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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

#81

Post by ww520 »

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…

"frequently returned item" = "frequently uninstalled app"

Fewer installed is not it.

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

#82

Post by throwaway743 »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #63
throwaway743 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you just get away with modifying something small, uploading the update, then revert the change, and reupload? Either way, it's nonsense that they force this, especially for those who made an app however long ago and just uploaded and forgot about, or that version was the only one they intended to make. It's crazy how much Google gets away with bullying us.

Not OP, but depending on the industry, this could be enormous amounts of backend work. I have projects that needs to be validated, which effectively means a huge amount of human testing for any change. The Process is confirmed to work on version X.Y.Z and nothing else.

Ah interesting. Even so for like a small styling change?

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

#83

Post by Modified3019 »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #63
throwaway743 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you just get away with modifying something small, uploading the update, then revert the change, and reupload? Either way, it's nonsense that they force this, especially for those who made an app however long ago and just uploaded and forgot about, or that version was the only one they intended to make. It's crazy how much Google gets away with bullying us.

Not OP, but depending on the industry, this could be enormous amounts of backend work. I have projects that needs to be validated, which effectively means a huge amount of human testing for any change. The Process is confirmed to work on version X.Y.Z and nothing else.

I imagine that if this sort of bullheaded google policy persists, companies will start adding “piñatas” into their code that have no real impact and can be changed with barely any validation required.

This lets google beat the version numbers out of it at will.

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

#85

Post by Arelius »

anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

Ugh, on both mobile platforms, we have/had multiple popular games that their updates keep breaking, and they keep deprecating SDKs for. And each game is at on a different engine revision so we can't combone the work. We'd really like to keep these games up for for our mobile players, but we can't justify the cost, we make some money on these platforms, but nothing that justifies the immense cost.

Meanwhile, our console/steam/gog builds have seen an update or so at our discretion, and have just continued to run happily, and make more money.

Honestly it's hard to justify the maintenance effort to even consider porting out next games to mobile.

But really the people who are hurt are our players that already bought our game, but when the upgrade phones or OSes they no longer have an option to play unless they want to transfer their licenses to PC.

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

#86

Post by pyrale »

arghwhat wrote: post #71
anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

[flagged]

[flagged]

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

#87

Post by erikerikson »

arghwhat wrote: post #71
anilakar wrote: post #57

Our company just got a warning that we have sixty days to release something on Play or have our developer console account closed. The email made it pretty clear that Google wants developers to continuously push new versions to customers. We have no new features nor bug fixes in backlog. There is nothing to update. The only purpose of our software is to control hardware that our company makes. Nobody uses it for fun,…

[flagged]

What is the threat vector here?

User installs the game, has fun, uninstalls or leaves it there where only they can run it.

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

#88

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

Off-topic to the comments here, I am impressed by how the poster has described their issue so eloquently!

They mentioned 6 reasons for why they have an issue with the banner : each of the 6 is a valid concern and put very eloquently and clearly.

I suppose I only noticed this because I am used to speaking/writing/reading/listening mid-quality English in day-to-day life as a programmer.

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

#89

Post by ChuckMcM »

This article and the comments here are kind of scary. It feels like Google's only supporting apps that "drive engagement". That sounds like they want to force developers into producing stuff they can show ads in because they need more ads, not like they need more apps.

It also feels a bit like how software people STILL haven't figured out how to deal with a product that has a finite development cycle. Which is to say, a piece of code that is done and doesn't need any changes. You don't have Hardware stores forcing supply companies to come out with a new version of shovel every year right? A shovel is a shovel. There are probably 8 different types for various uses and within those perhaps two or three variants. So 24 or 30 variant of 'shovel' and your done. Some software can be like that too.

The subtext though that Google is actively hurting their developers for unspecified goals which look like they are desperate to make more money but it certainly could be some other thing. It reminds me of all the wailing about people whose web pages fell in the rankings because they hadn't been "updated" but when you've got the most useful description of say the scientific method on the web, why should you need to update that? It hasn't changed. And yet the 'older' your page got, the lower and lower it ranked.

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