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Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

danfitdegree.hashnode.dev

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Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#301

Post by mcv »

mariojv wrote: post #231
enumjorge wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which other store? The only stores that matter as far as mobile goes are Google and Apple's.

I'm not an Android user, but aren't third party app stores allowed on Android? https://www.androidauthority.com/best-app-stores-936652/ They're probably not great places to try and grow your userbase based on the number of users compared to the Play Store, but they exist.

Maybe courts can force phone manufacturers to include those stores just like they forced Microsoft to include other browsers on Windows. Without that, people are always going to stick to the default store.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#302

Post by robertlagrant »

bogwog wrote: post #223
theamk wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Samsung phone comes with Samsung App store, ready to use. No need to flip a switch or accept scary warnings.

Did you choose the Samsung App Store, or was it preloaded on the device by the phone manufacturer? Consumer choice is restricted by those anti-competitive business practices I mentioned. Whatever deal Samsung has with Google for preloaded software is irrelevant. If you wanted to install the Epic Games Store, you'd have to go flip that switch[*] [*] actually, Samsung allows Epic to distribute their store through the G…

Relative to almost anything else a consumer might want to choose in their purchasing lives, tapping a screen a couple of times doesn't seem to qualify as difficult. Definitely not as a restriction of consumer choice.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#303

Post by mcv »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #281

I was also thinking I was talking to an AI after a number of emails, so eventually I tested it out: > I wish to speak to a human. If you are human and are allowed to write anything, please use the word "cow" in your reply. Response: > We appreciate you getting back to us and we apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you. Yes, you are communicating to a human being and per your request, please see the word "c…

> We appreciate you getting back to us and we apologize for any inconvenience this is causing you. Yes, you are communicating to a human being and per your request, please see the word "cow".

I'm not convinced. Are they training people to be more like AI?

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#304

Post by mcv »

ergocoder wrote: post #165
jldugger wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im confident theres a few googlers watching things and happy to play the role of Harry Tuttle.

I'm an ex googler, and I am furious. If I was still at Google, I would have posted this shit on memegen making fun of the Play team all day. They should be ashamed for handling customers like this.

> They should be ashamed for handling customers like this.

But is shame allowed by Play policy?

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#305

Post by mcv »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #132
mfDjB wrote: post #75

What I've learned from Google is that you are always talking to a bot, it just happens to be that some of those bots are human. Even though they are walking and talking simians they are executing a conversation script and have no agency and ability to control an outcome spare the most banal common issues.

It's funny. Google will flood us with captchas if it thinks we're not human but they subject people to inhuman treatment whenever we need to contact them. Bots for me but not for thee.

At every step, we need to prove our validity to Google's AI. Whether it's as Real Human, or for a legitimate app.

I'm developing a new appreciation for the old Paranoia RPG. At least Google doesn't have the power to disintegrate us yet.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#306

Post by z9znz »

This doesn't help OP, but since others are sharing stories...

I recently received a series of notices from my credit card app about rejected $1241 charges on my card. My card company was rejecting the charges because I have my daily limit set lower (which I modify when I need).

Someone got my credit card info and set it up as THEIR Facebook pay payment source. And while I don't use Facebook Pay, I can assume from my credit card transaction list that when setting up a new card, FBPAY makes a $1 charge/hold as a test to validate the card. If that hold succeeds, then I guess they are happy enough.

What real companies do, if they want to ensure that you control the card you are using, is to make some small random charge and then require you to tell them how much the charge was. If they charge 0.61, you would only know the amount if you had access to the account behind the card. But no, Facebook just charges $1 and presumably doesn't even ask you "tell us how much we charged".

I opened a support ticket with Facebook because I wanted the person responsible for the attempted fraud to at least get banned. I provided exactly all the data required, including screenshots of the failed transactions from my mobile credit card app. It should be pretty easy for FB to find in their system, since the crook made 10! attempts for the exact same amount over a period of hours. Oh and as I provided all my credit card details, that should be IN their system and easy to associate.

Long story short, my very slow email interactions were just as stupid as TFA's. Worse even, the Facebook support moron kept trying to refer to my Facebook Ads account, which I do not have and never even mentioned. Eventually they just banned me from running any Facebook ads, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.

The support people at many of these companies are either stupid, non-human, or low budget non-English speaking people who copy/paste text from a cheatsheet. And the companies that run such support operations are assholes, top down. There is zero excuse for a "top tier" tech company to have the problems these companies have. It's just a shame that it is virtually impossible for anyone to do normal life/work stuff without having some dependency on these companies.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#307

Post by NullPrefix »

fleddr wrote: post #119

And this is why we need to cherish the web. I see no reason why a yoga app can't be done on the web. I do know that apps tend to convert better, if only we could bridge that gap. It's in particular troubling how much of this madness we've internalized to just accept. The idea that you need to resubmit a 100 apps because Google decided you need to target a different internal version number is insane. It would be very…

>you need to target a different internal version number is insane

Upping targetSDK might mean that some deprecated functionality is not available to the app anymore. Storage access permission is one example.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#308

Post by mcv »

anonymousiam wrote: post #112
ledauphin wrote: post #78

This is relatable. I have spent many hours attempting to get someone at the IRS to answer my questions, and the best part is that they have always ended up hanging up on me after putting me on hold, and there is no way to pick back up where you left off with them since it's all done verbally. I shall now go read The Metamorphosis.

Having dealt with the IRS a few times, I can relate. You'll get a different answer (from a different person) to the same question each time you ask. My advice is to never deal with the IRS yourself. Hire a tax attorney who has some experience in dealing with them. Also, are you referring to "The Trial" (also by Kafka)?

This morning I woke up and found I had turned into a giant cockroach. How will I now be able to appeal Google's Play Store rejection? Will I even be able to convince ReCaptcha that I am human? I can't even convince myself that I am human.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#309

Post by basro »

insaider wrote: post #137

You seem to have missed a detail in their replies "We confirm that your app has options to report and block abusive users but your app does not contain functionality to report objectionable content." You complain that they haven't answered the specifics of your emails yet you've actually failed to address theirs. Unpopular opinion but it seems like their response was reasonable tbf.

Didn't he address this? He has both the ability to report/block users and also the ability to report content (comments) in his app.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#310

Post by kevincox »

xiphias2 wrote: post #291
_yb2s wrote: post #25

As a scientist, I often have to deal with similar BS of a reviewer misunderstanding a submitted journal article, literally insisting we do something we already did, and explained in the paper. I try to just own the fact that I didn't make my explanation clear and visible enough, so I just submit an updated version along with a comment like "We thank the reviewer for pointing out that we didn't clearly articulate our…

A comment added that he should just have added ,,Report objectionable content''. On the screenshot there was only a ,,Report'' button under blocking user. I think the person who submits the app underestimates how much heat Google can get from advertisers and people for the content itself.

I think the root cause of confusion is that the reviewer took "Report" to mean "Report User". A simple fix would be to change the button to "Report Comment" or "Report Comment as Objectionable Content". To me this actually makes the interface more clear because honestly when I see "Block User" and "Report" I'm not completely sure that we have gone back to talking about the comment after the first button is talking about the user.
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