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“Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

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Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#11

Post by duxup »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #6
duxup wrote: post #3

This almost smells like a google throwing their hands up and saying "Well maybe it's a harmful app and they should use something else ... I dunno, put a warning on it." I see similar-ish warnings on Amazon about "frequently returned item", but I've no idea if it is true or why. Maybe an underlying vendor for the same item is bad? Amazon (who doesn't care about bad vendors as far as I can tell) just slaps a label on i…

I find that "frequently returned item" warning really useful. It's a reminder to look at the 2 star and 3 star reviews. Sometimes it's just a sizing issue. At other times some subset of people have a specific issue. The issue may or may not be something that affects me (e.g. some people can't operate something that doesn't have really clear instructions).

I find the “frequently returned item” warning totally confusing. It usually isn’t reflected in their reviews that I can tell….

I have to wonder if there’s some sort of strange meta where people search for one thing buy something and not realize that they’re actually looking for something else that’s difficult to search.

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#12

Post by pk97 »

ncr100 wrote: post #10
pk97 wrote: post #2

I noticed this banner on one of my own apps while installing it for my mom on a new phone. The banner said "This app has fewer users than others...", almost as if they are discouraging users from installing it without even informing me. I looked it up online and it seems like many people have begun seeing this. I am linking a thread. If anyone from Google is reading this, such opaque policies are not appreciated!

It does seem like an Anti-Pattern. Presumably (some faction inside) Google wants to warn users about scam apps. However this seems like blatant shaming and ostracization of smaller developers who did not spend $$$$$ on Marketing through Google's Ad Network. Seems Monopolistic of Google to me.

exactly. Imagine the audacity of this company. I have a paid app and they are already charging me a percentage of the revenue. And behind my back they have begun running this banner.

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#13

Post by sieabahlpark »

_fat_santa wrote: post #4

Why does it seem like Google is trying to kill Android, or at least their app ecosystem. - They now require a DUNS number to submit an app - You now need 10-15 people to "QA" your app before submitting - Now this. It just seems that Google wants the "major" apps and nothing else.

[dead]

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#14

Post by poincaredisk »

_fat_santa wrote: post #4

Why does it seem like Google is trying to kill Android, or at least their app ecosystem. - They now require a DUNS number to submit an app - You now need 10-15 people to "QA" your app before submitting - Now this. It just seems that Google wants the "major" apps and nothing else.

>They now require a DUNS number to submit an app

Even for non-us residents?

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#15

Post by LWIRVoltage »

... These sorts of patterns do not help at all, and will hurt those who have critical need for apps without a lot of users.

Speaking as somebody, who owns some mid-grade thermal cameras that stopped production in the past few years after a decade run, that depended on and are solely controlled and run on apps that were removed from the app store or no longer can run on modern phones because they are in 32-bit format ; this sort of thing would further punish that type of software and only speed up its demise.

When you spend thousands and thousands and thousands and of dollars and resources into getting unique capabilities like that, that can only be controlled through Android apps often, and is the only way to get that capability for some (this will apply to multiple and I imagine with niche capabilities that only have one or two methods of Access)

- this hurts a lot of opportunity, and this type of dark anti-pattern is far too blunt

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#16

Post by gooob »

_fat_santa wrote: post #4

Why does it seem like Google is trying to kill Android, or at least their app ecosystem. - They now require a DUNS number to submit an app - You now need 10-15 people to "QA" your app before submitting - Now this. It just seems that Google wants the "major" apps and nothing else.

what do you think the solution is? should we just all use fdroid?

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#18

Post by archerx »

_fat_santa wrote: post #4

Why does it seem like Google is trying to kill Android, or at least their app ecosystem. - They now require a DUNS number to submit an app - You now need 10-15 people to "QA" your app before submitting - Now this. It just seems that Google wants the "major" apps and nothing else.

I had a PWA turned app on the android App Store and I just gave up jumping through google’s hoops to keep it up. I feel like Google is killing Google, like some bad actors have gotten control of the reins and is slowly steering it off a cliff.

Re: “Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

#20

Post by ToucanLoucan »

LWIRVoltage wrote: post #15

... These sorts of patterns do not help at all, and will hurt those who have critical need for apps without a lot of users. Speaking as somebody, who owns some mid-grade thermal cameras that stopped production in the past few years after a decade run, that depended on and are solely controlled and run on apps that were removed from the app store or no longer can run on modern phones because they are in 32-bit format…

They don't give a fuck. Just like Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about casual users running older software, or Apple doesn't give a fuck about power users who don't need their hands held through everything on their goddamn computers.

All these gigafuck companies have a minimum viable user in mind: someone who has disposable income, free time, and wants to use their phone to shop for shit or endlessy scroll on whichever social they happen to like most, and that's what their products are designed to do. Everything else is ancillary.

Spoken as someone who works on a niche app for both platforms that works with hardware we make: we get NO support. Arbitrary system changes fuck up our app constantly, without notice, and we have no recourse but to fix it ASAP and tell people to not update.

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