My account got closed for inactivity while I had multiple apps published. Google does not understand the concept of a finished app apparently, and requires you to continuously push updates or else you permanently lose your account with no way of reopening it.
I have just one app I published way back in 2014 or so, and I think there were only 2 updates (only counting changes that required uploading new builds) since then that were like "do this or we're taking the app down".
One of them was requiring a privacy policy, even for a fully offline game that doesn't even have the internet permission. The other one was having to update the target platform version if I remember correctly.
Which of the following are the reasons you chose Google Play related issues as one of the weaknesses?
The second option, written by Google was:
- Sudden account termination without actionable feedback or clear restoration guidance
They know they're killing accounts without due process, they don't care, why would they? They're the only game in town now the Android Developer Verification Program is in force.
It gets better, I too had my account closed for inactivity, but I STILL get emails from them I can't stop because I can't log in to change email preferences.
They also love keeping malware apps on the play store as well. I tried reporting an app that took over one of my parents phone. It stayed up for quite a while. I'm sure it's still up.
"App store experience" was continually degrading. I used to be able to find small apps and games I liked a lot and basically binge downloading. The last few times I tried, I ended up with nothing useable.
Fortunately PWA are well supported on android, half the apps on my phone are PWA and I didn't need an app store or hacking my device to install them. But I moved from native android to PWA after having hellish issues with their automated developer nightmare system.
I paid my fee - $20 or $25, I can’t quite remember - but when I couldn’t reliably enter or find my physical home address via Google Maps because of some weird street-name issues, I never got to complete the process!
Yes, fuck Android though I have to use an Android phone(and I don't want fucking Apple either). I pulled my hobby game from play store because they won't just let it be. Some new regulation now and then and threats to disable the app.
Had the exact same thing. Developed a small game, pushed it to iOS without much fanfare (well, other than having to pay the insanely high toll to get into the garden) and then turned to Android to do the same. Another toll gate at only a quarter the price - sure, lets pay that as well. But then we get to the point where they require images of government issued id and address verification. You can have my money, buddy, but that level of personal data for something small like a game? How about no…
Google take $25 once, Apple takes $100 every year. For hobby projects, the former is reasonable, and the latter is a dealbreaker.
I'm surprised Apple doesn't make you scan your ID since there are laws that force both Apple and Google to publish real names of developers on app store pages. And address too, if you charge money.
Imo even the $25 is too much or at least promotes inequality. Plenty of countries with developers where $25 is a full day's wages, but for the average American software dev $25 is almost nothing.
Honestly, beyond my deGoogled Android smartphone and a GNU/Linux laptop I am looking around for pocketable device between those. Mecha Comet looks like a perfect fit, but it is not released yet.
Yes, fuck it. This is beyond insane, apparently I cant distribute apps just in GitHub "releases" section anymore without Google's approval. I hope some EU antimonopoly something will fry their asses.
Why does anyone even dev for G or A - unless you get a big pay check from either ? Every time I look into mobile dev I just go “yep, NOPE!” and go to have a shower. And it seems to just get worse and worse? Are both app stores going to be full of just unusable vibe coded crap in few years time?
Because at my work, clients want the general public to be able to install their apps sometimes, and my department does native apps, a different department does web stuff. If you want Joe Public to be able to install your app, you have to go through the Google or Apple stores.
However, we don't directly dev in Kotlin or Swift, we use Unity, which can export directly to an APK, or an XCode project (which has to be compiled a second time which is a nightmare). Sometimes we have to write native plugins to access device specific features (Last time I needed to was to access the FoV of the device's main camera), but it's not common, Unity has great support for most things you want to do out of the box
The app I am trying to publish is a PWA but needs a CORS policy bypass for which I have created a small proxy. This proxy needs to be running natively on the device.
Either because their vision of what they want to make needs a mobile form factor and can't be a website (possibly due to marketing causing users to reject mobile websites), or (and I suspect that this is the bigger driver) the pay from the stores (even after the ridiculous 30% cut + bureaucratic insanity) makes it worth it (possibly under the category of getting "a big pay check", but it sounds more like you mean employment).
Because personal computers are a legacy platform for nerds and programmers, and smartphones are the most widely used consumer computing platform in the world. This desperately needs regulation. Unfortunately the EU is currently regulating the duopoly into law, making their phones necessary for ID verification, so we're probably completely fucked for at least a decade or two before we even have a chance, but that's still not a reason to shrug our shoulders and accept it.
My account got closed for inactivity while I had multiple apps published. Google does not understand the concept of a finished app apparently, and requires you to continuously push updates or else you permanently lose your account with no way of reopening it.
I have just one app I published way back in 2014 or so, and I think there were only 2 updates (only counting changes that required uploading new builds) since then that were like "do this or we're taking the app down".
One of them was requiring a privacy policy, even for a fully offline game that doesn't even have the internet permission. The other one was having to update the target platform version if I remember correctly.
They do the same with youtube accounts. My parents lost a ton a family movies that way. No warning either, just poof -> gone.
The worst part is that they probably didn't delete the data and are using it to train models.
Gotta drive engagement bro! Line must go up!
> requires you to continuously push updates
Sounds like a perfect job to automate by an always-on LLM.
I got a Google survey this week.
Which of the following are the reasons you chose Google Play related issues as one of the weaknesses?
The second option, written by Google was:
- Sudden account termination without actionable feedback or clear restoration guidance
They know they're killing accounts without due process, they don't care, why would they? They're the only game in town now the Android Developer Verification Program is in force.
The person creating the survey might be trying to gather data to raise with management.
It gets better, I too had my account closed for inactivity, but I STILL get emails from them I can't stop because I can't log in to change email preferences.
I got banned from Google Admob (or whatever it is called now) and they still send me promotional emails.
Almost sounds like one of the intentional product decisions
There’s Googlers on HN reading these who could probably fix this but won’t.
Unless you offer them a promotion ;)
The question is: does Android Developer Verification Program actually help improving the .apk app store experience?
Probably not. Google is notoriously bad at customer support (for both devs and consumers)
They also love keeping malware apps on the play store as well. I tried reporting an app that took over one of my parents phone. It stayed up for quite a while. I'm sure it's still up.
Euqally - there should be a way to recover your account.
"App store experience" was continually degrading. I used to be able to find small apps and games I liked a lot and basically binge downloading. The last few times I tried, I ended up with nothing useable.
It helps centralize control over what was advertised to be an open OS.
Wait, what was the question again?
Fortunately PWA are well supported on android, half the apps on my phone are PWA and I didn't need an app store or hacking my device to install them. But I moved from native android to PWA after having hellish issues with their automated developer nightmare system.
Can PWAs operate with local data? Can they interact with data from anywhere in the file system?
yes, with the File System API, it needs user permission though (which is a good thing).
Except WebGL isn't really OpenGL ES, and WebGPU will never be like Vulkan as well, so games still need to be native.
Now if it is plain old CRUD style application, many that are webviews packaged as APK, sure.
https://progressier.com/what-web-can-do-today
Honestly, I agree!
I paid my fee - $20 or $25, I can’t quite remember - but when I couldn’t reliably enter or find my physical home address via Google Maps because of some weird street-name issues, I never got to complete the process!
Yes, fuck Android though I have to use an Android phone(and I don't want fucking Apple either). I pulled my hobby game from play store because they won't just let it be. Some new regulation now and then and threats to disable the app.
Had the exact same thing. Developed a small game, pushed it to iOS without much fanfare (well, other than having to pay the insanely high toll to get into the garden) and then turned to Android to do the same. Another toll gate at only a quarter the price - sure, lets pay that as well. But then we get to the point where they require images of government issued id and address verification. You can have my money, buddy, but that level of personal data for something small like a game? How about no…
Google take $25 once, Apple takes $100 every year. For hobby projects, the former is reasonable, and the latter is a dealbreaker.
I'm surprised Apple doesn't make you scan your ID since there are laws that force both Apple and Google to publish real names of developers on app store pages. And address too, if you charge money.
Imo even the $25 is too much or at least promotes inequality. Plenty of countries with developers where $25 is a full day's wages, but for the average American software dev $25 is almost nothing.
They do if you want to distribute your apps in the EU. And your physical address will be published as well.
I switched to GNU/Linux on my GPD MicroPC 2 ;)
Honestly, beyond my deGoogled Android smartphone and a GNU/Linux laptop I am looking around for pocketable device between those. Mecha Comet looks like a perfect fit, but it is not released yet.
Yes, fuck it. This is beyond insane, apparently I cant distribute apps just in GitHub "releases" section anymore without Google's approval. I hope some EU antimonopoly something will fry their asses.
>I hope some EU antimonopoly something will fry their asses. Yes they will but it takes some time, Europe got it own way to make justice: https://hugston.com/news/ban-european-account-pay-billions
I've been reaching out to my MEPs over this. I would encourage other EU citizens to do the same.
Did you thing it was still the 2000's or something?
That you were still free to write code, put it out there and have people use it freely?
A decade ago, I made a joke comment to a friend that you were soon going to need a carry permit to operate a compiler.
Joke's not so funny in 2026.
So, the guy that HN loves to mock and poke fun at - Richard Stallman - was utterly correct after all.
A decade ago, I made a joke comment to a friend that you were soon going to need a carry permit to operate a compiler.
Richard Stallman's Right to Read (1997) made a similar observation.
Why does anyone even dev for G or A - unless you get a big pay check from either ? Every time I look into mobile dev I just go “yep, NOPE!” and go to have a shower. And it seems to just get worse and worse? Are both app stores going to be full of just unusable vibe coded crap in few years time?
Because at my work, clients want the general public to be able to install their apps sometimes, and my department does native apps, a different department does web stuff. If you want Joe Public to be able to install your app, you have to go through the Google or Apple stores.
However, we don't directly dev in Kotlin or Swift, we use Unity, which can export directly to an APK, or an XCode project (which has to be compiled a second time which is a nightmare). Sometimes we have to write native plugins to access device specific features (Last time I needed to was to access the FoV of the device's main camera), but it's not common, Unity has great support for most things you want to do out of the box
The app I am trying to publish is a PWA but needs a CORS policy bypass for which I have created a small proxy. This proxy needs to be running natively on the device.
Either because their vision of what they want to make needs a mobile form factor and can't be a website (possibly due to marketing causing users to reject mobile websites), or (and I suspect that this is the bigger driver) the pay from the stores (even after the ridiculous 30% cut + bureaucratic insanity) makes it worth it (possibly under the category of getting "a big pay check", but it sounds more like you mean employment).
> Why does anyone even dev for G or A
Because personal computers are a legacy platform for nerds and programmers, and smartphones are the most widely used consumer computing platform in the world. This desperately needs regulation. Unfortunately the EU is currently regulating the duopoly into law, making their phones necessary for ID verification, so we're probably completely fucked for at least a decade or two before we even have a chance, but that's still not a reason to shrug our shoulders and accept it.
I won't call it exactly legacy.. Nerds still provide an attractive market. :-)
No insightful information or experience in this comment. Just pointless opinions.
That is indeed a perfect description of your comment.
... just developing for Linux has always had it's own attraction: the one of being free to do what you want.
Another person discovers the binary certificate cartel.