed. It’s sad to me that we shifted away in favor of mobile installation and fragmented platforms.

Well you've basically got two other options

* webapps -- we tried this (iPhone v1) and they were awful. The web keeps improving but apps have consistently been years ahead.

* native software -- still too difficult to secure reliably.

We haven't really been suffering from fragmentation. We've essentially consolidated down to two platforms. You can also develop for the web or use a cross-platform framework.

Not really sure what you see as flawed. The app model has been wildly successful.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#520

Post by hombre_fatal »

basscomm wrote: post #482
CodeMage wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there really no other way to monetize except through ads? Sure, there needs to be more regulation in this space, I agree with that. But the idea that ads are the best monetization has never sat well with me. I understand that it's convenient because you get money without asking your end users for it. But I've always thought of it as "if it seems too good to be true, then it probably isn't" and stories like yours j…

Sure there is, but most people don't bother for a few reasons: -Slapping some ad network's code into your site is comparatively easy, and monetizing almost every other way is hard (i.e. "I just want to create awesome content and get paid for it, I don't want to be my own sales department, too, that's boring") -Even if you do monetize other ways, slapping some ad network's code into your site is, effectively, 'free mo…

You're forgetting a major one: there's a whole gulf of things that people just aren't willing to actually take their wallet out for. People even scoff paying $8/mo to Netflix while spending hours watching it daily. Good luck taking payments for your little project.

For all sorts of reasons, too: we have been conditioned to think ads = free, none of your competitors ask for money (they use ads, so they're "free"), the modern payment flow is still cumbersome and doesn't support microtransactions, there are all sorts of things like HN that I simply wouldn't use if it wasn't free, your users can't afford it, etc.

One of the worst aspects of ads is how they've mutated our society's relationship with paying for things that we value, but ads definitely fill the void outlined above. Your creation's value to society doesn't have to breach the high threshold of getting a user to take their wallet out.

But just think of all the things you have done on the internet today, all the things you enjoyed doing or thought were worth even a tiny amount of attention, yet how unwilling you'd be to actually send money their way in the current system.

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