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Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
131–140 of 165 posts
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#132I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google to monetize ‘free’ content in the play store without compensating the developers much as they do people’s videos on Youtube. For those who aren’t aware, in the games industry the distributor has been in the role of adding DRM to games on the pretense that they are “protecting their interests and channels”. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered…
> I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google to monetize ‘free’ content in the play store without compensating the developers much as they do people’s videos on Youtube. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered to make these sort of “protective” changes, and the one that would be most likely (in my estimation) would be wrapping the APK such that it played a pre-roll ad before your free game started.
I'd be quite surprised if Google forced ads into apps that don't have them, knowing full well that Apple would not do the same thing for iOS apps.
While Google and Apple are in different businesses, they are both reliant on the same set of users for their different business models, and from users' perspective, they offer products that are both competitive and mutually exclusive (very few people use both an Android and iPhone daily).
It's one thing to force ads in front of Youtube videos - a given video is hosted on one platform, and users click links to the videos they want to watch with little sense of loyalty to a particular platform in the moment.
But doing the same thing to mobile apps across an entire operating system risks people actually eschewing their product in favor of their competitor's, which would jeopardize the core of their entire business (search revenue is incredibly vulnerable to traffic on walled garden mobile platforms - it's the reason Google correctly saw iOS as such a threat and responded quickly with their investment in Android in the first place).
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless the tin says anything about whether or not it includes ads.
Referring more to the title field merely being a title, and not some banner to fill with attention-grabbing crap
It's Google's fault that the title is the only field that is searchable. They're never going to add a searchable "ads" field.
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems pretty trivial to eventually add, compared to trying to enforce correctness on results from user-provided tags in titles. I'm a little surprised you can't search for "no ads" apps outside of e.g. Pass listings, but I'm really glad they're not defaulting to just a title text search and cluttered listings of Farming Simulator [NO ADS] [NO IAPS] [NO REFERRALS] [NO TIMEWAITS] [NO DLC].
its trivial to add, yet hasn't been added in almost 15 years, it is very much a title text search and nothing about this move indicates otherwise. there is no economic interest from google to make ad free apps actually findable, and no chance somebody making a better play store is going to usurp their position.
Even Apple doesn't have a "show only actually-free" toggle on their store for free apps with no IAP and no ads. Which sucks.
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#135I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google to monetize ‘free’ content in the play store without compensating the developers much as they do people’s videos on Youtube. For those who aren’t aware, in the games industry the distributor has been in the role of adding DRM to games on the pretense that they are “protecting their interests and channels”. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered…
My simpler explanation is that putting "no ads" in title is meaningless and without proof and on its own unenforceable. As a consumer, honestly, as much as I want to rant against big companies and for small developers - yeah, I'm with Google on this one. Putting random unverified claims in title is bad.
(concordantly, I fully support making "no ads" actual metadata searchable/filterable, as well as "Supports Controller" "in game purchases" etc.)
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#136You can still put [no ads] or [PRO] in the icon, pro/paid in the title.
That said, a no-ads app still has ads in Google's eyes if there is any promotional link, i.e. to your website or your other apps. Google takes down those apps if you don't label the links as "advertisement".
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would explain why they are trying to convince/coerce/force developers to hand them their signing keys during the last years.
I think the signing keys are required because of features like "play as you download" etc. [Not an Android dev]
The real Google response would be - it's to facilitate a migration to new signing keys in case the developer:
1. Loses their signing keys
2. Needs to migrate to a better signing algorithm
Google can just handle that on your behalf. Additionally, there's no more need to care about signing keys at any point in the development pipeline. Rather than keep it secret, anyone with proper access to the Google developer console can sign and release apps
More cynically, what they're really guarding against is other app stores. It's MUCH harder to migrate an app from the Play Store to another store if the signatures don't match.
* Without a matching signature, the user can't pull their data from Google in the same way. They'd have to completely uninstall and reinstall the app, potentially losing data if the app isn't backed by a server.
* With a matching signature, the other app store should pick it up seamlessly.
Modifying apps without opt-in seems like a step further than they'd be able to pull off without massive backlash right now.
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#138I suspect this is to foreclose against a future option for Google to monetize ‘free’ content in the play store without compensating the developers much as they do people’s videos on Youtube. For those who aren’t aware, in the games industry the distributor has been in the role of adding DRM to games on the pretense that they are “protecting their interests and channels”. As the distributor, Google may feel empowered…
My simpler explanation is that putting "no ads" in title is meaningless and without proof and on its own unenforceable. As a consumer, honestly, as much as I want to rant against big companies and for small developers - yeah, I'm with Google on this one. Putting random unverified claims in title is bad. (concordantly, I fully support making "no ads" actual metadata searchable/filterable, as well as "Supports Controll…
Your point is not specific for ads and completely ignores the dynamics of reviews. Your app will immediately receive a ton of 1 star reviews for misleading the users.
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the signing keys are required because of features like "play as you download" etc. [Not an Android dev]
The real Google response would be - it's to facilitate a migration to new signing keys in case the developer: 1. Loses their signing keys 2. Needs to migrate to a better signing algorithm Google can just handle that on your behalf. Additionally, there's no more need to care about signing keys at any point in the development pipeline. Rather than keep it secret, anyone with proper access to the Google developer consol…
Frog leaps out of boiling pot, this news and more at 11.
Re: Tell HN: You can't add “no ads” in your Play Store app's title
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Metadata like file size, whether there are in-app ads or purchases, etc, should be part of the store's listing - not the title. ???? Did I miss the part where Google announced they were adding searchable metadata at the same time they eliminated adding this info to the title? If not, seems like a clearly anti-consumer move.
App titles not being filled with a bunch of promo crap sounds pretty pro-consumer to me "It is what it says on the tin"
Yes, because "Verby Noun" game titles and "-ly" app titles are incredibly informative at first glance.