[HN Gopher] Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of ...
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Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last year
Author : GeekyBear
Score : 205 points
Date : 2025-04-30 19:03 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| fidotron wrote:
| > One factor Google didn't cite was the new trader status rule
| enforced by the EU as of this February, which began requiring
| developers to share their names and addresses in the app's
| listing.
|
| Yep, it was probably that.
| Aerroon wrote:
| This effectively kills apps that are made by individuals or
| very small businesses that can't afford an office.
|
| It's kind of incredible how the EU makes changes like this and
| then politicians scratch their heads about the weakness of
| European tech. You would think that the politicians would give
| some thought to that and make it easier/cheaper to fulfill
| these requirements, but nope. Either pay up for a company
| (hundreds of euros) and an office (hundreds of euros) or just
| have your information publicly available.
|
| And when that information becomes publicly available you will
| be inundated with spam.
|
| On top of that some services will then take Google street view
| pictures of your home and link all of that information together
| in an easily searchable database.
| leonidasv wrote:
| Apparently you can use a P.O. Box as address for this
| purpose[0] when registering for AppStore, which is
| substantially cheaper. However, Reddit says Google does not
| accept P.O. Boxes [1], so the only option is a "virtual"
| office address or something like that. A shame.
|
| [0] https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-
| connect/manage-co...
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/FlutterDev/comments/1f4nmny/comm
| ent...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > the EU makes changes like this
|
| The actual change is not by the EU, but by Google who
| interprets a EU directive and decides how to apply it to its
| platform.
|
| This is a big difference, in that the EU requires a verified
| _contact_ address for _traders_ operating on a marketplace.
|
| From there. Google deciding to blanket require onerous
| verification on anyone publishing any app is Google's call
| and they should get the blame for it.
|
| For comparison you get a different application of the same
| rules on the AppStore, and none of that for F-Droid.
| sschueller wrote:
| My personal phone number is listed on Google play because I
| could not get my business number verified. I tried for weeks.
| cyral wrote:
| Almost the same here until they let us verify by document.
| Can't receive texts to our support number, and also can't get
| the verification code by phone since there is a "Press 1 for
| ___" thing at the beginning of the call.
| dusted wrote:
| Yep, this is why I dropped out.
| trunch wrote:
| I'm usually very supportive of EU tech regulation, but to be
| honest I don't really want to put my name and address up on
| apps I throw up on the store
|
| Would like to keep my identity separate to whatever projects I
| have usually, especially if they're ones that don't 100% align
| with the your own developer brand that employers might screen
| for
| ragnese wrote:
| I have the same mentality as you. But, rather than form an
| opinion on whatever EU regulation is being interpreted as
| "requiring" these steps from Google et al, I think I'm going
| to assert that it's a red herring.
|
| The real issue, IMO, is that it's still too hard to
| distribute and install applications on my general-purpose
| computing devices! You can't be on Google's app store if you
| aren't a "real business" with a physical address and
| everything? Fine. Let's just distribute our apps on F-Droid,
| or by just releasing APKs in our GitHub pages, etc.
|
| At least that's still possible with Android. But who knows
| how much longer they'll even allow that?
| LPisGood wrote:
| I think the issue may be thinking of your phone, running a
| non-open OS, as a general-purpose computing device.
| braiamp wrote:
| Yeah, if you have a market that can be installed by the
| user without passing through a marketplace. The EU
| regulation gets blamed, but that's not the actual issue.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Presumably F-Droid is subject to the same regulatory
| requirements, so in this case it is directly the regulation
| to blame.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| F-Droid isn't in the same business, and doesn't sell
| apps, so it's not subject to the same regulatory
| requirements.
| phatfish wrote:
| Yawn.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| That's probably where F-Droid is a better choice in the first
| place ?
|
| Google Play (and the App store) assume by default commercial
| intent, and I'm sympathetic to stricter verification rules
| when there's money changing hands.
| colechristensen wrote:
| > I don't really want to put my name and address up on apps I
| throw up on the store
|
| As a customer I really want the ability to sue someone who
| does me wrong, call them out publicly, or at least avoid
| their products. In no way is it reasonable that someone
| should want to stay anonymous while selling me something (or
| profiting off of it in one way or another). I really don't
| see a reason to make an exception for people who have
| free+offline+etc apps.
|
| You're publishing software, you need to be identifiable.
| tslocum wrote:
| Several FOSS apps of mine were removed from Google Play because
| of this. I wrote about one solution for other affected
| developers here:
|
| https://rocket9labs.com/post/on-the-importance-of-f-droid/
| stringtoint wrote:
| Agreed. My 3 free apps, one with +100k downloads were also
| removed because of the EU ruling. Don't want my personal
| address and phone number to be more accessible to bad actors
| more than it already is. While I can somewhat follow the idea,
| the execution in practice has serious flaws.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Instead of only banning broken apps that crashed, wouldn't
| install, or run properly, the company said it would begin banning
| apps that demonstrated "limited functionality and content." That
| included static apps without app-specific features, such as text-
| only apps or PDF-file apps. It also included apps that provided
| little content, like those that only offered a single wallpaper.
| Additionally, Google banned apps that were designed to do nothing
| or have no function, which may have been tests or other abandoned
| developer efforts.
|
| Sounds like it was a purge of zero value apps. Why was Google
| allowing these legions of unusable and/or garbage apps in their
| store in the first place? Someone padding their numbers?
| ozim wrote:
| Because we want people to be able to create trash apps and
| publish them.
|
| Just like we want people to create trash blogs and trash
| websites so they can learn or just express themselves.
|
| Having 3rd world devs making more todo apps is not optimal but
| they should be able to do that and publish them.
|
| Preventing all of that also prevents good small time community
| apps because suddenly you have to pay money and can't just do
| nice app for local communities.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Because we want people to be able to create trash apps and
| publish them.
|
| That's a moot point, though, since you don't _need_ Google 's
| app store to publish apps. You can just send whatever random
| APK you throw together to your friend, post them on your web
| site, etc. There's no reason to turn the Play Store into a
| dumpster.
|
| If anything the fact that you can sideload on Android and
| install alternative stores means the Play Store should be at
| least as selective as Apple's store, if not more so, since
| failure to meet that store's standards doesn't mean the app
| can't be distributed elsewhere.
| arielcostas wrote:
| You need to if you want people to be able to discover your
| application or receive updates automatically (or with a
| single click) instead of having to reimplement the wheel
| with an update checker in your application, as well as
| logic to limit what countries/markets and devices you
| serve.
|
| Especially when you consider the hassle for the average
| user of going into Chrome, downloading your APK, accepting
| the big scary messages that "the application comes from an
| untrusted source" and "sideloading applications can be
| dangerous" and then installing it. People barely even like
| going into Google Play to download stuff.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Other app stores can also automatically update.
|
| If your app is so low effort that even the off brand app
| stores don't want to host it, I'm going to guess that
| you're probably also not overly concerned about sending
| your users automatic updates anyway.
|
| > People barely even like going into Google Play to
| download stuff.
|
| This might have something to do with the lack of
| curation, though. Hence, losing a bunch of apps is
| actually beneficial to the ecosystem. As that snippet was
| pointing out, lots of these apps were just basic wrappers
| for text/pdf, which is is what the web and/or built-in
| media viewer apps are for.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Well PlayStation, Nintendo, etc don't just let anyone publish
| anything. I see no reason to force them to lower their
| standards for trash shovelware. As long as you can still
| sideload apps, it's their store and they can set their own
| standards.
| brulard wrote:
| Where do you set the bar for "good enough" app? It makes sense
| to allow shitty apps and let the reputation grow somehow.
| Lammy wrote:
| This is because they removed any app from any individual-human
| developer who didn't care to jump through the hoops of getting
| and submitting a DUNS number: https://android-
| developers.googleblog.com/2023/07/boosting-t...
|
| "On August 31, we'll start rolling out these requirements for
| anyone creating new Play Console developer accounts. In October,
| we'll share more information with existing developers about how
| to update and verify existing accounts."
|
| Source: happened to me and all of my apps despite them being Free
| Software and offline-only. Here's one of the emails they sent me
| about it: https://i.imgur.com/dVzQj2p.jpeg
|
| Notice how they open with "Hi Developers at [my first and last
| name]" - developer _s_ , plural, and "at" like they only expect
| me to be a company and not a single person.
| cyral wrote:
| The DUNS number thing is such a disaster even for companies
| with it. We had a the account under a DUNS of a subsidiary but
| somehow they wanted us to upload verification docs for the main
| company, of course not matching exactly how they expect, and
| there is no way to change it without jumping through a bunch of
| hoops. Similar issues at Apple. Eventually they let us verify
| the account with "company letterhead" as if that proves
| anything (despite them insisting the letterhead needs to say
| dev@company.com instead of support@company.com, again proving
| nothing really)
|
| For both Apple and Google it's one of those processes where the
| support doesn't even really seem to understand how it works
| (they probably don't know what automated emails are being sent,
| and what the dev side looks like). They would randomly close
| cases for "no response" immediately after they replied, ask us
| to upload something despite their being no way to upload it,
| tell us to ignore the "your account will be closed email"
| because it actually won't be (wrong again), etc.
|
| DUNS own lookup page doesn't even let you look up by DUNS
| number (so we could figure out what company some ancient number
| was associated with). I bet it's because you have to pay for
| one of their "solutions" to do this.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Validation issues happen all the time for subsidiaries when
| the parent company likes to own/manage things. Always fun
| when e.g. EV certificate validation ( _sigh_ windows update
| stuff) calls the parent company reception and asks for the
| manager listed as owner, and they just go "who?".
| geraldcombs wrote:
| The One Weird Trick I learned was to to get a company
| attorney to write a professional opinion letter saying that
| you are indeed authorized to get a cert on behalf of your
| company.
| jll29 wrote:
| It seems like to Google, "customers" will only ever be
| anonymous data points in an A/B test.
|
| They would have gone down quickly if they hadn't "borrowed"
| Overture's business model of paid ads.
|
| They have no culture of valuing the customers, or (like
| Amazon) obsessing about what they need.
|
| Apple is at least slightly different: hardware customers and
| high-value employees are treated okay from what I hear, but
| devs are left alone.
|
| Indie developers bring both Apple and Google a lot of revenue
| indirectly, but they don't really have much of a lobby (maybe
| they should unionize/hire a lobby firm together).
| 827a wrote:
| Yeah, DUNS numbers are super easy IME for companies to get,
| but its hell after that. We had some crazy problems with the
| App Store where our legal address with DUNS didn't match what
| we provided Apple, even though we had updated it with D&B,
| but Apple's systems weren't pulling in that update, Apple
| told us to talk to D&B, D&B told us to talk to Apple... we
| ended up literally just making a new corporation and starting
| from scratch.
| huxley wrote:
| The last time I dealt with that they were still updating
| DUNS batch data via an FTP
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| If it's secure and frequent, e.g. daily, I'd think that
| approach is good enough.
| shakna wrote:
| FTP is not secure.
|
| And when companies say they use FTP to exchange data,
| they don't tend to mean SFTP. They really do mean FTP.
| ddingus wrote:
| Ah the specter of EDI!
|
| I first encountered Electronic Data Interchange in the
| early 90's. The small shop I worked for at the time had
| no idea and just wanted to make the parts they quoted and
| send them when done.
|
| The EDI request came in a box, with external modem, a
| paper with phone number and directions and then a smaller
| box with PROGRESS database software for MSDOS in side and
| a handful of disks containing the EDI system.
|
| Good lord that was painful! I just plowed through it and
| all that pain completed a check box at Honeywell, who
| then sent us jobs electronically!
|
| Yes, via FTP.
|
| The CAD they were sending was Computer Vision and it was
| a full on solid model representation! At the time we were
| running CAD from the early enlightenment, CADKEY 3.5 for
| MSDOS!
|
| Our best micro computer lacked the storage to handle the
| uncompressed file, which arrived on another handful of
| floppies that formed a multi part. Zip file, which
| uncompressed totaled about 40 megabytes and change!
| Entire systems only had 20!
|
| The CAD system failed to translate the data too. 16bit
| pointers lacked the range needed. They had me fetch a
| patch a day or two later and it took a few hours to do.
|
| 300 kilobytes of wireframe CAD, and the parts we made
| were basically 5 percent of that data!
|
| Crazy times!
| zoky wrote:
| > _FTP is not secure._
|
| FTP can be as secure as any other protocol. Enabling
| encryption on the server side is generally as simple as
| installing a certificate and turning on an option. And
| most FTP clients will default to using encryption if it
| is available; for the clients that don't do that, it's
| just another server option to require clients to use
| encryption.
|
| > _And when companies say they use FTP to exchange data,
| they don 't tend to mean SFTP. They really do mean FTP._
|
| Because SFTP is a different and entirely unrelated
| protocol. The encrypted version of FTP is sometimes known
| as FTPS, but it's really just a variant of FTP. So it
| would be inaccurate to call it SFTP, but referring to it
| as simply FTP doesn't imply a lack of security.
| robotnikman wrote:
| That's still a common way for businesses to exchange
| information with each other
| echelon wrote:
| Both Apple and Google need to be regulated. Their vice grip
| on app distribution, app defaults, search defaults, payments
| defaults, user credential saving defaults, messaging
| defaults, browser defaults, and then their brutal taxation of
| almost all web e-commerce and businesses is beyond the scale
| of whatever Standard Oil had.
|
| You cannot do business on the Internet without paying the
| Apple and Google toll. They control all the points of ingress
| and egress, and they tax everything that moves.
|
| It'd be bad enough if they were just charging money, but they
| also make you jump through hoops to design software their
| way, do unplanned upgrades to their cadence, prevent you from
| deploying emergency hot patches, prevent you from updating
| software dynamically, prevent you from knowing your own
| customer, etc. etc. etc.
|
| And they're happy to sell your competitors ads to outrank you
| for your own trademark.
|
| These companies need to lose their control over this. Web
| distributed apps must become the norm.
|
| You can't tell me that with sandboxing, signature scanning,
| and some clever heuristics, that we can't make mobile
| completely safe for free and open distribution.
| MatthiasPortzel wrote:
| This requirement is the result of EU regulation.
| Lammy wrote:
| It's Google's decision to enforce it worldwide. I'm not
| in Europe, and most of my apps' users were not in Europe.
| achierius wrote:
| It's really hard to know that for sure. Why risk
| antitrust lawsuits or European fines because you tried to
| do the bare minimum?
| ghurtado wrote:
| Weird flex, but OK.
| Lammy wrote:
| Do you think I somehow personally chose where my apps
| would be more popular or less popular? If they wanted to
| cut off my apps in only European regions due to European
| regs it would be disappointing but understandable.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Are you sure Europe wont sue you for europeans using it
| with a VON or europeans outside europe using it? Because
| I am not sure they wouldn't sue.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yeah for real, if you have a holding company for the one
| asset, the app, these stores make it a nightmare to manage
| some normal best practices
| eitally wrote:
| This happens to Google Cloud partners all the time, too, when
| there are acquisitions, mergers, or DBAs where the legal
| business entity changes even though the practical
| relationship stays the same (with the same people, same
| contact details, same billing/payment accounts, same contract
| terms, etc). It's extremely irritating.
| arghwhat wrote:
| I haven't tried the specific flow for private individuals
| (seems to just be a radio button), but I do recall getting DUNS
| numbers as just filling in an online form with name and
| location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for
| fees.
|
| A bit silly to require for private individuals, and a bit
| annoying to have to go back and do, but not itself a big deal.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an
| online form with name and location and getting the number by
| mail, without any hoops for fees
|
| Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero hoops
| is too many. I got nothing out of having my apps on Google
| Play except the joy of sharing in what was at the time a new
| and exciting medium.
|
| See Windows Phone for a great example of how it would have
| played out if Google hadn't successfully courted small-time
| devs like me and countless others. Corporate publishers would
| have never colonized Google Play in the first place if an
| audience wasn't already there. The way they addressed me
| makes it very clear that solo devs are no longer needed, so I
| will never submit to it on principle no matter how easy it's
| claimed to be.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Going through hoops usually refer to an excessive effort.
|
| Having to go through between zero (it you have needed the
| number before) and one free forms from a standard entity to
| get a widely recognized identifier used for many things is
| objectively not an excessive effort.
|
| Sharing apps on app stores is a continuous commitment with
| various responsibilities like, such as ensuring safety of
| users through regular maintenance. If the idea if
| submitting one number is too much of a burden given the
| joy/finances you get out of it, then the rest of the
| maintenance responsibilities likely are too and maybe it's
| better to skip the publishing part.
|
| Not sure what you're on about with corporate colonization.
| Colonizing implies forcefully taking what was rightfully
| someone elses. Also, in many places, making a company is
| just a form and standard practice even if you're just going
| to sell a single bogus app for 0.99 USD or whatever, so
| even individuals will be "corporations".
| Lammy wrote:
| Spare me your """safety""" FUD and your moralizing
| language please. My responsibilities were set out in the
| license text and are not up for you to debate:
| https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html#section15
| arghwhat wrote:
| No they were set out in the contract you agreed to when
| publishing which has commitments and grants entirely
| orthogonal to your source license. Plus certain moral
| obligations to society.
|
| Your license text is only capable of adding supplementary
| rights, and you're responsible for ensuring that your
| source license is fully compatible with the contract at
| time of publishing.
|
| If you just want to dump stuff, leave it on GitHub.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| While I believe some of the (App|Play Store) requirements
| with DUN numbers and such are overkill and unnecessary, I
| also agree that there's maybe a bit too much of a
| tendency for devs (commercial and indie alike) to take
| advantage of less restrictive means of distribution to
| "dump and run", where they toss a binary over the wall
| and forget the project even exists for long stretches of
| time, even as bugs and vulnerabilities accumulate.
|
| This worked alright in the 90s and to a more limited
| extent in the 2000s, but from the 2010s onward it's
| become more and more untenable except for the most
| simplistic of software, especially when it comes to
| anything dealing with the internet or externally sourced
| files. Regular maintenance and updates are an unavoidable
| fact of life for devs.
|
| So I'm kind of two minds here. Lower resistance/barrier
| to entry can be good in terms of encouraging
| participation, but it also inevitably means a lot more
| neglected projects sitting around rusting. If there's no
| effort to control that, platforms can easily become
| filled with rusty half-functional apps. The way that
| Apple/Google are attempting to do this is not great
| however because it's too oriented towards companies.
| Keyframe wrote:
| _Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero
| hoops is too many._
|
| For sure, but it's a KYC for companies. How else would you
| expect B2B dealings and compliance to go through? They
| could do tax ids per country, but with DUNS, compared to
| local tax id, they get global ultimate beneficial owner as
| well as other insights. Getting a DUNS is free and
| relatively fast, unless you're in a hurry then there's a
| faster route that costs some relatively cheap amount. It's
| a common ID for global companies, especially those with
| international supply chains to rely on as "the id number"
| for companies.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| > companies
|
| I'm not a company
| arghwhat wrote:
| You read that wrong, you're the customer in Google's KYC
| (know your customer). They're the company.
| sneak wrote:
| I'm currently working with a startup that was just
| incorporated. We needed to join the Apple Developer Program to
| get APNS push certs to set up our MDM.
|
| It took over five weeks to get our ADP membership approved, and
| that was _with_ internal backchannels. We had to launch without
| MDM, all the laptops on mostly default settings.
|
| These companies are making so much money from ads and
| rentseeking and IAP cancer that they have zero incentive to do
| anything else well. They know they have a monopoly position, so
| just like the public utilities charging you an extra $2
| convenience fee to pay your bill, you'll shut up and take it,
| because they are the only game in town.
|
| You know it, and they know it, and they know you know it.
|
| At least on Android you can install f-droid. On iOS they are
| the only game in town. There's fuck-all that's "insanely great"
| about not being able to install the programs you want to use
| (such as Fortnite).
|
| It's pure rentseeking.
| pokstad wrote:
| Apple App Store has been like this since the early days
| before IAP existed. It's just how they operate.
| streptomycin wrote:
| It's not just getting a DUNS number. You also need to consent
| to having your home address (no PO box or virtual mailbox,
| needs to be a physical address for your "business") listed
| publicly on the DUNS website and on all your Google Play Store
| app pages.
|
| Other app stores are similar, so probably it's some dumb
| government regulation.
| cyberax wrote:
| Home address? They asked me for an address in a commercially
| zoned district.
| streptomycin wrote:
| They didn't explicitly ask for a home address, just a
| physical address. But for a hobbyist dev, home address is
| probably all you have so effectively that's what they're
| asking for. Or for you to rent an office somewhere, which I
| guess is what they wanted you to do by asking for a
| commercially zoned adddress.
| bcye wrote:
| It seems that is only the case should you choose to monitise
| your app, which is fair?
|
| https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
| developer/answ...
| olalonde wrote:
| No it wouldn't be "fair" and it's not just if you want to
| monetize your app. D-U-N-S number is required for developer
| account creation regardless of whether you plan to monetize
| or not.
| bcye wrote:
| I'm referring to the developer address for individual
| accounts, is there a misunderstanding? DUNS is only
| required for organizations.
| a2128 wrote:
| I created a free, offline, opensource app on Google Play,
| no monetization or payments, as an individual. When this
| change rolled out I was required to verify my identity and
| set up a payment profile or else my app and account would
| be deleted.
|
| After I went through half of the process, they showed a
| "here's what your users will see on the play store listing
| under 'About the developer' section!" This included my full
| legal name, personal email address, and country, which is
| enough information to find my home address and other
| information in public registries. This app serves an online
| community that can be quite crazy and I was absolutely not
| going to doxx myself to them. I decided I had enough of
| Google so I gave the app away to a company
| bcye wrote:
| - email address is just the one associated with the
| Google account, it sucks if you started the application
| on your personal google account, but you can still change
| it
|
| - you need a payment profile to pay the account fee +
| verify your identity, the last part is probably very
| important for anti-spam
|
| - I can understand that legal name + country can be
| considered doxxing, but I think it's highly relevant
| information for users
|
| Of course these requirements could be relaxed for low-
| risk applications (i.e. no INTERNET permission), but I
| think it's understandable there is so few of them
| nowadays that it is not a priority.
| jonas21 wrote:
| > _so probably it 's some dumb government regulation._
|
| Yeah, they need to show your address and phone number to
| comply with the EU's Digital Services Act.
|
| There's more info here (from Apple's docs, but the same
| applies to Google):
|
| https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-
| co...
| zuminator wrote:
| That link says PO Boxes are okay-?
| odo1242 wrote:
| There's even more than that, actually: if you're an individual
| developer you also need 10 people to beta-test your app for 2
| weeks, along with having your home address listed online.
| Google _really_ doesn't wan't anyone who isn't a company
| developing apps for Android lol
| bugfix wrote:
| 12 people, actually. And it's down from _20_ individual
| testers requirement from when they introduced this policy
| last year.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Yeah. I wanted to make an Android productivity tool that
| helped me but I didn't want to bother (then) 20 of my friends
| to test it.
|
| Huge hurdle if you just want to build an app.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| Ran into this myself late last year. Registered as an
| individual developer for a free, non-monetized app and had to
| find 20 people (they reduced the number since) to sign up
| (and remain signed up) as beta testers for a 2 week period to
| get the app listed.
|
| Luckily I was able to hit that number (the app is a stat
| tracking app for the game Destiny 2, so I was able to get
| beta testers via posting on a subreddit filled with Destiny 2
| PvP players). But it took way longer and was way more of a
| burden compared to getting the same app listed on both the
| Apple App Store and the Microsoft Windows Store (the app is
| written in Kotlin/Compose Multiplatform and was relatively
| easy to make multiplatform).
|
| If I didn't happen to be an Android "main" myself (creating a
| vested interest in wanting to make the Android version easily
| available) I might not have bothered with the Play Store
| hoops give how much of a pain in the ass it was compared to
| the other listings.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > Assigned by Dun & Bradstreet
|
| Uh huh, Google just blatantly requiring every app developer on
| the planet to register with some specific random company.
| Absolutely no corruption to see here, none at all.
|
| This is the kind of shit why smartphone vendors can't be
| trusted with their own walled garden stores, the EU has not yet
| stomped them into mulch hard enough yet I see.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| In what sense is that corrupt?
|
| ("dishonest or illegal behaviour", "the abuse of power or
| authority for personal gain or benefit")
| pkaye wrote:
| I thought this was an EU requirement?
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| The irony of your comment thinking the EU is going to fight
| this.
|
| The DUNS number is the European Commission standard for
| business identification; the choice of D&B isn't random, it
| literally came from EU requirements.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| Yeah, it's surprising how badly the EU as a government has
| fumbled the crucial job of business identification by
| outsourcing it to an American company.
|
| And we keep wondering about why there are so few world
| changing companies coming out of Europe. Maybe they could
| start with one that handles business identification?
| bcye wrote:
| The linked source only mentions DUNS only being required for
| organization accounts, not individuals? And I've recently
| successfully created an account (albeit haven't published an
| app yet) without one?
| greatgib wrote:
| Exactly, I happened to have long running apps, in the store, I
| didn't update them for some time but they were simple and
| working as designed, good for their job.
|
| Suddenly there was this weird obligation to declare a company
| or disclose publicly info about me, so i did nothing and it
| expired, and they removed the app.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I did not know that and that's preposterous, but I don't think
| that is the only reason or even the biggest one.
|
| The android store had a whole lot of garbage in it, and a lot
| of it was the kind that is easy to find and remove.
| dusted wrote:
| Yeah, I dropped my apps from Play, couldn't find a way to avoid
| putting my personal address on there.. fuck that, I'm making
| something for free, and they force me to dox myself for it? Nah,
| I'm good.
| brap wrote:
| By "they", you mean the EU?
| healsdata wrote:
| The EU regulations don't exclude P.O. Boxes. Google choose to
| add that requirement.
| uwemaurer wrote:
| Here is a chart with the number of Android Apps in Google Play
| (over time): https://www.appbrain.com/stats/number-of-android-
| apps
| delduca wrote:
| I had an app on the Play Store, but I took it down. Bureaucracy
| isn't for me.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Another factor:
|
| > Google also just increased the target API level requirement for
| apps on the Google Play Store
|
| https://tech.yahoo.com/phones/articles/google-plays-rules-ki...
|
| We also saw established apps like iA Writer decide to get off the
| treadmill.
|
| > In order to allow our users to access their Google Drive on
| their phones we had to rewrite privacy statements, update
| documents, and pass a series of security checks, all while facing
| a barrage of new, ever-shifting requirements.
|
| https://ia.net/topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite...
| mrj wrote:
| Yup, this caused me months of work. Many people chose not to
| bother.
| revskill wrote:
| Too late. This google store is full of scams apps.
|
| Ah no, it's intentionally made for scammers to boost the Google
| Play users.
|
| So it's worth to kill itself. Your dirty marketing tacticts is
| cheap, human become more smarter these days.
| jsnell wrote:
| For me the really unreasonable change was the app testing
| requirements on non-corporate developers. Having to get 20 users
| to beta test an unlisted Android app _for two weeks_ before
| getting it on the store is not a reasonable thing to require for
| hobby projects. I 'm not sure I even know 20 Android users well
| enough that I'd feel comfortable asking for that level of
| engagement from them.
|
| It's a particularly bad policy to launch with existing developers
| grandfathered out, because the policy probably looks really
| successful to start with due to the difference in new developer
| vs. old developer populations -- the entities who are right now
| making most of the quality apps aren't affected. What's being
| affected is the pipeline of new developers, but the effect of
| killing that pipeline won't become obvious for years.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It doesn't surprise me.
|
| There are more apps than people care about.
|
| Nowadays I only install games, or apps for services where I can't
| do otherwise.
|
| The time for "there is an app for that" is long gone, and the
| push for developers to artificially update their apps for
| whatever was presented as great Google IO innovation, or be out
| of the store, can only lead to outcomes like this.
|
| I imagine that the numbers on Appstore aren't much different.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Same. I have a bunch of Apple devices now and the only apps I
| install are vlc, kindle and brave.
| kshri24 wrote:
| Technology was supposed to get rid of most of bureaucracy and
| move the World towards automation. These FAANG companies have
| instead successfully integrated bureaucracy with technology and
| have made bureaucracy permanent. Instead of automating away
| bureaucracy these companies have automated away customer service.
| dmix wrote:
| The lazy response to any new risk or problem is to just layer
| on new rules and processes. Large organizations always end up
| with those things defining their workplace culture (risk
| aversion, checkbox culture) and that worldview filters down to
| the decisions which impact customers.
| staplers wrote:
| "Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away
| their wealth." - Lucy Parsons
| whimsicalism wrote:
| they do these things in response to governmental pressure.
| SupremumLimit wrote:
| It is a serious mistake to think that technology can remove
| bureaucracy. Indeed, technology by its nature makes bureaucracy
| a lot more rigid. Bureaucracy is about homogenising processes
| and erasing individual differences, and software reinforces
| these properties because it allows even less human input or
| deviation from the process. (That isn't true of all software,
| just software that is intended to somehow deal with large
| numbers of people uniformly.)
| serial_dev wrote:
| Gee, I wonder why.
|
| Publishing on the Play Store for indie devs or hobby projects
| just doesn't make any sense.
|
| You need to jump though so many hoops and doxx yourself in the
| process, only to make basically no money with the apps, and even
| if you miraculously do, risk getting kicked out of their platform
| without any way to contact a competent human.
|
| Even before all this, the general consensus amongst solo app devs
| was that "don't waste your time with Android", now add about a
| hundred hour of bureaucracy to even get started with your first
| app, the choice is obvious for many.
|
| I was a long time Android user and switched to iOS because the
| apps there are just better, I honestly think that Google of
| running the Android ecosystem into the ground and only the big
| players will want to go though this mess.
|
| As a Flutter developer, it makes me want to switch to other
| technologies, because if Android loses its appeal, Flutter,
| another Google product, offers basically nothing. On web, it
| scks, on iOS SwiftUI will always have an advantage, Android as
| discussed is in steady and fast decline, and who the hell needs
| Flutter desktop apps that have poor integration with the
| operating system...
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Ugh I'm so fucking fed up with the Play Store and Admob, and
| how they have no meaningful recourse for solving issues or
| providing support. It makes me feel hopeless and helpless
| knowing I have little options outside of relying on them (don't
| have any apple devices to test on or build my app) and knowing
| they could give two shits. Especially seeing that their contact
| options for Admob have been broken for years now and they
| refuse to fix it or provide actual help. And there seems like
| there's no way to get them to budge, like even through our
| reps.
|
| Fuck them. I hope they collapse.
| shakabrah wrote:
| Amen. I write Flutter at my day job and am working toward an
| exit ramp every day.
| fidotron wrote:
| I expect Google will attempt something highly amusing, like
| launching the Play Store on iOS in the EU, with the apps
| running via a port of the VM (and libraries) to iOS.
| mvieira38 wrote:
| Good, I hope it dies off and we get to a state of decentralized
| app distribution just like PCs have. App stores suck, I don't
| need Google of all companies knowing every single one of the apps
| I have on my phone
| leesalminen wrote:
| My app's organization is outside the "west". So in order to
| complete verification with Google I had to pay some subcontractor
| of Dunn&Bradstreet almost $500 to get the DUNS. Then I had to get
| an original certified copy of the organization's registration
| from the national registry. Then have an official notarized
| translation to English and get all that apostilled (another $500
| through a service).
|
| Also, Google support refused to tell me what set of documents
| they would accept. I had to figure it out myself.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Sounds like there are a range of reasons, but the bigger picture
| explanation is : Google no longer cares about incentivizing apps
| to be on the store.
|
| The mobile OS wars are over: every company and dev that wants to
| do anything is locked into having to provide an Android and iOS
| app no matter how difficult it is, so all the incentives are for
| Apple / Google to insulate themselves from risk now by raising
| the bar on devs.
|
| We need to start exercising the minimal rights / capabilities to
| ship alternative app stores on these platforms. Easier said than
| done.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Android already has many alternative app store. I believe there
| is nothing currently for paid app (beside OEM store like galaxy
| store or Huawei) but if there is a need it's absolutely
| possible to do.
|
| Apple side on the other hand, good luck with that. Even in
| Europe they made the rules so strict the third party app store
| are basically dead.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| Web APIs are also more capable than ever before and can be
| added as icons on the home page. For an individual developer,
| you are probably better off just doing a web app.
| olalonde wrote:
| Maybe related? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43804937
|
| I don't get the new D-U-N-S number requirement. Actual scammers
| can easily jump through the hoops. It's the small independent
| devs that won't bother with the bureaucracy, especially those
| that do it for free.
| braiamp wrote:
| The real issue here isn't what the app store sets as
| requirements. It's that the users can't avoid it to get the
| applications (or doing so it too confusing).
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I miss the freewheeling days of Android apps. You'd find all
| kinds of apps made by solo devs as a labor of love. Later, Google
| largely killed those apps by severely downranking them in the
| play store algorithm, and made searching in the play store "we'll
| show you what we want to show you, the filters do nothing", but
| you could still install a secondary app store in CyanogenMod and
| find those weird and fun apps. Is there any of this left? I've
| heard that the secondary app stores have fallen into disrepair.
| theflyestpilot wrote:
| wonder if PWAs will normalize under all this grip tightening.
| anothereng wrote:
| Google didnt let me keep my developer account because I couldnt
| verify address. The only ways they accept address is with bills
| that are not in my name so I couldnt verify my address. It's
| ridiculous given that I have an android phone a gmail account and
| they know where I live based on location data.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| That's absurd, every other industry requires proof of address
| to be IN your name. What are Google doing :/ malicious
| compliance perhaps?
| jonplackett wrote:
| I'm an iOS dev coming to Android because I was lucky enough to
| recently make an iOS app that's making enough money to be worth
| porting.
|
| The developer experience of PlayStore is SO BAD compared to the
| AppStore - which isn't even that good to start with.
|
| It's like all the software and websites are just made by people
| who don't care at all if you use it or not.
| tomrod wrote:
| F-Droid needs more apps!
| ggm wrote:
| How very American that the requirement to register is to obtain a
| private fee for service business identification, not some kind of
| institutionalised public interest registry.
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