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The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

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Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#111

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

akho wrote: post #94
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not many things digital that are going to have a half-life the length of your lifetime.

There are. Anything that is a file in an open format will outlive me (given minimal care in terms of backups). My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications. I’d say it’s all digital things, except for a small enshittified sliver. Renting, however, does not work that way. Any DRM-protected download is a rental. Sadly, for some reason, vendors are allowed to describe it as a purcha…

> My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications.

There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an ebook in today's formats 50 years from now.

Same for applications.

You're really that confident in 50 years you'll be able to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or Mac?

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#114

Post by scarface_74 »

imurray wrote: post #56
specialp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone at Amazon (The only company I have seen using it) hated using Chime, and it wasn't at all on the level of competitors. So I think it was just an unsuccessful product.

Every product has its hate, but everyone is rarely true. Personally (no longer at Amazon) I was impressed by Chime. It was simple, but rock solid, handling large calls well. Teams is still worse for me (>9 people display is bad, even in MS Edge, when on Linux). Zoom has a finicky interface. Early in the pandemic I had to use many different systems as an academic, when lots of different contacts pivoted online in diff…

I was also at Amazon (AWS ProServe) we also hated Chime. AWS internally moved to Slack and only used Chime to schedule customer calls.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#115

Post by gallerdude »

malfist wrote: post #23
SapporoChris wrote: post #5

"What happens to my apps after the discontinuation of the Amazon Appstore on Android?" "Starting August 20, 2025, any apps downloaded from the Amazon Appstore will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices. Amazon Appstore will continue to be available elsewhere, including on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices. " --------- So for people that purchased apps through Amazon Appstore, what are their options for apps t…

There needs to be some recourse here. Amazon isn't going bankrupt and closing business. They need to honor their customer commitments. After all, earn trust and customer obsession are two of their leadership principles

I had a very hard time working there, maybe the worst time in my life. I worked with a lot of very smart people, but something about the company culture is doomed in a way I haven't seen before.

Last year I read the book Julia by Sandra Newman, which shows the story of 1984 from Winston's lover's perspective. Spoiler, at the very end of the book, Julia escapes Airstrip One, and we find out that Big Brother has just been captured by the good guys, and he is now a decrepit old man with no understanding of the world.

This implies that all the suffering, hardship, and pain experienced in the dystopian classic happens for no reason at all. Airstrip One is just a machine that gnashes and grinds each individual person within it and outputs... nothing.

This is the closest any book has gotten to describing my Amazon experience. I read headlines like this and wonder how long the machine continue to run for.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#116

Post by b112 »

numpad0 wrote: post #98
c0wb0yc0d3r wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different though, isn’t it? Amazon still exists. The whole platform is shutting down. Individual devs aren’t taking down their apps.

The Amazon store will remain open for Fire tablets if I'm reading right, and those are AOSP-based. So it's kind of similar. Again, not that I'm fine with it, but that I think it's technically not unprecedented.

It's not even remotely similar. The app store vanishes from your phone, with no recourse.

Don't make excuses for Amazon, please.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#117

Post by b112 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #111
akho wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are. Anything that is a file in an open format will outlive me (given minimal care in terms of backups). My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications. I’d say it’s all digital things, except for a small enshittified sliver. Renting, however, does not work that way. Any DRM-protected download is a rental. Sadly, for some reason, vendors are allowed to describe it as a purcha…

> My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications. There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an ebook in today's formats 50 years from now. Same for applications. You're really that confident in 50 years you'll be able to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or Mac?

With well defined and documented file formats, and with OSS applications supporting them, they can be read for all eternity.

You don't need binary compatibility. You can load a gif on any computer today, and it's old. I can view aiff image files from my Amiga still.

We're already 50 years in on many formats.

Where it becomes uncertain, it DRM laden, closed source applications with bespoke file formats.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#118

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

b112 wrote: post #117
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications. There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an ebook in today's formats 50 years from now. Same for applications. You're really that confident in 50 years you'll be able to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or Mac?

With well defined and documented file formats, and with OSS applications supporting them, they can be read for all eternity. You don't need binary compatibility. You can load a gif on any computer today, and it's old. I can view aiff image files from my Amiga still. We're already 50 years in on many formats. Where it becomes uncertain, it DRM laden, closed source applications with bespoke file formats.

1) Survivorship bias

How many image formats CAN'T you read today that you could read 50 years ago?

2) Images are much much much more ubiquitous than book formats

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#119

Post by [deleted] »

SapporoChris wrote: post #5

"What happens to my apps after the discontinuation of the Amazon Appstore on Android?" "Starting August 20, 2025, any apps downloaded from the Amazon Appstore will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices. Amazon Appstore will continue to be available elsewhere, including on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices. " --------- So for people that purchased apps through Amazon Appstore, what are their options for apps t…

[deleted]

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#120

Post by scripturial »

dylan604 wrote: post #108
axus wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do free promotions ( https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... ) still work ? And how would you even validate the emails against Amazon Appstore purchases?

I'd assume they would have a record of the user in their database. How else would they earn money from the data harvesting their app is a cover for? For the small number of apps that aren't solely data harvesting, surely they still have records of their users in a database as well? This question almost reads as if you're assuming the only record of an app would be through the store and not by the app developers thems…

In google play the purchaser information is mostly privatized and hidden from the developer. I assume Amazon is the same.

The only way a developer would know a person is an existing user is if they have a user sign up process inside the app itself.

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