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Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

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Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#51

Post by unityByFreedom »

simion314 wrote: post #43
throwaways885 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What political agenda?

When the giants banned that app after the incidents in 6 January in US, you see a lot of comment like "free markets" and build your own platform from scratch including banks, ISPs and hosting. P.S. I am not from US so I am not in a blue or red camp, I just don't like it when some big corporation can lock you out of your account, decide what books you can read, what apps you can install or brick your application/devic…

I'm fine with banning apps that permit organizing violent insurrection in response to independently certified elections.

That isn't the case here however and I expect some resolution will come.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#52

Post by bawolff »

wheresmycraisin wrote: post #29
bawolff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unrealistic if your target is android phones. You can wax poetic about the idea of an independent app store all you want, it doesn't change the facts on the ground in the current moment.

Or you can just make a web app. Unless you are doing games or anything requiring lower-level hardware access, like a bluetooth scanner or something.

You mean that thing which google controls 90% of the rendering engines for? [Yes, they have much less power, but its not exactly independence either]

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#53

Post by euph0ria »

The company I work for has forbidden the use of Google and their services such as GCP etc. due to how they treat their Play Store developers and other customer, in particular that there never seems to be any human being that you can talk to and find out what you need to do to fix the situation. We do not want the same to occur to our servers or if there is an overflow from Play Store ban to GCP etc. The business risk is too high when you rely on Google's services.

Some examples:

Terraria banned - https://twitter.com/Demilogic/status/1358661840402845696

New project banned - https://medium.com/@amton15127/why-you-should-not-use-fireba...

Google bans company - https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_gettin...

Google bans mail - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm

Ban app for communicating changes during covid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447

Adwords ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224791

Serverpunch bad support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609

Delete app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20826618

Google bans game with pandemic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073

Google bans dev with no recourse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197357

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#54

Post by em-bee »

nguyenkien wrote: post #46
arkitaip wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stop there? Web apps can trivially be taken down if your domain registrar, hosting provider, datacenter partner or payment solution decides to kick you out.

There many hosting provider, datacenter, payment gatway to choose from. But just 2 appstore to use (technically android can have as many as you want, but how many pp use 3rd store right now?)

compare to china where google is blocked, which as a result has dozens of competing appstores. each phone brand has their own, and then some.

i do believe that if google didn't have an appstore that it forces android licensees to use, then we would have a similar variety of appstores world wide.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#55

Post by throwaways885 »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #51
simion314 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the giants banned that app after the incidents in 6 January in US, you see a lot of comment like "free markets" and build your own platform from scratch including banks, ISPs and hosting. P.S. I am not from US so I am not in a blue or red camp, I just don't like it when some big corporation can lock you out of your account, decide what books you can read, what apps you can install or brick your application/devic…

I'm fine with banning apps that permit organizing violent insurrection in response to independently certified elections. That isn't the case here however and I expect some resolution will come.

Why didn't the primary app involved banned then?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/facebook-far-righ...

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#56

Post by sunshineforever »

panpanna wrote: post #11

Daily reminder that your business/project/hobby should not depend on anything controlled by Google. Edit: Despite all their shortcomings, I wouldn't mind seeing android phone makers join force and create an independent app store.

There are independent app stores.

The problem with the Parler situation is more that their average user is too incompetent and inexperienced with computers to understand how to download something that isn't literally laid out in front of them.

I refuse to use Google Play or create a google account so I use The Aurora Store which replaces the Google Play Store.

If I want to download some independent apps I head to F droid store or Aptoide.

There are even more independent and alternative app stores, but these are the ones I use.

Oh, and don't forget about github and app downloads directly from the web.

F droid allows you to install without Google play.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#57

Post by orborde »

toastal wrote: post #42

It won't solve these issues with gatekeepers fundamentally and doesn't work for all cases, but embracing PWAs means anyone can click the 'install' button for your application and side step some of this nonsense while getting a fairly robust feature set.

What is a PWA?

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#58

Post by Blikkentrekker »

tommilukkarinen wrote: post #16

This is the other side of the Play-store problem. The other side is the tax. Play store employee can ban your app = destroy your business at any time. The reason can be 'new policy', 'misunderstanding' or something more problematic, such as influence from your competitor to the employee. A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away from some random employee.

> A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away from some random employee.

It exists everywhere, it is called monopoly and this is only an example thereof.

Businesses could also, for instance, be destroyed by ARM Holdings refusing to license the ARM architecture to them, or Valve deciding to pull a game from Steam.

Especially with technology, there are a great deal of monopolies that exist.

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#59

Post by brodo »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #32

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This…

OMG. This is as bad or even worse than Texas or California...

Re: Our app was banned because the button says “Report User” and not just “Report”

#60

Post by Blikkentrekker »

panpanna wrote: post #11

Daily reminder that your business/project/hobby should not depend on anything controlled by Google. Edit: Despite all their shortcomings, I wouldn't mind seeing android phone makers join force and create an independent app store.

> Daily reminder that your business/project/hobby should not depend on anything controlled by Google.

So said by the ideologist, not by the businessman.

It is an unavoidable reality in many cases, for those who wish to remain afloat.

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