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Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

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Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#441

Post by dbtqgoat »

echelon wrote: post #242
laingc wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, as an iOS user, I do not want the App Store opened up at all. Currently, I can go to the App Store, install any app, and be about 99.9% confident that the app will do me (or my technologically illiterate mother) absolutely no harm. This is something I value highly, and am happy to pay the “Apple premium” for.

I don't want to live in your locked-down Disney with the death sentence world. That's fine for you to want it, but don't impose it on me. I want freedom and liberty to do what I want with the devices I own. I want to develop without fear that these two megacorps can shut me down on a whim for developing something against their ideology. The web isn't like that. Windows wasn't like that. Today we live in a Fischer-Pri…

You goofball, you can still install any app on iOS devices, you just have to trust the developer in your settings.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#442

Post by mcguire »

zaroth wrote: post #367
mirimir wrote: post #210

The Google and Apple app stores and support services ought to be regulated as public utilities. Because they effectively constitute a duopoly regarding apps for mobile devices. That would prevent them from arbitrarily refusing to provide services and list apps in their stores. They could refuse, but only for permitted reasons, and with a clear appeal process. The Public Utility Commission of Texas has a pretty clear…

The Google and Apple App Stores generate ~$100 billion in annual revenue combined, and growing at about 25% per year. The App Stores are the greatest software distribution and monetization platforms ever created, second perhaps only to “The Internet” as a whole. Regulating the App Stores as some sort of utility sounds like the perfect way to stifle growth and make it more difficult and expensive to publish on the App…

...until it's your app that has been removed, your company that is going out of business, and the response from the rest of the technological world is, "Eh, collateral damage. Too bad."

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#443

Post by judge2020 »

shims wrote: post #420
kec wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this analogy it sounds like google is a bus, which is... fine? Maybe not for you but what’s wrong with busses for those who don’t care about flexibility?

People buy busses because they're busses. Almost noone buys a phone because it's super locked down and some company decides when it's too old and can't install apps from the app store anymore.

FWIW Apple devices can still download apps from multiple versions back (my ipad mini can download apps on ios 9), developers might just set a minimum OS requirement if they use certain new APIs.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#444

Post by inimino »

mindslight wrote: post #417
jimmydddd wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the computer printer industry a ways back. The printer companies tried to make this argument with respect to blocking generic ink cartridges from being used on their printers. They argued that they needed to limit to the manufactuerer's cartridges to guarantee a good user experience.

The scary thing is that these companies aren't simply being disingenuous - they earnestly believe this. A company takes for granted that they are good actors, and that their customers' interests are perfectly aligned with their own. With those assertions, increasing their control can only mean a better ability to make things good/safe/simple for their customers. But that is an authoritarian delusion. Because real dif…

Well put!

Bad intentions are not necessary to build an authoritarian system. All it takes is enough good-intentioned people being unaware of the system they are building and their role in it.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#445

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

JohnBooty wrote: post #421
echelon wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to live in your locked-down Disney with the death sentence world. That's fine for you to want it, but don't impose it on me. I want freedom and liberty to do what I want with the devices I own. I want to develop without fear that these two megacorps can shut me down on a whim for developing something against their ideology. The web isn't like that. Windows wasn't like that. Today we live in a Fischer-Pri…

Windows wasn't like that. Yeah, and it was an absolute disaster. Until very recently (Win7, roughly, or perhaps Vista) near every Windows install -- unless it had been locked down by an administrator, or maintained by a power user -- was an absolute cesspool of malware and outright spyware. The average Windows machine was literally unsafe to use. That's fine for you to want it, but don't impose it on me. Essentially…

I'd rather have all software sandboxed by default. It's a much better solution than walled gardens or "blessed" packages.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#446

Post by v7p1Qbt1im »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #317
v7p1Qbt1im wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically you are giving Google to much credit. There is no real way to improve enforcement. At this insane scale, and with the extreme level of sophistication from scammers, and the privacy expectation from users it‘s almost impossible to do more than they are. Someone else said it further up. They can‘t just let employees snoop around in personably identifying data. Nor would you want that, right? The fact is, as…

The problem here is the assumption that scaling up is inherently good and okay, and not being able to enforce good behavior at a certain scale is just an unfortunate and unavoidable result. If enforcement can't be managed at that scale, things of that scale should be shut down. Platforms are not an inherent good.

I don’t know. Take YouTube. For all its faults, it has enabled countless people to make a living, or helped artists get noticed. I personally feel having the option for everyone to publish content without prohibitive cost or other barriers is a massive achievement.

Sure you could go back to selfhosting. But monetization and, more importantly, discovery will not work that way.

Or we go back to the days of yesteryear with vetted and sanitized gatekeepers (also beholden to advertisers) in place.

So yeah. Until there is a empathetic, nuanced AGI/ASI in charge of policing content there’s not gonna be a good solution. That might take longer than a while.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#447

Post by inimino »

kec wrote: post #406
umvi wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to stay with cars, it’s like Google saying when you buy their car, you are only allowed to go to 6 pre determined destinations in their vehicles. It's more like, when you buy a car, you are only allowed to go to Google-approved destinations. You are allowed to submit a new destination for consideration, but ultimately google can decide if you are allowed to go there or not.

In this analogy it sounds like google is a bus, which is... fine? Maybe not for you but what’s wrong with busses for those who don’t care about flexibility?

And there are only two bus companies, most consumers have never seen a car, and the two bus companies have a lock on the technology and supply chain and aren't interested in promoting cars because cars would jeopardize their business models.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#448

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

mirimir wrote: post #382
badrequest wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I agree that mobile apps are on the same level as electricity and internet connectivity in terms of how crucial they are to be productive citizenry.

For app developers, they certainly are.

This is why everything is made from corn in the US.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#449

Post by klingonopera »

eitland wrote: post #254
Majromax wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But maybe our use cases are the outliers, and the new search is what works for most people. I think it's a probability problem more often expressed in terms of medical tests / false positives. If a million people search for but 1% of those make a typo and search for instead, whereas a thousand people deliberately search for , Google's observation of a search for is 90% likely to be a typo. However well-intentioned,…

The real problem here is that Google does this even when we use double quotes and the verbatim option :-/ I switched to DDG a while ago, -it is about as good as Google now, much thanks to Googles own effort ower the last decade to nerf its own search engine. Since they are now about equal I use the one that doesn't track me and doesn't support Google.

I've been using DDG for about half a year now, most of the time it does its job, but just yesterday, there was a case where I had to run back to Google: Searching for the "Ship of Theseus" with the words "ship replaced part by part" on Google lead me straight to the Wiki article, whereas on DDG...

Not sure if they're using a statistical (DDG could never compete, too few searches performed) or an algorithmic (DDG could, in time, get this far too) pattern to achieve correct results.

EDIT: It's about the tenth result on DDG, the last one to show before having to click to load more results. Not bad, actually.

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