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Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

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Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#131

Post by amelius »

lionkor wrote: post #101
bambax wrote: post #97

There are no solutions for suspensions from app stores. The solution is to not use app stores -- build better webapps, use the open web. We could be living in a world where no open web ever existed, where everything would be filtered through app stores and closed environments like Facebook (AOL). We need to preserve the open web, it is our most precious ressource.

I dont agree, personally. I believe that putting everything online is not sustainable. It might be very difficult to believe for people who earn so much that they can afford 24/7 stable and fast internet anywhere they go, but there are places where even good old broadband dsl is unstable, in the west. The reasoning of "appstore bad -> lets not use any appstores" is flawed. There are "appstores" like the ones on FOSS…

The first thing we need to do is stop confusing content filters with app stores.

You can have a choice in both.

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#132

Post by modo_mario »

weregiraffe wrote: post #130
bambax wrote: post #97

There are no solutions for suspensions from app stores. The solution is to not use app stores -- build better webapps, use the open web. We could be living in a world where no open web ever existed, where everything would be filtered through app stores and closed environments like Facebook (AOL). We need to preserve the open web, it is our most precious ressource.

>There are no solutions for suspensions from app stores. You can download apk files and install them. Windows users used (and still do, I suppose) to just download and install programs for decades. It's not ideal, but it works.

That's a solution as a user that wants to use simple apps, not as as an app based company. The result there is the same for a lot of em. It cuts their userbase massively and if part of your appeal is your userbase (social media, dating, multiplayer, etc) or depends on it (spotify and the like can only pay out so little and keep their costs low because they capture a sizeable marketshare) you need to be on there.

As for windows it's rather surprising that Microsoft hasn't tried harder to get more of a walled garden going given they were never shy of anticompetitive behaviour and mostly stems from expectations grandfathered in.

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#133

Post by varispeed »

dartharva wrote: post #105

Having the centralized app store as the only way to install apps by default was always a mistake, a blot on the elegant "hackability" of Android as a platform. I wish Google's hegemony wasn't so prevalent and common people were at least aware that they can sideload apps on their Android phones.

It is probably possible to sideload only because it's not popular. If people were abandoning the Play Store en masse, I think Google would remove that in no time.

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#134

Post by euph0ria »

The company I work for has forbidden the use of Google and their services such as GCP etc. due to how they treat their Play Store developers and other customer, in particular that there never seems to be any human being that you can talk to and find out what you need to do to fix the situation. We do not want the same to occur to our servers or if there is an overflow from Play Store ban to GCP etc. The business risk is too high when you rely on Google's services.

Some examples:

Ban app even when competitors are similar - https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vdpj/google-play-store-ban...

Ban due to wrong wording - https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371383715381805061

Terraria banned - https://twitter.com/Demilogic/status/1358661840402845696

New project banned - https://medium.com/@amton15127/why-you-should-not-use-fireba...

Google bans company - https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_gettin...

Google bans mail - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm

Ban app for communicating changes during covid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447

Adwords ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224791

Serverpunch bad support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609

Delete app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20826618

Google bans game with pandemic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073

Google bans dev with no recourse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197357

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#135

Post by varispeed »

stevenicr wrote: post #42

I sometimes ponder... they won't allow my sex chat app in the store - yet I find many apps are rated mature over 17 or something.. and a few of the top 20 search results for 'sex chat' I believe have an app in the store.. then you see this poly site kicked.. and I wonder if tinder and grindr are handing over a large enough chunk of change where the sex rules do not apply. I mean a sex chat app is mostly about chattin…

It's all about money and connections. I remember one of the clients app got banned from a known payment processor and then few months later a similar app was processing payments with that company just fine but it turns out it was created by someone knowing that payment company owners.

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#136

Post by modo_mario »

caslon wrote: post #83
echelon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Duopolies are legal. This shit we have to put up with shouldn't be legal! I dream for the day that the DOJ forces Apple and Google to make an interoperable native platform. Or when it forces both to spin off their app marketplaces. Or requires them to allow easy installs from the web. > People who want native apps from a source other than Apple or Google can pretty easily get them That's not at all correct. You can…

> This shit we have to put up with shouldn't be legal! I dream for the day that the DOJ forces Apple and Google to make an interoperable native platform. Or when it forces both to spin off their app marketplaces. Or requires them to allow easy installs from the web. You're begging for a way to enforce capitalism while taking away Apple and Google's right to practice capitalism. You're not promoting this altruisticall…

>You're begging for a way to enforce capitalism while taking away Apple and Google's right to practice capitalism.

Capitalism and it's benefits isn't necessarily self-sustaining and enforcing in the same way that total democracy can still have a party participating democratically to end it.

If you allow every anticompetitive market practice depending on the sector you quickly loose the benefit of open competition that one might expect from capitalism.

> What you're advocating for helps no one aside from you (and people in your profession) and hurts consumers.

If people in his profession include the countless companies developing stuff for these platforms then obviously yeah and that's not a bad thing. If Google and apple can kill competition if they enter a market on their platform then that reduces competition. If they can use their platform to prevent competition in a segment of it where they are established then that stops competition. Competition serves the consumer but is not inherent. The high fees that google can ask due to their market dominance get passed on to the consumer and thus do not benefit the consumer. The market dominance is something they can retain and enforce with minimal competition due to a mix of their clout and anticompetitive practices.

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#137

Post by jcpham2 »

throwaway316943 wrote: post #129
sideshowb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I share your sentiments, that pattern worked very well at infecting machines with malware for 20 years because the average user is a bad judge of which sites to trust to install software on their device. Then again, app stores haven't solved the malware problem, and neither have solutions like trusted publishers / signing executables / etc. I look forward to seeing a solution that isn't worst-of-both-worlds.

I remember installing software before app stores. Everyone was always afraid of malware but very few people I knew ever suffered from it. Most people used anti virus software, asked their friends which programs they recommended, or did some research of their own to figure out what was safe to download. All that was probably at least as effective as the “curation” that app stores provide. The problem is that now a lot…

The problem is that code execution evolved to ransomware because cryptocurrency.

If we’re being honest, some barriers were crossed and the threat evolved

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#138

Post by Traubenfuchs »

NullPrefix wrote: post #5
LinuxBender wrote: post #2

Having never owned a smart phone I am curious if you need an app for this, or could you simply have an old school forum and people visit it on their phones browser? Is that even feasible? Too much friction?

>Having never owned a smart phone I am curious if you need an app for this Yes. No smartphone will make people think you're a creep. /somewhat s

It's clearly a sign of a certain, actually quite high, level of refusal to participate in mainstream society.

Re: Google Play store bans polyamory dating app

#139

Post by anang »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #6

This is the dangerous flip side to having two players be the gatekeepers as to what can and cannot be an app (yes, I'm aware on android apps can be installed outside google play technically... but the audience is tiny). With Parler, for example, I remember reading tons of posts in support of taking the app down. But that same process can be easily used to silence apps like these.

Wasn’t Parler take down reactively, as a response to the users’ behavior and content on the site?

That seems different (and significantly easier to justify) than blanket bans based on some algorithmic analysis of an app’s name.

Sort the difference between banning one person from your store for being loud and disruptive and banning all people that meet a certain criteria.

I’m not saying google is or isn’t within their rights in either case, but they do seem different to me.

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