Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

I can't tell if you're joking.

If you're seriously asking, how about that unions have consistently and successfully fought for better treatment and pay for workers all around the world. Many of the standards we expect today only exist because of union action over the last century or so.

Developers are no different from any other worker in the sense that they have more power as a group than individually. That generally has translated to better conditions, better pay.

As the gp comment suggests, it seems entirely plausible that this same effect would apply when applied to vendors. A union/guild/group of people is more able to exert influence over vendors than any one individual, and vendors have a bigger incentive to keep them happy and address any issues promptly. Individuals are, as the op demonstrates, completely at the mercy of megacorps.

If your app is just a wrapper for your website do you still need things like privacy policies and reporting UGC to pass App Store rules?

The Coalition for App Fairness, which of course, is currently involved in major litigation against both Google and Apple.

It's open to new members! It looks like the author of this post is already a member.

https://appfairness.org/members/

One problem with this approach is that the customers of the app stores generally aren't individual developers, they're the companies that make the apps. It would be stronger to say

  Uber, King Games (candy crush), Roblox, and PUBG Mobile are dissatisfied with the way policies are unevenly enforced on the App Store / Play Store.  Here are our demands, kindly address them or we will collectively deprive Apple / Google of the app revenue and band together to make our own.

than

  Developers Alice, Bob, Carol, Dan, [...], and Zelie, who work at Uber, King Games, [etc] are dissatisfied with [...]

... Although, I can't say I would like to live in a world where the biggest revenue producers for the app stores get to dictate terms to the app store providers.

That is a decent approach to any "Gate Keeper" entity. The Gate Keeper might be anything from a budget holder to a government.

"The Prince" by an Italian lad off of the 16thC is still a pertinent read 400 years later and he's riffing off old Romans, Greeks and before and that's just in Europe. I'm sure China and India, int al, have similar writings. Coercion and other trickery is hardly the invention of Renaissance Italy but a fair few expert practitioners were extent.

Surprisingly enough, some people don't abide by some stated rules and need careful handling. Bonus points are awarded when you make your eventual goal the idea of your "adversary".

This is all a massive game of "us - decent types" vs "you - unpleasant types" and hence a form of tribalism.

As soon as you find yourself using a term like "As a ..." or even "We ..." why not look a little deeper and see if you can't find some common ground or defuse the situation somehow. Perhaps a chat over the blower instead of the usual email trail as a precursor to hostilities might help.

I don't know exactly what is allowed (lol) in refereeing a journal submission but surely the current situation is a bit rubbish. I've been a non scientist reader of New Scientist for 40 odd years and this sort of issue comes up quite regularly. Journos, scientists, engineers and the rest are all unhappy with the way "publication" happens at some level. This is way more fundamental than open vs closed too.

Change is indicated but it will require quite some effort.