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Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

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Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#151

Post by toyg »

_jal wrote: post #87
fjabre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand Google's App store play. Just another walled garden where things like this can happen. They were the champions of the open web for a long time. What happened?

> They were the champions of the open web for a long time. Because that's what you say when you're the underdog. Remember Apple's 1984 ad? Microsoft's "a computer on every desk"? The tech industry seems to support a rotating cast of monopolists riding atop whatever gate-keeping function emerges, each one holding on as long as it can until replaced by something that ends up looking a lot like the last top dog.

You could replace “the tech industry” with “capitalists” and it would only gain in correctness. There is no market incentive to be “good” past a certain size, and plenty of incentives to be “evil”.

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#152

Post by chedabob »

alex_c wrote: post #39

It is infuriating that Google's default action for these automated takedowns is to remove the app and ask the developer to upload a new build with a new package name , which means not keeping any of the existing users. It's happened to two of my clients in the past 6 months based on small infractions in the app metadata, but no issue with the app itself. In both cases the app was taken down with no advance notice, an…

Apple at least keep your app up, and it's obvious there's a human on the other end. The responses are usually pretty quick (often within minutes if you reply straight away), and you can pinky-promise to fix the issues in the next release if it's an update.

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#153

Post by nickysielicki »

heavyset_go wrote: post #139

Google and Apple have kept a stranglehold on the mobile application distribution market for over a decade now. It's time to break them up, or require them to allow other mobile app distributors on their platforms. Surely other companies can be more efficient with the 30% cut or less that Google takes, without forcing users to put up with the poor service that's exemplified by the article in the OP.

How do you suggest they recoup the losses that come with developing and maintaining entire ecosystems of power-efficient operating systems and mobile devices?

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#154

Post by smartties »

heavyset_go wrote: post #139

Google and Apple have kept a stranglehold on the mobile application distribution market for over a decade now. It's time to break them up, or require them to allow other mobile app distributors on their platforms. Surely other companies can be more efficient with the 30% cut or less that Google takes, without forcing users to put up with the poor service that's exemplified by the article in the OP.

Apple now takes a 15% fee and has a really good review process (updates are reviewed by humans within a day or two)

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#155

Post by rtkwe »

comboy wrote: post #130
_jal wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were the champions of the open web for a long time. Because that's what you say when you're the underdog. Remember Apple's 1984 ad? Microsoft's "a computer on every desk"? The tech industry seems to support a rotating cast of monopolists riding atop whatever gate-keeping function emerges, each one holding on as long as it can until replaced by something that ends up looking a lot like the last top dog.

I'm quite confident you can't run a company as big as Google without being evil but it seems useful to ponder why does it happen. Corpo structure seems to have something to do with it, separate things into categories, then teams get categories and optimize locally without taking bigger picture into account (or even knowing what the picture is). Some regulations, maybe some pressures from some agencies about which the…

There's a lot of reasons. Building a closed guarden that locks people in feels a lot safer from a competition standpoint than the alternative, if you can make it hard to steal your customers and only a few (always remember that being on and reading HN means you're not much of an average user), it's also just easier than being open, a closed system can make changes much faster than an open one that has to get concensus before adding a new feature for example.

In this specific case and most of the time where Google's complete lack of support shows up it's because having manual review costs money and the process that screws the app developer is easier than having a secondary process that needs more people to decide if the first automated or rote manual scan made a mistake.

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#156

Post by ttt0 »

nitrogen wrote: post #136
ttt0 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, why people suddenly forgot that adblockers are a thing?

Because they like the channels they watch and want them to get ad revenue?

Do you mean all those channels that have been demonetized and have Patreon accounts?

And if this really is the case then stop complaining about it.

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#157

Post by pbhjpbhj »

alex_c wrote: post #39

It is infuriating that Google's default action for these automated takedowns is to remove the app and ask the developer to upload a new build with a new package name , which means not keeping any of the existing users. It's happened to two of my clients in the past 6 months based on small infractions in the app metadata, but no issue with the app itself. In both cases the app was taken down with no advance notice, an…

I wonder if you could make a dummy app (a canary), submit it, and use that to test if your metadata is acceptable?

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#158

Post by mmastrac »

chedabob wrote: post #152
alex_c wrote: post #39

It is infuriating that Google's default action for these automated takedowns is to remove the app and ask the developer to upload a new build with a new package name , which means not keeping any of the existing users. It's happened to two of my clients in the past 6 months based on small infractions in the app metadata, but no issue with the app itself. In both cases the app was taken down with no advance notice, an…

Apple at least keep your app up, and it's obvious there's a human on the other end. The responses are usually pretty quick (often within minutes if you reply straight away), and you can pinky-promise to fix the issues in the next release if it's an update.

Unless you're iSH and have to go to the court of public opinion and shame Apple into doing the right thing.

Apple was going to remove the app itself.

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#159

Post by heavyset_go »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #147
worik wrote: post #66

Some one said, and was downvoted into oblivion (?)... " Yup, that's about how much effort I expected them to put into their app store: absolutely nothing beyond cheap, automated heuristics. Why invest in a decent ecosystem when you're one of the two options in town? I'm about an inch away from throwing my phone in the river and switching to a GPS-only device for navigating in my car. All the convenience a mobile devi…

I literally own a pinephone so dont misunderstand me as disagreeing, but you could always just stay on Android and use F-Droid.

Google put limits in Android such that the Play Store is the only app distribution method that can implement background installation of apps, batch installations of apps and automatic upgrading.

F-Droid provides those features only if you're able to root your phone, which manufacturers actively try to stop users from doing. Also, rooting your phone opens it up to vulnerabilities and exploits.

Re: Suspended from Google Play for listing supported subtitle formats

#160

Post by tpmx »

darkwater wrote: post #144

So, the masters of machine learning, where most of.human work is automates, who employ the finest brains in the CS world use... a stop words list to flag an app as indecent? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm really surprised.

It means the Google Play store is something they don't care that much about.
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