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Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

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Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#81

Post by dotancohen »

addingnumbers wrote: post #73
Kylekramer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've shown whether an app has ads for over five years: https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/04/28/the-play-store-star...

They won't have my appreciation or respect until they let me permanently filter out paid or adware apps and keep them filtered out until I choose to see them again. It would be so easy to implement, it seems scornful not to. When I want a needle, they hand me a haystack and say "we etched 'this is a needle' into the needles for you so you'll know when you find one. Good luck." I admit I haven't used android for three…

  > I admit I haven't used android for three or four years so maybe they have this capability now, would love to be corrected if so.
Nothing has changed.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#83

Post by ChuckMcM »

I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google to monetize ‘free’ content in the play store without compensating the developers much as they do people’s videos on Youtube.

For those who aren’t aware, in the games industry the distributor has been in the role of adding DRM to games on the pretense that they are “protecting their interests and channels”. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered to make these sort of “protective” changes, and the one that would be most likely (in my estimation) would be wrapping the APK such that it played a pre-roll ad before your free game started.

I could be completely off base here but to my way of thinking it would be consistent with Google’s moves in the past.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#84

Post by lillecarl »

krolden wrote: post #64
skratlo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely NOT! It's waaay better to have huge multinational corporation dictate what's right and what's wrong and what's good and what's bad! And they do it for you my friend! For FREE!

Well its their platform

It doesn't work like that when you're one of two players in the segment, that's what antitrust is about. "It's their platform" would work well if there were any significant alternatives, which there aren't.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#86

Post by tauntz »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #83

I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google to monetize ‘free’ content in the play store without compensating the developers much as they do people’s videos on Youtube. For those who aren’t aware, in the games industry the distributor has been in the role of adding DRM to games on the pretense that they are “protecting their interests and channels”. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered…

That would explain why they are trying to convince/coerce/force developers to hand them their signing keys during the last years.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#87

Post by NineStarPoint »

coolgoose wrote: post #9

I always wondered why all these stores are so fucking awful to filter. Is it calculated ?

Along with what other people are saying, the app stores have little competition and already rake in massive quantities of money. They don't have much reason to improve anything.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#88

Post by Pxtl »

As a user, I'm constantly bothered by how poor the metadata is about how the app is monetized. And this problem occurs across multiple platforms - Windows Store is even worse.

I do not hold it against developers that they need to make money. But when I'm searching for apps, I want to make an informed decision about how it's going to do that - be it through ads, through paid unlock of the full functionality, through paid subscriptions, or is it a paid-up-front app, or a combination thereof.

The ability to filter on this critical attribute is slim-to-nonexistent.

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#89

Post by pow_pp_-1_v »

tauntz wrote: post #86
ChuckMcM wrote: post #83

I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google to monetize ‘free’ content in the play store without compensating the developers much as they do people’s videos on Youtube. For those who aren’t aware, in the games industry the distributor has been in the role of adding DRM to games on the pretense that they are “protecting their interests and channels”. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered…

That would explain why they are trying to convince/coerce/force developers to hand them their signing keys during the last years.

I think the signing keys are required because of features like "play as you download" etc.

[Not an Android dev]

Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title

#90

Post by SquareWheel »

TrueGeek wrote: post #70
SquareWheel wrote: post #7

I'm actually glad to see editorializing disallowed in app titles. If everybody did it, the store would be a mess. I mean, it's already a mess, but even more so.

The problem (with both app stores) is there are really three types of apps: paid, free, requires subscription. Devs are having to use titles to make it clear which is which since the stores aren't letting them use categories. It's frustrating (for both user and developer) when a user downloads an app expecting it to be free only to find it won't work if you don't pay monthly.

I agree. I'd also like to see information for things like one-time, subscription-based, or repeatable in-app purchases (eg. "gems").

Apple does a better job of displaying this information than Google. Sometimes I check what IAP are available on the iOS variant of an app I'm interested in, just to get a better idea.

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