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

Post by Can_Not » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

techntoke wrote: post #5

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…

I would want any company that is abusing their power to face consequences. However, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out that some of these companies complaining about getting banned are legitimately doing something wrong and their only cards to play are hoping for a political reaction, rather than suing Google in court and being exposed for why they were actually banned.

Post by bb88 » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

Can_Not wrote: post #591

bb88 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

While you are technically right that it is not a monopoly, it is an oligopoly, a term which implies it is likely to have the same issues as a monopoly while still having an insufficient number of competitors. The problem compounds when Google and apple are both horizontal and vertical oligopolies. If I complain that adwords scammed me (in a court of law), they could retaliate by terminating my GCE instances and gmail…

Post by GFischer » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

cbanek wrote: post #74

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…

This also makes me feel even more strongly that the FTC should really clamp down on these very strict app stores. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/amicus_briefs/app... Both the App Store and Google Play stores I think are basically illegal monopolies. I should be able to install whatever app I want, without having to jailbreak my phone and deal with warranty nonsense from the manufacturer. Just like my comp…

Post by ukyrgf » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

Phillips126 wrote: post #422

aurbano wrote: post #304

I ran a website that I first coded when I was 14-15, then kept improving over the years. It was for amateur electronic music producers to upload their tracks and after a few years there were several thousand active users, generating ~$400/month in AdSense. One day a relatively famous DJ tweeted a link to a song on the website, and that day alone generated close to $300, so 19 year old me thought he was about to earn…

I also developed a website young (mid teens), which was essentially a "beautiful/unique website ranking" based on visitor submissions and upvote/downvote system. I had the essential pieces done and launched the website, super excited as my first real project. I decided to toss on Google AdSense to see if I could potentially monetize the website by putting a single picture advertisement on the right side of the websit…

Post by GFischer » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

povertyworld wrote: post #435

fouric wrote: post #271

I propose a new heuristic called "The HN PR Law" or something to that effect: no response from a company on a negative PR incident should be taken seriously after an article on said incident hits the front page of HN. Given Google's track record and the ranking of this post, they'll probably reinstate the app within a few hours, and I propose that we act as if they had not - only acting on issues after they have been…

I like Apple's approach. When some scammy dev ran to the press with a sob story, Apple would expose all the shady shit the dev was doing. Sorry, but 99% of these whiney stories are the developer's fault. Don't violate the terms of service, and don't be shady. It's not that hard.