AnkiDroid: Google Play no longer allowing Open Collective donation link • Hacker News Board

Re: AnkiDroid: Google Play no longer allowing Open Collective donation link

#291

Post by megagpt2 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 12:04 PM UTC

lmz wrote: post #290

megagpt2 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can just do it. They already have agreements for it anyway.

> For instance, iirc, shipping the phone primarily with a non-Google alternative ROM means you won't get any play services on them, even if you want to have a secondary version with a standard Google ROM. Is this wrong? Sure they have agreements but does it include "don't sell phones with alternative ROMs"? It's licensed software and I don't think the phone makers want to end up on the wrong side of a Google lawsuit.

They can just ship it under a shell company

Re: AnkiDroid: Google Play no longer allowing Open Collective donation link

#292

Post by pennomi » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #205

ta8903 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's not that different from a deb or rpm repository The difference is that the default app stores require you to make an account to be able to use them. This would rightfully be considered insane on desktop OSs, yet is considered normal for phones.

Is it really that insane of itself? I don't see many people arguing that Valve is evil for requiring a Steam account to access their game library (ignoring the online activation/DRM question).

It’s not insane because Valve is not the OS provider, and you can install as many “app stores” as you want. Even SteamOS doesn’t lock down the OS so Steam is the only way to install software.

Annoyances like requiring an account become a preference, because you have alternatives.

Re: AnkiDroid: Google Play no longer allowing Open Collective donation link

#293

Post by lokar » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #263

lokar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. If a donation is tax deductible that’s just between the IRS, the recipient and the donor. The payment processor, banks, etc don’t do anything special.

So I'm only a layperson and don't know what is strictly legally required , but my understanding (based on reading/third-hand information) is that payment processors do in practice end up with more work to do for this, whatever the reason. Quoting from [1]: > Nonprofits have strict tax regulations when accepting donations. The more a payment processing system can assist with these regulations, the better for you and y…

Sure, but that’s still a problem of their own making. These people don’t want to use them to process the payment. They just want to link to their own web page.

Re: AnkiDroid: Google Play no longer allowing Open Collective donation link

#294

Post by IIsi50MHz » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

devsda wrote: post #127

brainwad wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "convoluted" way is/was the default in the absence of a monopolist app store. Before centralised app stores, users downloaded or bought boxed software ad-hoc and installed it on their computers from installation archives, just like you can install apps from APK files on Android. If you banned Google from preloading their app store, isn't that what we would revert to?

The goal is not to prevent a Google monopoly. The goal is to have competition to prevent Google abusing its monopoly to lock down users. There is Samsung Galaxy store.There is Xiaomi store.There was Amazon app store which failed to gain traction as it was not pre-installed but had decent number of apps. This is even before we get to open stores like F-droid. Now their viability is a question in the long term, if Goog…

> There was Amazon app store which failed to gain traction

I also heard that dev's couldn't remove apps they, for whatever reason, no longer supported. Even if the developers abandoned Amazon's app store entirely, the old bitrotted apps would still be there. The 1-star reviews would pile up, biasing users against them on other platforms.

Re: AnkiDroid: Google Play no longer allowing Open Collective donation link

#295

Post by Grimblewald » Fri, Sep 04, 2026, 12:27 AM UTC

brainwad wrote: post #7

amiga386 wrote: post #6

Not Google's first rodeo. They pulled the same move in 2019: https://www.phoronix.com/news/WireGuard-Ejected-Play-Store This is why software should not be subjected to an "app store" type distribution system, where a monopolist retains absolute control of what software can run on your devices, and can capriciously deny distribution to developers for whatever reason it likes.

You can install from other stores (AnkiDroid is on F-Droid, for example), or from direct file download on Android already. The problem is rather thay most users just use the store preinstalled on their phone as part of Google's deal with OEMs to bundle Google Play Services. So either you follow Google's rules, or you lose all the users who don't want to leave the walled garden, even though they can.

if no one used alternative stores, there'd be no reason to ban them, and yet google is banning them.