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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

#121

Post by fauigerzigerk »

vineyardmike wrote: post #77
suddenexample wrote: post #34

A question for Googlers who may be responsible/adjacent - what is the intended function of this warning? It seems to be attempting to filter out low quality apps, but instead seems to be killing any attempt to change the status quo. If the app has fewer users than competing apps, the message Google is sending is "we don't need any new apps that do similar things to existing apps" and "if you're a small app, don't eve…

> we don't need any new apps that do similar things to existing apps" I’m not a “Googler who may be responsible”, but my understanding is that Apple does this too… and Google App Store has a reputation for being lower quality. I assume it’s because unoriginal apps at some point are just “polluting” the market and making it harder to find higher quality products. Which is generally what users want. Some things are red…

I don't really understand this thinking. If a long tail of mostly unremarkable apps make the good ones hard to find then that is a flaw of the ranking algorithm.

If an app is not even in the app store, how can it possibly attract user interest? What if users happen to like some quirky feature that seems unremarkable to app store reviewers?

App stores need better search and filtering.

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

#122

Post by ryu2k2 »

godelski wrote: post #100
anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

Imagine if we talked about other computers like we talked about phones. It's just so weird - you can only install programs from our approved package manager - if you make any transactions through your program, we'll take a 30% cut - you can't be access those files, you're not root - you got root?! We're going to fucking sue you (yeah, I know about the PS3...) - you can't change these settings - you can't access that…

Don't worry. The time when our computers will be locked down the same way will come in our life time.

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

#123

Post by xg15 »

godelski wrote: post #100
anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

Imagine if we talked about other computers like we talked about phones. It's just so weird - you can only install programs from our approved package manager - if you make any transactions through your program, we'll take a 30% cut - you can't be access those files, you're not root - you got root?! We're going to fucking sue you (yeah, I know about the PS3...) - you can't change these settings - you can't access that…

> Why did we think this was a good idea?

Who is "we"? I think this had always been the wet dream of corporate types, not the users. In the PC space there are too many existing ecosystems to implement that kind of control (through Microsoft certainly tried with the whole "trusted computing" stuff) but as soon as there was an opportunity for a popular new "blue ocean" platform, they jumped.

You could see this most blatancy with ARM tablets. Microsoft released two versions of Windows, one for x86, one for ARM. The x86 one allowed installation of regular programs, the ARM version was restricted to Store apps. Made no sense from a technical perspective, the only reason is that they could.

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

#124

Post by xg15 »

> Many users download our app to solve a specific problem (car issues), use it once successfully, then naturally don't open it again until needed months later. Low daily engagement doesn't mean low quality - it means the app successfully solved the user's problem!

What level of Enshittification is it if you actively penalize other apps for not enshittifying enough?

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

#125

Post by duskwuff »

vineyardmike wrote: post #77
suddenexample wrote: post #34

A question for Googlers who may be responsible/adjacent - what is the intended function of this warning? It seems to be attempting to filter out low quality apps, but instead seems to be killing any attempt to change the status quo. If the app has fewer users than competing apps, the message Google is sending is "we don't need any new apps that do similar things to existing apps" and "if you're a small app, don't eve…

> we don't need any new apps that do similar things to existing apps" I’m not a “Googler who may be responsible”, but my understanding is that Apple does this too… and Google App Store has a reputation for being lower quality. I assume it’s because unoriginal apps at some point are just “polluting” the market and making it harder to find higher quality products. Which is generally what users want. Some things are red…

> Some things are redundant - how many flashlight apps, weather apps, ChatGPT wrappers, etc are needed?

For what it's worth, the wording Apple uses in their App Review Guidelines [1] is:

> 4.3(b): Also avoid piling on to a category that is already saturated; the App Store has enough fart, burp, flashlight, fortune telling, dating, drinking games, and Kama Sutra apps, etc. already. We will reject these apps unless they provide a unique, high-quality experience.

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

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

#126

Post by redeux »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #118
anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

"The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers." Why. It is not Google's software. Shouldn't that decision be left to the software author.

I think it’s about optics. They don’t want their App Store to appear stagnant.

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

#127

Post by chinathrow »

anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

Apple sent the exact same thing out to a just-working-fine app I maintain in the App Store.

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

#128

Post by Y_Y »

serial_dev wrote: post #116
nout wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can update the version number and re-release. I think this may grant also adding the update note "Updated version number. Nothing else. Thank you Google".

My new startup idea: “upload the same release with a different version and build number about once a month till the end of times" as a service .

My new startup idea: malicious compliance as a service

You forward us complaint emails and we create some AI slopscript that fulfils the least compliant interpretation of the rule it can think of.

The goal would be to use automated nonsense to try to frustrate MBAs who have managed to burrow all the way to the brain of a tech giant and are now burdening humanity with their folly.

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

#129

Post by r0m4n0 »

redeux wrote: post #126
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers." Why. It is not Google's software. Shouldn't that decision be left to the software author.

I think it’s about optics. They don’t want their App Store to appear stagnant.

I don't know if it's just optics. As a user, I personally don't want to see or download apps that are broken, neglected, or completely left for dead. Maintained apps are usually the best ones right?

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

#130

Post by duskwuff »

mschuster91 wrote: post #29
_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 These things are easy to get, the idea is to at least slow down the deluge of scam apps and barely working "vibe coding" apps. > You now need 10-15 people to "QA" your app before submitting Again, enforcing at least a baseline of testing isn't bad. Both Apple's and Google's stores suffer from a massive problem with low quality apps and it's honestly more than time tha…

> These things are easy to get, the idea is to at least slow down the deluge of scam apps and barely working "vibe coding" apps.

When you add bureaucratic hurdles to a process to try to slow down abuse, you often find that abusive users are more willing to navigate that process than legitimate ones. (We've seen this with email spam already - spammers are perfectly willing to set up DKIM and DMARC, and have stronger incentives to do it correctly than legitimate senders.)

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