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I do not support google in that case though, but those mini breakdowns of the system are inevitable in the new corporate overlord based world.
Google has been taking a collective shit on every developer out of its list of seller countries[0], which is ridiculously short and hasn't been expanded in god knows how long, and even then, there were only a handful of countries added.
On Google's page about seller countries they say: "We're working hard to add more countries, but we're unable to provide any guidance on timelines."
No, you're fucking not working hard, you added the last ones a year and a half ago. EU countries are missing, for fucks sake. These are countries where Android has 70, 80% of the market, and you're killing any sensible chance of developers making a living on mobile. And you're not allowing any other payment option, because hey, fuck the developers, they don't need to make a living.
And then you send me fucking developer feedback polls year after year, which you seemingly throw in the trash, because every single Android dev I know tells you the same damn thing, let us sell apps, everything else is irrelevant.
Wake the fuck up Google.
[0]https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
ps. sorry for the language, this has been boiling for more than two years now...
TLDR: Application banned for not using a Google-blessed payment option which Google has not enabled for the country in which the developer actually lives. In that case I guess the only other option is going completely free? How many developers will be willing to accept that position? Do Google really think they can create a thriving ecosystem and market if they start throwing around inconsistent and conflicting rules…
There go my idea for profitability out of the window. I am from Brazil, here the only way to pay for Google play stuff is with international credit card, that is quite uncommon here, the result is that here in Brazil I have the highest downloads, but still one of the last places in gross income, the conversion ratio is terrible because people don't figure how to pay. With Google forcing devs to use its billing system…
TLDR: Application banned for not using a Google-blessed payment option which Google has not enabled for the country in which the developer actually lives. In that case I guess the only other option is going completely free? How many developers will be willing to accept that position? Do Google really think they can create a thriving ecosystem and market if they start throwing around inconsistent and conflicting rules…
"This is like watching Microsoft all over again." Doing what, specifically?
Their execution strategy and ability to put the entire company behind it has been sorely lacking for many years, something even Ballmer recognized before announcing he was stepping down.
This is ofcourse 100% subjective and not very scientific, but IMO we are seeing the same trends with Google. They have different divisions saying and doing different things (like here). They have no clear strategy or message about where they're going next.
You have the smudge of partially or completely overlapping platforms like Chrome, ChromeOS and Android. For ages you've had Google talk (IM), Google Voice (and or regular SMS depending on geographic region) and G+. Now they've started looking into consolidation, but it took them years.
Google is fragmenting at their seams with a myriad of platforms and services, and their attempts at putting things back together seems mostly driven by the G+ initiate, a initiate which has faced massive user-criticism due to the way it is being executed.
This feedback, had it been taken to heart, would have led to changes around G+ but so far we've seen none. This is like Microsoft and the whole Metro/Win8 fiasco. They think they're too big to fail and just keep on pushing.
All in all, all those small pieces start to add up. A lot of the things we saw with Microsoft, we're seeing again with Google.
When browsing for apps there you may see a top app being free and another costing $1. You pick the "free" one and it turns out it is useless without an IAP whereas the $1 app perhaps would not. It turns out the free app costs $2 in order to function as well as the $1 app.
The consumer friendly thing to do would be to list any app that has any IAP enabled to be listed as non free, either using some special labeling (category "freemium" rather than "free"), or by listing the price as an interval rather than as the minimum.
It's come to the point where I really miss the time when many apps existed in two separate versions, a free and a premium version. Would that not have been the solution to this problem?
"Such free trials for Products are encouraged. However, if you want to collect fees after the free trial expires, you must collect all fees for the full version of the Product through the Payment Processor on the Market."
http://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreemen...
While Apple wouldn't even accept it in the first place if they used Paypal instead of their IAP.
There go my idea for profitability out of the window. I am from Brazil, here the only way to pay for Google play stuff is with international credit card, that is quite uncommon here, the result is that here in Brazil I have the highest downloads, but still one of the last places in gross income, the conversion ratio is terrible because people don't figure how to pay. With Google forcing devs to use its billing system…