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“Fewer Users” Warning Hurting Specialized and New Apps

403 points by pk97 1y ago

pk97 1y ago
I noticed this banner on one of my own apps while installing it for my mom on a new phone. The banner said "This app has fewer users than others...", almost as if they are discouraging users from installing it without even informing me. I looked it up online and it seems like many people have begun seeing this. I am linking a thread. If anyone from Google is reading this, such opaque policies are not appreciated!
- ncr100 1y ago
  It does seem like an Anti-Pattern. Presumably (some faction inside) Google wants to warn users about scam apps. However this seems like blatant shaming and ostracization of smaller developers who did not spend $$$$$ on Marketing through Google's Ad Network. Seems Monopolistic of Google to me.
  - pk97 1y ago
    exactly. Imagine the audacity of this company. I have a paid app and they are already charging me a percentage of the revenue. And behind my back they have begun running this banner.
    - robertlagrant 1y ago
      I doubt they're aware of you enough to do it behind your back. They're more wanting to flag this "Bank of 4merica" app you're about to install has 8 other users.
      - pk97 1y ago
        I am obviously a very small player doing things as a hobby, I don't matter to Google. But what I am pointing out is that they already take a cut of whatever few dollars I earn (beyond the initial $25 I paid years ago just to get on the play store). If you see the thread, the OP asked their customer support and they said: "Especially, since the response from customer service seems to suggest that the best way to get it removed is to run Google AdWords (which I am already running, btw)" If the angle here is running ads and if they are already taking a cut, why are they doing this? If the angle is security, why not test the apps and have them removed! And in either case, why keep the developer in the dark? And why is there no way for small time insignificant devs like me to know how to get rid of the banner!
      - csomar 1y ago
        I think "Bank of 4merica" shouldn't have been there in the first place. Especially for a store that is running billions of $$ worth of transactions. This is Google, again, pushing a cost that it has to pay to external actors.
        izacus 1y ago
        So they should just outright ban the apps of the developer in the article? :P
        immibis 1y ago
        They should ban - and file criminal charges against - the developer who uploads a Bank of America app but isn't Bank of America. They should not do that against developers who upload their own non-fraudulent apps. Why is this concept difficult to understand? Asking seriously. I don't get why these types of questions even come up. Google already claims to manually review all apps, so they know the Bank of America app isn't Bank of America, so why is it even allowed on the store? Why would anyone think it's hard for them to draw a line that would exclude fake Bank of America apps, but wouldn't exclude normal apps? I could understand the concern if it was a completely unmoderated store, or if the only tools available were some kind of keyword filtering. But that is not the case.
        izacus 1y ago
        Quite simply: Because you can't have one without the other and you're living in a dream world if you think that your kind of outcome is even possible with a setup where a private megacorporation takes over the role of prosecutor, court and police. No matter how you scream, if you demand Google play the cop, they'll play the cop in the easiest, cheapest possible way in situations where anything is unclear. The situation in this very topic was exactly caused because Google is trying to play a cop while crushing small devs underneath their anti-fraud measures. There are no better outcomes in this situation. Not on Play Store, not on AppStore, not on any other store. Megacorps can't be cops, courts and enforcers at once and do a good job of it. Let's talk more when you decide that perhaps policing should remain in hand of governments where it belongs.
      - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
        Why would they allow this hypothetical app in the first place?
        izacus 1y ago
        Because the people up in this very thread demand it?
        GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
        Regardless of what people in this thread demand (which I think is unlikely given the example), why would it be in anybody's interest (besides the developer) for Google to allow an app that commits trademark infringement at best (and, as implied, is probably some vehicle to steal confidential information like online banking credentials)?
        immibis 1y ago
        It seems to be the "government is either big or small" false-dilemma argument, applied to Google. That (wrong and stupid) argument goes like this: "We can't make it illegal to poison the water, because that would make the government big, and big governments do bad things like eugenics/Mao's Great Leap Forward/the Holocaust. Better to leave the water being poisoned, to avoid any risk of that happening!" In this case it's "We can't require Google to ban obvious trademark infringements, because that would make Google's app store review onerous, and onerous review processes block legitimate apps like Netflix and Fortnite. Better to leave the trademark infringements there, to avoid any risk of those apps getting blocked!"
        izacus 1y ago
        I love your comparison becuase it aptly shows how you demand Google to do the job of government which is utterly abhorrent to me. Just without oversight a government has. (Usually while also complaining how Google can't be trusted too :P)
  - jjani 1y ago
    > Presumably (some faction inside) Google wants to warn users about scam apps Or (the ads faction that effectively runs the company) wants to warn users about apps that don't spend much on AdWords and Play Store ads.
    - gs17 1y ago
      That feels more like it, I opened the Play Store to check it out, there was an ad for some waifu-gacha 3 star app with 1k downloads, 19 reviews, released last week, reviews imply it's something that was taken off the store before reuploaded under a new name. No banner saying it's questionable. Although, I spent a while trying to find an app that did have the banner, and nothing seems to get it on my account.
  - register 1y ago
    Calling it an anti-pattern is a euphemism. Let's call it what it is: a completely stupid idea.
  - thayne 1y ago
    It also disadvantages any apps that compete with Google's own apps.
  - zerd 1y ago
    "Are you sure you want to install OSM? Don't you know Google Maps is better? You should try Google Maps"
- VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
  There's a weird nuance to this just because algorithmically PageRank itself was even somewhat anti-competitive. "This page has fewer links to it than others, therefore it will be buried in search results" I think most people appreciated Google's early search algos that prioritized "well-traffic'd" sites and sources over others. Obviously that was a long time ago before SEO (and Google themselves) destroyed everything. Back then there were actually still competitors in the search market so it didn't matter. Not the case now.
  - luckylion 1y ago
    Freshbot was a well-known effect back then (arguably still is, at least I see effects that look very similar where some new content section will rank quickly and amazingly well for a week or two and then slowly sink to the level you'd expect from such new content). But in the end, it's network effects, only that this banner seems to enforce it manually and explicitly. The old way would've been to not show apps with few users in the top spots.
  - kedean 1y ago
    I always thought the idea there was that a website needed to grow organically before google would rank it highly, which makes sense to me. Prove yourself first by building a network, they aren't obligated to help out. The difference here is that the play store is the one and only way to get apps for a regular user. By putting that banner up, they're discouraging anyone from trying it even if they found out about it through other channels. The analog in 2000 or so would be if Microsoft added a warning banner to any website you visited in Internet Explorer with a low link count.
    - crazygringo 1y ago
      I don't really see the difference. The entire point is that you can find the app through other channels -- articles, posts, social media. They just link to the Play store, but that's how you find them. The banner shouldn't be discouraging if you've come from a post that explains it's brand-new!
- p_ing 1y ago
  On the other hand.... https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock As a user who suddenly knows nothing about uBlock the ad blocker, are you going to trust an addin with 2k installs and 4.3 stars, or an addin with 30m installs and 4.7 stars? Install base can be informative when choosing.... anything, really. In many people's minds something that is used more is better in some metric, be it performance, reliability, price, et. al. EDIT: My numbers were way off :-)
  - pk97 1y ago
    I agree with what you have said. It's what you mentioned at the end about people judging based on metrics - it should be up to people to judge for themselves, not the platform! The platform should present data, not try to sway opinions. Besides the message itself is so hand wavy if I am using the phrase correctly, what is Google trying to convey through the message? If something is a legit scam, they should either not be publishing such apps or be testing and removing them. I am increasingly convinced they are trying to direct traffic to apps that use their Ads network under the guise of such vaguely-about-security messages.
    - p_ing 1y ago
      > it should be up to people to judge for themselves, not the platform! If you download an App using MSFT Edge on Windows, it will warn you (MoTW). If you download an App using any browser on macOS, it will warn you (also MoTW). But if you grab apps via the App Store, there's no warning. Is that also unfair? While it's been many years since I did hands on end user support, or even worse, support for family friends back in the 9x days, people still have little clue about what they're doing without a big flashing warning sitting in front of them..., which even that sometimes does not work. Even I'll often choose an extension for Firefox that has more installs. If I'm going to get a SAML decoder, I want the least phishy SAML decoder available.
      - fluidcruft 1y ago
        You get warnings when you install apps from Microsoft Store? Play Store isn't a web browser.
duxup 1y ago
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 it and throws up their hands.
- rahimnathwani 1y ago
  I find that "frequently returned item" warning really useful. It's a reminder to look at the 2 star and 3 star reviews. Sometimes it's just a sizing issue. At other times some subset of people have a specific issue. The issue may or may not be something that affects me (e.g. some people can't operate something that doesn't have really clear instructions).
  - freedomben 1y ago
    I do too, but I think it's important to consider that these are actually pretty different. In the Google example, the banner is being displayed because of something that isn't necessarily the fault of the dev and isn't itself an indicator of problematic behavior (and indeed is the starting position for all developers of a new app), whereas at least Amazon (presumably) is basing it off of actual performance data that indicate poor performance/behavior.
    - rahimnathwani 1y ago
      Yes 100% agree
    - duxup 1y ago
      It's not even clear if frequently returned item is a fault of a given seller. May sellers are involved in the "same" item on Amazon.
  - duxup 1y ago
    I find the “frequently returned item” warning totally confusing. It usually isn’t reflected in their reviews that I can tell…. I have to wonder if there’s some sort of strange meta where people search for one thing buy something and not realize that they’re actually looking for something else that’s difficult to search.
_fat_santa 1y ago
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.
- freedomben 1y ago
  Indeed, and on the other end they are locking down the OS more and more. Pretty soon I suspect all my reasons for going Android over the years will no longer be valid and we'll just have a choice between overlords rather than have one closed and one open platform.
  - hedora 1y ago
    That boat sailed for me years ago. iOS respects my preferences regarding data sharing, app selection, etc, much more than Android.
- sieabahlpark 1y ago
  [dead]
- poincaredisk 1y ago
  >They now require a DUNS number to submit an app Even for non-us residents?
  - frosted-flakes 1y ago
    DUNS is used globally.
  - pkaye 1y ago
    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.
  - 1y ago
anothereng 1y ago
both app stores are not friendly to developers.
LWIRVoltage 1y ago
... These sorts of patterns do not help at all, and will hurt those who have critical need for apps without a lot of users. Speaking as somebody, who owns some mid-grade thermal cameras that stopped production in the past few years after a decade run, that depended on and are solely controlled and run on apps that were removed from the app store or no longer can run on modern phones because they are in 32-bit format ; this sort of thing would further punish that type of software and only speed up its demise. When you spend thousands and thousands and thousands and of dollars and resources into getting unique capabilities like that, that can only be controlled through Android apps often, and is the only way to get that capability for some (this will apply to multiple and I imagine with niche capabilities that only have one or two methods of Access) - this hurts a lot of opportunity, and this type of dark anti-pattern is far too blunt
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  They don't give a fuck. Just like Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about casual users running older software, or Apple doesn't give a fuck about power users who don't need their hands held through everything on their goddamn computers. All these gigafuck companies have a minimum viable user in mind: someone who has disposable income, free time, and wants to use their phone to shop for shit or endlessy scroll on whichever social they happen to like most, and that's what their products are designed to do. Everything else is ancillary. Spoken as someone who works on a niche app for both platforms that works with hardware we make: we get NO support. Arbitrary system changes fuck up our app constantly, without notice, and we have no recourse but to fix it ASAP and tell people to not update.
- edg5000 1y ago
  All the manufacturer has to do is publish an APK on their website. If all apps did this, Google would have no power. It's very easy for a volunteer to host the APK somewhere in an archiving effort. Much easier that it ever has been on iOS.
  - toast0 1y ago
    Yeah, but if you're a new app, Google doesn't let you have your APK signing keys, so you either have to go through Google to get an APK you can publish (with all the resources), or users can't cross-upgrade because on phone storage is tied to the signing key.
dboreham 1y ago
[flagged]
- drcongo 1y ago
  The actual article uses fewer. Some monster chose to change it.
  - DangitBobby 1y ago
    My understanding is the rules on less vs fewer are not strict and in this case it's fine, just like 20 items or less is actually fine. Regardless, it's just made up BS, like the rule that sentences cannot end in a proposition. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/fewer-vs-less https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/fewer-vs-less
    - drcongo 1y ago
      Your understanding is fewer than perfect.
- Ecgberht 1y ago
  [dead]
xnx 1y ago
Is Google Play like the Apple app store where Apple takes a smaller cut for apps with fewer users? If so, there's obvious financial incentive for Google to push more people to a smaller number of apps.
- strongpigeon 1y ago
  In a way yes, though it's revenue based (if you make less than $1M/year) rather user based. I don't think it has much of a financial impact though as, from what I remember, the long tail of apps doesn't make them very much money in comparison to the whales.
aquir 1y ago
Typical Big-tech approach: the solution is a non-solution without giving much thought to it but looks good for the board of investors and/or stock owners and they can say "we are stopping scam apps on our marketplace" on the next slides created by marketing. They just don't give a shit. (Just read the book "Careless People" - read it if you are not convinced. Engagement over everything)
sometimes_all 1y ago
How does something like this ever get into production, especially at a place like Google, unless being hostile to new apps and developers is the plan? Or do they want to push potential developers into Google's double-dipping: pay them money to get on to the Play Store + pay a lot more money to get eyeballs on your app and thus more users.
suddenexample 1y ago
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?)
- notatoad 1y ago
  i'm guessing it's intended to warn that you're about to download one of the 500 apps that look like the ChatGPT app, but aren't actually the ChatGPT app.
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    Correct. Google's incentive is not to maximize players in the space. Their user isn't the developer; it's the person who downloads things onto an Android phone. If those users get burned too often because it's too hard to tell legitimate apps from knock-offs, they'll stop trusting the whole Play store and probably the whole phone platform (in favor of Apple instead). Google has the numbers to know that "buyer [or in this case, downloader] beware" isn't good enough because people aren't smart enough. It sucks, but at scale it's a pattern we see over and over and over again (see also "Why does Windows force updates," "Why is Apple so paranoid about side-loading," "Why is it so hard to get an app on Apple's App Store in the first place," and "Why does Facebook log a big warning in the browser console to not paste any code in there and hit enter").
    - fluidcruft 1y ago
rockyj 1y ago
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.
- skizm 1y ago
  Nothing stopping Google or Apple from adding warnings to websites. They do control chrome / safari.
  - Lammy 1y ago
    They already do if you dare to try to host a web page without TLS. Hit http://httpforever.com/ http://httpforever.com/ for example and it will say “Not Secure” next to the URL bar.
tlogan 1y ago
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)
- strongpigeon 1y ago
  In what way does it support their ads business?
  - tlogan 1y ago
    Because if a developer spends heavily on ads — especially misleading ones for games — they’ll get a lot of installs, and the warning disappears.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  Would hurt some utility apps though - sometimes I download an app to use for one thing, it works perfectly, and I uninstall it. (You get an automatic refund if you pay for an app and then uninstall again quickly. I've repurchased apps that I've been refunded for in this way - I don't want to punish developers who make apps that accomplish their function quickly.)
  - reddalo 1y ago
    Are you sure the refund is automatic if you just uninstall? That seems strange.
    - Marsymars 1y ago
      It may have changed in the past few years, but it definitely worked like that in the past. (You can search and find various accounts of it.)
dkkergoog 1y ago
[dead]
redbell 1y ago
This was discussed a couple of weeks ago on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1jddo84/the_new_warnings_added_on_google_play_are_a_very/ https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1jddo84/the_new...
anilakar 1y ago
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, they use it because they have to. If I had a say, I'd automate even larger parts of the customer workflow. (Yes, at first we released a mobile PWA but ran into limitations related to push notifications and MDM support. We then created the native app, but our customers cannot remotely load APKs not signed by Google).
- throwaway743 1y ago
  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.
  - Loughla 1y ago
    Change font on One letter on one screen. Revert back 60 days later. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It's a pain in the ass, but to be honest, I've been asked to do worse with my time.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    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.
    - anilakar 1y ago
      Luckily there is no regulation in this industry, just demanding customers. The main issue is that we support way too many different workflows based on customer requirements and actual hardware configuration, and even a slight change to a component often means we have to do manual UX testing.
butz 1y ago
Very sad state of affairs on Play Store. Independent app developers are clearly not welcome there. I already pulled all my hobby apps from Play Store, just to sleep soundly at night without thinking how to pass yet another app review after update, when policies keep getting more ridiculous each time. To the point where one update finally was pushed to the store, and another got the same issue again. The biggest question is, how does one closes their Google Play Developer Account? There is no button in admin for that.
- saghm 1y ago
  Based on another comment on this thread, it sounds like maybe the easiest way would have been to leave all those apps up without updating them, and then hopefully get a 60-day warning that you can ignore.
  - reddalo 1y ago
    I did ignore it and I got my developer account banned. They didn't even refund my 15 $.
    - saghm 1y ago
      That's incredibly frustrating, and I wish I were more surprised that it's somehow easier for someone to get banned when they don't want to than it is for someone else to intentionally close their own account
- esperent 1y ago
  This sucks for developers, but it's also really bad for open source. The only way to get notifications working without arbitrary limits for several open source messaging apps is to run your own notifications server and then you'll need to build your own copy of the Android app for whatever service you're running. Examples: 1. Rocketchat, which uses this as a sales funnel (I strongly recommend against using it for this reason) 2. Mattermost allows you to use their free notifications server but without any uptime guarantees unless you pay. I haven't used it enough to know if this is a problem in practice. 3. Nextcloud is pretty great, no limitations on using their notification server, but it would be problematic if you require a high degree of privacy and need a fully private setup 4. Dishonorable mention: Odoo who don't even provide source code or a license to build their mobile app yourself Setting up a notifications server takes some technical work, but nothing too crazy. But then, you need to get your private app published in the Play Store. Impossible. Brick wall for most people.
snowwrestler 1y ago
> It feels like Google is unfairly punishing smaller, specialized developers in favor of mass-market apps. This seems like a problem across Google generally. Search seems like it has been tuned toward the mass market in almost every query, which buries high-quality content, which is by its nature rare, specialized, and less well-known. They have also tuned the features of Search in this direction, for example replacing queries with similar but more common text strings, and applying “did you mean” redirection more often, instead of just executing the search as typed. They now do this even if you quote the search string! Google tests and tunes its algorithm updates. If an algorithm update results in lower prominence for sites they consider popular, they tune the algorithm to “fix” it. As a friend said, the modern Google would never release an algorithm update if it doesn’t put Home Depot on the first page for “buy power saw.” Result: a generous in-kind marketing subsidy for whoever is already popular. I’m convinced this is why Fandom and Quora still hang around polluting SERPs. They’re well-known because they’re well-known, like the Kardashians.
krunck 1y ago
Alternative app distribution systems are the future. I love you f-Droid.
aoanevdus 1y ago
It’s tempting to anthropomorphize a company like Google, and assume that every behavior is part of some evil master plan. Just as often, it’s some small group of people within the company making a dumb mistake. I’d guess there is some team tasked with reducing the “app spam” problem, where there the store and (app review process) is crammed with thousands of near-identical apps, torturing the naive user with ads as they attempt to perform basic functions. This targeting of this warning is over-broad, preventing honest new app developers from getting traction. That’s bad for the long-term health of Android’s app ecosystem, and a competitive disadvantage against iOS. There’s probably some other team at Google who is responsible for improving the development experience for Android, who hates this new warning. Talking about the harmful outcomes of this warning, it’s good to get the news far and wide and try to get it fixed. Analyzing why the thing got pushed in the first place, it seems to me a symptom of the challenge of coherently managing a hundred thousand employees.
throwaway743 1y ago
It'd be great if Android devs could organize and push our reps (I know it's likely futile) or something to get Google to stop bullying us. It's exhausting dealing with the non-stop struggle they force onto us, especially as someone who's trying to make a living by starting (in my case) a one person business building Android apps. Play Store/Dev Console: - the pettiness of and delays by their production reviewers - won't take action on obviously spammed negative (or positive) app reviews - allowing expired/fraudulent payment options to take advantage of trials - not showing all possible search results for search terms which cuts off a ton of other apps from having any visibility - among many other issues with the Play Store/Dev Console It's beyond exhausting. Add to it the fact that Admob: - won't serve 98% of requests with impressions, having any way to contact them for support or get meaningful support (also have left their contact options unfixed for years which feels like it's being done on purpose) - will put serving limits on the smallest friggin things, serving limits when they allowed a single user from a country that gets flagged for serving limits all the time was manually blocked months ago from my account after my first encounter of serving limits for the reason of ads being served to users from that country - will put serving limits even after adding your device's ID/Add ID as a testing device - etc etc etc Nevermind that we don't even know if they're actually serving ads or not in our apps and just pocketing what they don't report to us. Google Ads: - Block ads all the time for any reason. In my case, my app is purely a crypto market charting and analytics application (yeah I know crypto markets/charts are looked down upon here, but whatever I and others use it. It's not a gambling or trading app, just analytics. please save your hate for NFTs) and it doesn't allow transactions, trading or anything of the sort. Just data. But because "crypto" is in the name of my app, I can't use my app's name in ad copy, nor the word "crypto", etc. And the support team refuses to understand this or make an exception. Because of this policy I can't even show ads in certain countries or languages unless I find some convoluted workaround. Everything with them has just been a non-stop uphill battle. It's soul crushing and makes you feel helpless and hopeless. They don't care about us even when we've been/are the substrate for the Play Store.
nottorp 1y ago
Yeah, google isn't a harmful monopoly at all, as this article clearly shows.
AlexanderTheGr8 1y ago
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.
- bicepjai 1y ago
  I’m not necessarily suggesting that this content was written by AI, but the use of side headings for each point does make it seem AI-generated. That shouldn’t be an issue, though, since that’s exactly how I use AI myself.
ChuckMcM 1y ago
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.
- int_19h 1y ago
  > 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. The problem is that platforms these days are in a constant state of slow rug pull. Even if you have absolutely no bugs to fix and no new features to add, you still need to keep things updated just to make it work on the most recent version of the platform (which users are going to be on because that's the only one that receives security fixes). A slightly less damning case is when the app works but doesn't integrate well with the new parts of the platform, or even just its changing look and feel. E.g. old Windows apps often work fine but don't support hi-DPI properly, meaning that they look very ugly on that 4K display. I don't think it's a problem that can be fully solved, but the impact would be much less severe if platforms stopped churn for the sake of churn. For example, we don't need a "fresh new" UI redesign every 3 years. And when it comes to API stability, Win32 should be considered the exemplary model of that - yes, it is a lot of effort to keep things working 30 years after they first shipped, but that's the only way if we don't want to be an industry that's constantly building castles on sand.
darepublic 1y ago
Lack of transparency adds to the kafkaesque nature of it
strobe 1y ago
I was involved in mobile game development for several years, but I’m no longer active in that field. In my opinion, one of the reasons they do this is to maximize Ad revenue. In this case, it’s obvious that if you see this warning on your product page, the quick fix would be to spend money on Ads to gain a few more users as soon as possible. This also creates a competitive bidding situation across the market, as more developers buy ads, forcing others to do the same to keep up.
kazinator 1y ago
How do they measure users? If I install the app, but never use it, do I count? If I uninstall it, do I still count or not?
VoodooJuJu 1y ago
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xg15 1y ago
> Many users download our app to solve a specific problem (car issues), use it once successfully, then naturally don't open it again until needed months later. Low daily engagement doesn't mean low quality - it means the app successfully solved the user's problem! What level of Enshittification is it if you actively penalize other apps for not enshittifying enough?
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darig 1y ago
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Marazan 1y ago
This is the same thinking by Google that has ruined the web as everyone chases the perfect SEO optimised page. A page that presents and answer to your problem in the first sentence as soon as you open the page? Low engagement time, high bounce rate down rank. A page that buries the not actually an answer under 1500 words and 4 images? Perfect page, up rank.
callc 1y ago
This and the recent Apple App Store fees have justified my decision to only distribute via the web. Thank Tim Berners-Lee for this open ecosystem, and for everyone contributing. Thanks Tim Sweeney for fighting to open these closed feudal systems. Thanks to all the Tims!
thisisnotauser 1y ago
It's almost as if monopolies are bad, actually
heywoods 1y ago
These are the kinds of policy/feature decisions around a product that infuriates me: 1. Because it’s fucking stupid if you think about this for more than 5 seconds. You can think of edge cases where this will be problematic immediately. 2. Some PM at Google is making mid 6 figures to come up with this simp brain decision that has devastating rippling effects to the developer community and trust while also fucking over the cash cow market, that is a mobile App Store, by stifling dev incentives to develop on your platform. Amazing. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that meeting
mvdtnz 1y ago
It's insane to me the hoops people will jump through and the abuse they will endure to publish apps on these platforms. You have a choice. Stop it.
deleted 1y ago
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403 points by pk97 1y ago

pk97 1y ago

I noticed this banner on one of my own apps while installing it for my mom on a new phone. The banner said "This app has fewer users than others...", almost as if they are discouraging users from installing it without even informing me. I looked it up online and it seems like many people have begun seeing this. I am linking a thread. If anyone from Google is reading this, such opaque policies are not appreciated!

ncr100 1y ago
It does seem like an Anti-Pattern. Presumably (some faction inside) Google wants to warn users about scam apps. However this seems like blatant shaming and ostracization of smaller developers who did not spend $$$$$ on Marketing through Google's Ad Network. Seems Monopolistic of Google to me.
- pk97 1y ago
  exactly. Imagine the audacity of this company. I have a paid app and they are already charging me a percentage of the revenue. And behind my back they have begun running this banner.
  - robertlagrant 1y ago
    I doubt they're aware of you enough to do it behind your back. They're more wanting to flag this "Bank of 4merica" app you're about to install has 8 other users.
    - pk97 1y ago
      I am obviously a very small player doing things as a hobby, I don't matter to Google. But what I am pointing out is that they already take a cut of whatever few dollars I earn (beyond the initial $25 I paid years ago just to get on the play store). If you see the thread, the OP asked their customer support and they said: "Especially, since the response from customer service seems to suggest that the best way to get it removed is to run Google AdWords (which I am already running, btw)" If the angle here is running ads and if they are already taking a cut, why are they doing this? If the angle is security, why not test the apps and have them removed! And in either case, why keep the developer in the dark? And why is there no way for small time insignificant devs like me to know how to get rid of the banner!
    - csomar 1y ago
      I think "Bank of 4merica" shouldn't have been there in the first place. Especially for a store that is running billions of $$ worth of transactions. This is Google, again, pushing a cost that it has to pay to external actors.
      - izacus 1y ago
        So they should just outright ban the apps of the developer in the article? :P
        immibis 1y ago
        They should ban - and file criminal charges against - the developer who uploads a Bank of America app but isn't Bank of America. They should not do that against developers who upload their own non-fraudulent apps. Why is this concept difficult to understand? Asking seriously. I don't get why these types of questions even come up. Google already claims to manually review all apps, so they know the Bank of America app isn't Bank of America, so why is it even allowed on the store? Why would anyone think it's hard for them to draw a line that would exclude fake Bank of America apps, but wouldn't exclude normal apps? I could understand the concern if it was a completely unmoderated store, or if the only tools available were some kind of keyword filtering. But that is not the case.
        izacus 1y ago
        Quite simply: Because you can't have one without the other and you're living in a dream world if you think that your kind of outcome is even possible with a setup where a private megacorporation takes over the role of prosecutor, court and police. No matter how you scream, if you demand Google play the cop, they'll play the cop in the easiest, cheapest possible way in situations where anything is unclear. The situation in this very topic was exactly caused because Google is trying to play a cop while crushing small devs underneath their anti-fraud measures. There are no better outcomes in this situation. Not on Play Store, not on AppStore, not on any other store. Megacorps can't be cops, courts and enforcers at once and do a good job of it. Let's talk more when you decide that perhaps policing should remain in hand of governments where it belongs.
    - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
      Why would they allow this hypothetical app in the first place?
      - izacus 1y ago
        Because the people up in this very thread demand it?
        GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
        Regardless of what people in this thread demand (which I think is unlikely given the example), why would it be in anybody's interest (besides the developer) for Google to allow an app that commits trademark infringement at best (and, as implied, is probably some vehicle to steal confidential information like online banking credentials)?
        immibis 1y ago
        It seems to be the "government is either big or small" false-dilemma argument, applied to Google. That (wrong and stupid) argument goes like this: "We can't make it illegal to poison the water, because that would make the government big, and big governments do bad things like eugenics/Mao's Great Leap Forward/the Holocaust. Better to leave the water being poisoned, to avoid any risk of that happening!" In this case it's "We can't require Google to ban obvious trademark infringements, because that would make Google's app store review onerous, and onerous review processes block legitimate apps like Netflix and Fortnite. Better to leave the trademark infringements there, to avoid any risk of those apps getting blocked!"
        izacus 1y ago
        I love your comparison becuase it aptly shows how you demand Google to do the job of government which is utterly abhorrent to me. Just without oversight a government has. (Usually while also complaining how Google can't be trusted too :P)
- jjani 1y ago
  > Presumably (some faction inside) Google wants to warn users about scam apps Or (the ads faction that effectively runs the company) wants to warn users about apps that don't spend much on AdWords and Play Store ads.
  - gs17 1y ago
    That feels more like it, I opened the Play Store to check it out, there was an ad for some waifu-gacha 3 star app with 1k downloads, 19 reviews, released last week, reviews imply it's something that was taken off the store before reuploaded under a new name. No banner saying it's questionable. Although, I spent a while trying to find an app that did have the banner, and nothing seems to get it on my account.
- register 1y ago
  Calling it an anti-pattern is a euphemism. Let's call it what it is: a completely stupid idea.
- thayne 1y ago
  It also disadvantages any apps that compete with Google's own apps.
- zerd 1y ago
  "Are you sure you want to install OSM? Don't you know Google Maps is better? You should try Google Maps"
VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
There's a weird nuance to this just because algorithmically PageRank itself was even somewhat anti-competitive. "This page has fewer links to it than others, therefore it will be buried in search results" I think most people appreciated Google's early search algos that prioritized "well-traffic'd" sites and sources over others. Obviously that was a long time ago before SEO (and Google themselves) destroyed everything. Back then there were actually still competitors in the search market so it didn't matter. Not the case now.
- luckylion 1y ago
  Freshbot was a well-known effect back then (arguably still is, at least I see effects that look very similar where some new content section will rank quickly and amazingly well for a week or two and then slowly sink to the level you'd expect from such new content). But in the end, it's network effects, only that this banner seems to enforce it manually and explicitly. The old way would've been to not show apps with few users in the top spots.
- kedean 1y ago
  I always thought the idea there was that a website needed to grow organically before google would rank it highly, which makes sense to me. Prove yourself first by building a network, they aren't obligated to help out. The difference here is that the play store is the one and only way to get apps for a regular user. By putting that banner up, they're discouraging anyone from trying it even if they found out about it through other channels. The analog in 2000 or so would be if Microsoft added a warning banner to any website you visited in Internet Explorer with a low link count.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    I don't really see the difference. The entire point is that you can find the app through other channels -- articles, posts, social media. They just link to the Play store, but that's how you find them. The banner shouldn't be discouraging if you've come from a post that explains it's brand-new!
p_ing 1y ago
On the other hand.... https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock https://chromewebstore.google.com/search/ublock As a user who suddenly knows nothing about uBlock the ad blocker, are you going to trust an addin with 2k installs and 4.3 stars, or an addin with 30m installs and 4.7 stars? Install base can be informative when choosing.... anything, really. In many people's minds something that is used more is better in some metric, be it performance, reliability, price, et. al. EDIT: My numbers were way off :-)
- pk97 1y ago
  I agree with what you have said. It's what you mentioned at the end about people judging based on metrics - it should be up to people to judge for themselves, not the platform! The platform should present data, not try to sway opinions. Besides the message itself is so hand wavy if I am using the phrase correctly, what is Google trying to convey through the message? If something is a legit scam, they should either not be publishing such apps or be testing and removing them. I am increasingly convinced they are trying to direct traffic to apps that use their Ads network under the guise of such vaguely-about-security messages.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    > it should be up to people to judge for themselves, not the platform! If you download an App using MSFT Edge on Windows, it will warn you (MoTW). If you download an App using any browser on macOS, it will warn you (also MoTW). But if you grab apps via the App Store, there's no warning. Is that also unfair? While it's been many years since I did hands on end user support, or even worse, support for family friends back in the 9x days, people still have little clue about what they're doing without a big flashing warning sitting in front of them..., which even that sometimes does not work. Even I'll often choose an extension for Firefox that has more installs. If I'm going to get a SAML decoder, I want the least phishy SAML decoder available.
    - fluidcruft 1y ago
      You get warnings when you install apps from Microsoft Store? Play Store isn't a web browser.

duxup 1y ago

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 it and throws up their hands.

rahimnathwani 1y ago
I find that "frequently returned item" warning really useful. It's a reminder to look at the 2 star and 3 star reviews. Sometimes it's just a sizing issue. At other times some subset of people have a specific issue. The issue may or may not be something that affects me (e.g. some people can't operate something that doesn't have really clear instructions).
- freedomben 1y ago
  I do too, but I think it's important to consider that these are actually pretty different. In the Google example, the banner is being displayed because of something that isn't necessarily the fault of the dev and isn't itself an indicator of problematic behavior (and indeed is the starting position for all developers of a new app), whereas at least Amazon (presumably) is basing it off of actual performance data that indicate poor performance/behavior.
  - rahimnathwani 1y ago
    Yes 100% agree
  - duxup 1y ago
    It's not even clear if frequently returned item is a fault of a given seller. May sellers are involved in the "same" item on Amazon.
- duxup 1y ago
  I find the “frequently returned item” warning totally confusing. It usually isn’t reflected in their reviews that I can tell…. I have to wonder if there’s some sort of strange meta where people search for one thing buy something and not realize that they’re actually looking for something else that’s difficult to search.

_fat_santa 1y ago

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.

freedomben 1y ago
Indeed, and on the other end they are locking down the OS more and more. Pretty soon I suspect all my reasons for going Android over the years will no longer be valid and we'll just have a choice between overlords rather than have one closed and one open platform.
- hedora 1y ago
  That boat sailed for me years ago. iOS respects my preferences regarding data sharing, app selection, etc, much more than Android.
sieabahlpark 1y ago
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poincaredisk 1y ago
>They now require a DUNS number to submit an app Even for non-us residents?
- frosted-flakes 1y ago
  DUNS is used globally.
- pkaye 1y ago
  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.
- 1y ago

anothereng 1y ago

both app stores are not friendly to developers.

LWIRVoltage 1y ago

... These sorts of patterns do not help at all, and will hurt those who have critical need for apps without a lot of users. Speaking as somebody, who owns some mid-grade thermal cameras that stopped production in the past few years after a decade run, that depended on and are solely controlled and run on apps that were removed from the app store or no longer can run on modern phones because they are in 32-bit format ; this sort of thing would further punish that type of software and only speed up its demise. When you spend thousands and thousands and thousands and of dollars and resources into getting unique capabilities like that, that can only be controlled through Android apps often, and is the only way to get that capability for some (this will apply to multiple and I imagine with niche capabilities that only have one or two methods of Access) - this hurts a lot of opportunity, and this type of dark anti-pattern is far too blunt

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
They don't give a fuck. Just like Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about casual users running older software, or Apple doesn't give a fuck about power users who don't need their hands held through everything on their goddamn computers. All these gigafuck companies have a minimum viable user in mind: someone who has disposable income, free time, and wants to use their phone to shop for shit or endlessy scroll on whichever social they happen to like most, and that's what their products are designed to do. Everything else is ancillary. Spoken as someone who works on a niche app for both platforms that works with hardware we make: we get NO support. Arbitrary system changes fuck up our app constantly, without notice, and we have no recourse but to fix it ASAP and tell people to not update.
edg5000 1y ago
All the manufacturer has to do is publish an APK on their website. If all apps did this, Google would have no power. It's very easy for a volunteer to host the APK somewhere in an archiving effort. Much easier that it ever has been on iOS.
- toast0 1y ago
  Yeah, but if you're a new app, Google doesn't let you have your APK signing keys, so you either have to go through Google to get an APK you can publish (with all the resources), or users can't cross-upgrade because on phone storage is tied to the signing key.

dboreham 1y ago

[flagged]

drcongo 1y ago
The actual article uses fewer. Some monster chose to change it.
- DangitBobby 1y ago
  My understanding is the rules on less vs fewer are not strict and in this case it's fine, just like 20 items or less is actually fine. Regardless, it's just made up BS, like the rule that sentences cannot end in a proposition. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/fewer-vs-less https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/fewer-vs-less
  - drcongo 1y ago
    Your understanding is fewer than perfect.
Ecgberht 1y ago
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xnx 1y ago

Is Google Play like the Apple app store where Apple takes a smaller cut for apps with fewer users? If so, there's obvious financial incentive for Google to push more people to a smaller number of apps.

strongpigeon 1y ago
In a way yes, though it's revenue based (if you make less than $1M/year) rather user based. I don't think it has much of a financial impact though as, from what I remember, the long tail of apps doesn't make them very much money in comparison to the whales.

aquir 1y ago

Typical Big-tech approach: the solution is a non-solution without giving much thought to it but looks good for the board of investors and/or stock owners and they can say "we are stopping scam apps on our marketplace" on the next slides created by marketing. They just don't give a shit. (Just read the book "Careless People" - read it if you are not convinced. Engagement over everything)

sometimes_all 1y ago

How does something like this ever get into production, especially at a place like Google, unless being hostile to new apps and developers is the plan? Or do they want to push potential developers into Google's double-dipping: pay them money to get on to the Play Store + pay a lot more money to get eyeballs on your app and thus more users.

suddenexample 1y ago

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?)

notatoad 1y ago
i'm guessing it's intended to warn that you're about to download one of the 500 apps that look like the ChatGPT app, but aren't actually the ChatGPT app.
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  Correct. Google's incentive is not to maximize players in the space. Their user isn't the developer; it's the person who downloads things onto an Android phone. If those users get burned too often because it's too hard to tell legitimate apps from knock-offs, they'll stop trusting the whole Play store and probably the whole phone platform (in favor of Apple instead). Google has the numbers to know that "buyer [or in this case, downloader] beware" isn't good enough because people aren't smart enough. It sucks, but at scale it's a pattern we see over and over and over again (see also "Why does Windows force updates," "Why is Apple so paranoid about side-loading," "Why is it so hard to get an app on Apple's App Store in the first place," and "Why does Facebook log a big warning in the browser console to not paste any code in there and hit enter").
  - fluidcruft 1y ago

rockyj 1y ago

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.

skizm 1y ago
Nothing stopping Google or Apple from adding warnings to websites. They do control chrome / safari.
- Lammy 1y ago
  They already do if you dare to try to host a web page without TLS. Hit http://httpforever.com/ http://httpforever.com/ for example and it will say “Not Secure” next to the URL bar.

tlogan 1y ago

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)

strongpigeon 1y ago
In what way does it support their ads business?
- tlogan 1y ago
  Because if a developer spends heavily on ads — especially misleading ones for games — they’ll get a lot of installs, and the warning disappears.
Marsymars 1y ago
Would hurt some utility apps though - sometimes I download an app to use for one thing, it works perfectly, and I uninstall it. (You get an automatic refund if you pay for an app and then uninstall again quickly. I've repurchased apps that I've been refunded for in this way - I don't want to punish developers who make apps that accomplish their function quickly.)
- reddalo 1y ago
  Are you sure the refund is automatic if you just uninstall? That seems strange.
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    It may have changed in the past few years, but it definitely worked like that in the past. (You can search and find various accounts of it.)

dkkergoog 1y ago

[dead]

redbell 1y ago

This was discussed a couple of weeks ago on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1jddo84/the_new_warnings_added_on_google_play_are_a_very/ https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1jddo84/the_new...

anilakar 1y ago

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, they use it because they have to. If I had a say, I'd automate even larger parts of the customer workflow. (Yes, at first we released a mobile PWA but ran into limitations related to push notifications and MDM support. We then created the native app, but our customers cannot remotely load APKs not signed by Google).

throwaway743 1y ago
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.
- Loughla 1y ago
  Change font on One letter on one screen. Revert back 60 days later. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It's a pain in the ass, but to be honest, I've been asked to do worse with my time.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  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.
  - anilakar 1y ago
    Luckily there is no regulation in this industry, just demanding customers. The main issue is that we support way too many different workflows based on customer requirements and actual hardware configuration, and even a slight change to a component often means we have to do manual UX testing.

butz 1y ago

Very sad state of affairs on Play Store. Independent app developers are clearly not welcome there. I already pulled all my hobby apps from Play Store, just to sleep soundly at night without thinking how to pass yet another app review after update, when policies keep getting more ridiculous each time. To the point where one update finally was pushed to the store, and another got the same issue again. The biggest question is, how does one closes their Google Play Developer Account? There is no button in admin for that.

saghm 1y ago
Based on another comment on this thread, it sounds like maybe the easiest way would have been to leave all those apps up without updating them, and then hopefully get a 60-day warning that you can ignore.
- reddalo 1y ago
  I did ignore it and I got my developer account banned. They didn't even refund my 15 $.
  - saghm 1y ago
    That's incredibly frustrating, and I wish I were more surprised that it's somehow easier for someone to get banned when they don't want to than it is for someone else to intentionally close their own account
esperent 1y ago
This sucks for developers, but it's also really bad for open source. The only way to get notifications working without arbitrary limits for several open source messaging apps is to run your own notifications server and then you'll need to build your own copy of the Android app for whatever service you're running. Examples: 1. Rocketchat, which uses this as a sales funnel (I strongly recommend against using it for this reason) 2. Mattermost allows you to use their free notifications server but without any uptime guarantees unless you pay. I haven't used it enough to know if this is a problem in practice. 3. Nextcloud is pretty great, no limitations on using their notification server, but it would be problematic if you require a high degree of privacy and need a fully private setup 4. Dishonorable mention: Odoo who don't even provide source code or a license to build their mobile app yourself Setting up a notifications server takes some technical work, but nothing too crazy. But then, you need to get your private app published in the Play Store. Impossible. Brick wall for most people.

snowwrestler 1y ago

> It feels like Google is unfairly punishing smaller, specialized developers in favor of mass-market apps. This seems like a problem across Google generally. Search seems like it has been tuned toward the mass market in almost every query, which buries high-quality content, which is by its nature rare, specialized, and less well-known. They have also tuned the features of Search in this direction, for example replacing queries with similar but more common text strings, and applying “did you mean” redirection more often, instead of just executing the search as typed. They now do this even if you quote the search string! Google tests and tunes its algorithm updates. If an algorithm update results in lower prominence for sites they consider popular, they tune the algorithm to “fix” it. As a friend said, the modern Google would never release an algorithm update if it doesn’t put Home Depot on the first page for “buy power saw.” Result: a generous in-kind marketing subsidy for whoever is already popular. I’m convinced this is why Fandom and Quora still hang around polluting SERPs. They’re well-known because they’re well-known, like the Kardashians.

krunck 1y ago

Alternative app distribution systems are the future. I love you f-Droid.

aoanevdus 1y ago

It’s tempting to anthropomorphize a company like Google, and assume that every behavior is part of some evil master plan. Just as often, it’s some small group of people within the company making a dumb mistake. I’d guess there is some team tasked with reducing the “app spam” problem, where there the store and (app review process) is crammed with thousands of near-identical apps, torturing the naive user with ads as they attempt to perform basic functions. This targeting of this warning is over-broad, preventing honest new app developers from getting traction. That’s bad for the long-term health of Android’s app ecosystem, and a competitive disadvantage against iOS. There’s probably some other team at Google who is responsible for improving the development experience for Android, who hates this new warning. Talking about the harmful outcomes of this warning, it’s good to get the news far and wide and try to get it fixed. Analyzing why the thing got pushed in the first place, it seems to me a symptom of the challenge of coherently managing a hundred thousand employees.

throwaway743 1y ago

It'd be great if Android devs could organize and push our reps (I know it's likely futile) or something to get Google to stop bullying us. It's exhausting dealing with the non-stop struggle they force onto us, especially as someone who's trying to make a living by starting (in my case) a one person business building Android apps. Play Store/Dev Console: - the pettiness of and delays by their production reviewers - won't take action on obviously spammed negative (or positive) app reviews - allowing expired/fraudulent payment options to take advantage of trials - not showing all possible search results for search terms which cuts off a ton of other apps from having any visibility - among many other issues with the Play Store/Dev Console It's beyond exhausting. Add to it the fact that Admob: - won't serve 98% of requests with impressions, having any way to contact them for support or get meaningful support (also have left their contact options unfixed for years which feels like it's being done on purpose) - will put serving limits on the smallest friggin things, serving limits when they allowed a single user from a country that gets flagged for serving limits all the time was manually blocked months ago from my account after my first encounter of serving limits for the reason of ads being served to users from that country - will put serving limits even after adding your device's ID/Add ID as a testing device - etc etc etc Nevermind that we don't even know if they're actually serving ads or not in our apps and just pocketing what they don't report to us. Google Ads: - Block ads all the time for any reason. In my case, my app is purely a crypto market charting and analytics application (yeah I know crypto markets/charts are looked down upon here, but whatever I and others use it. It's not a gambling or trading app, just analytics. please save your hate for NFTs) and it doesn't allow transactions, trading or anything of the sort. Just data. But because "crypto" is in the name of my app, I can't use my app's name in ad copy, nor the word "crypto", etc. And the support team refuses to understand this or make an exception. Because of this policy I can't even show ads in certain countries or languages unless I find some convoluted workaround. Everything with them has just been a non-stop uphill battle. It's soul crushing and makes you feel helpless and hopeless. They don't care about us even when we've been/are the substrate for the Play Store.

nottorp 1y ago

Yeah, google isn't a harmful monopoly at all, as this article clearly shows.

AlexanderTheGr8 1y ago

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.

bicepjai 1y ago
I’m not necessarily suggesting that this content was written by AI, but the use of side headings for each point does make it seem AI-generated. That shouldn’t be an issue, though, since that’s exactly how I use AI myself.

ChuckMcM 1y ago

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.

int_19h 1y ago
> 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. The problem is that platforms these days are in a constant state of slow rug pull. Even if you have absolutely no bugs to fix and no new features to add, you still need to keep things updated just to make it work on the most recent version of the platform (which users are going to be on because that's the only one that receives security fixes). A slightly less damning case is when the app works but doesn't integrate well with the new parts of the platform, or even just its changing look and feel. E.g. old Windows apps often work fine but don't support hi-DPI properly, meaning that they look very ugly on that 4K display. I don't think it's a problem that can be fully solved, but the impact would be much less severe if platforms stopped churn for the sake of churn. For example, we don't need a "fresh new" UI redesign every 3 years. And when it comes to API stability, Win32 should be considered the exemplary model of that - yes, it is a lot of effort to keep things working 30 years after they first shipped, but that's the only way if we don't want to be an industry that's constantly building castles on sand.

darepublic 1y ago

Lack of transparency adds to the kafkaesque nature of it

strobe 1y ago

I was involved in mobile game development for several years, but I’m no longer active in that field. In my opinion, one of the reasons they do this is to maximize Ad revenue. In this case, it’s obvious that if you see this warning on your product page, the quick fix would be to spend money on Ads to gain a few more users as soon as possible. This also creates a competitive bidding situation across the market, as more developers buy ads, forcing others to do the same to keep up.

kazinator 1y ago

How do they measure users? If I install the app, but never use it, do I count? If I uninstall it, do I still count or not?

VoodooJuJu 1y ago

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xg15 1y ago

> Many users download our app to solve a specific problem (car issues), use it once successfully, then naturally don't open it again until needed months later. Low daily engagement doesn't mean low quality - it means the app successfully solved the user's problem! What level of Enshittification is it if you actively penalize other apps for not enshittifying enough?

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darig 1y ago

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Marazan 1y ago

This is the same thinking by Google that has ruined the web as everyone chases the perfect SEO optimised page. A page that presents and answer to your problem in the first sentence as soon as you open the page? Low engagement time, high bounce rate down rank. A page that buries the not actually an answer under 1500 words and 4 images? Perfect page, up rank.

callc 1y ago

This and the recent Apple App Store fees have justified my decision to only distribute via the web. Thank Tim Berners-Lee for this open ecosystem, and for everyone contributing. Thanks Tim Sweeney for fighting to open these closed feudal systems. Thanks to all the Tims!

thisisnotauser 1y ago

It's almost as if monopolies are bad, actually

heywoods 1y ago

These are the kinds of policy/feature decisions around a product that infuriates me: 1. Because it’s fucking stupid if you think about this for more than 5 seconds. You can think of edge cases where this will be problematic immediately. 2. Some PM at Google is making mid 6 figures to come up with this simp brain decision that has devastating rippling effects to the developer community and trust while also fucking over the cash cow market, that is a mobile App Store, by stifling dev incentives to develop on your platform. Amazing. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that meeting

mvdtnz 1y ago

It's insane to me the hoops people will jump through and the abuse they will endure to publish apps on these platforms. You have a choice. Stop it.

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