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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

#31

Post by csomar »

robertlagrant wrote: post #21
pk97 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt they're aware of you enough to do it behind your back. They're more wanting to flag this "Bank of 4merica" app you're about to install has 8 other users.

I think "Bank of 4merica" shouldn't have been there in the first place. Especially for a store that is running billions of $$ worth of transactions. This is Google, again, pushing a cost that it has to pay to external actors.

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

#32

Post by kitallis »

_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.

the Apple App Store has always required a DUNS number.

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

#33

Post by csomar »

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…

Apples/Oranges. The equivalent of "frequently returned item" is "frequently reported app"

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

#34

Post by suddenexample »

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 even think about unseating the dominant players."

Google's Play Store policies have been harebrained for quite some time - previously with the 15 reviewer approach they decided to make it even harder for developers with fewer resources to distribute their apps. It's ironic that even though the iOS App Store is arguably more of a walled garden, it's so much friendlier to human beings who are trying to build a product. But at this point it seems ingrained in Google to release self-defeating features (remember the finder network that prioritized "first of its kind privacy" over being able to find things?)

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

#35

Post by ceejayoz »

kitallis wrote: post #32
_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.

the Apple App Store has always required a DUNS number.

No, it hasn't, and doesn't.

https://developer.apple.com/help/account/membership/D-U-N-S/

> If you’re enrolling as an individual, you don’t need a D‑U‑N‑S Number.

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

#36

Post by pkaye »

poincaredisk wrote: post #14
_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?

Its an EU DSA requirement for app stores to display information about developers publicly available. Apple is also doing it. And I guess these companies are applying the requirement worldwide unless some countries are opposed to it.

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

#37

Post by rockyj »

All this just confirms for me the fact that how important the web is, thankfully it is still open / neutral and a good mobile web app is important for smaller devs.

Thankfully the web has always been neutral, which has allowed all these monopolies to thrive and exploit it, otherwise who knows which proprietary app hell we would be in.

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

#38

Post by tlogan »

It would be great if they added something like a “frequently uninstalled app” label. That’s much more helpful for users. But I get why Google prefers this kind of warning — it supports their ad business.

(I really want “frequently uninstalled” label for games: because games are very often 100% different than what they show or describe)

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