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Donation page "not compliant with Google Play Policies"

346 points by agateau 5y ago

bobkhthgdkgcd 5y ago
I mean, it sounds fairly obvious that this isn't allowed. It is well known that Google (and Apple) do not allow you to have links in your app to payments outside of the ecosystem.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  The author isn't balking at being told no, they are balking at the reasoning. The problem for them isn't the surprise, it's the denial.
  - joshgoldman 5y ago
    Yes but people here are too dumb to realize and care more about defending thier masters
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  I would have expected a donation link, which doesn’t provide the user anything in return, to be different. Apple allows apps to sell physical goods (otherwise Walmart would have problems), would the situation be different if the people who donated got T-shirts?
- ledauphin 5y ago
  isn't there a pretty salient difference between soliciting donations and taking payment? I would have thought those were generally agreed to be qualitatively different things.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  If only it was that simple. Google allows large players to have payment services that do not go through Google, as long as all of the money is directed towards a single person and is not in exchange of physical or digital goods. Of course, that goes out of the window as soon as you're a small developer because then you simply get banned from the play store for doing this, your only recourse being talking to a bot that will never answer you.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Entitled dev gets told no, throws hissy fit. News at 11.
  - blunte 5y ago
    > entitled dev You may disagree with his reasoning, your use of that expression is unreasonable.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      "What nefarious activity does the game engage in?" "Yes. I confess it." "depriving Google of some precious money" No, unreasonable it is not. These are very entitled quotes.
      - agateau 5y ago
        (author here) I am sorry this came up sounding entitled: I don't expect Google policies to change on this subject, and since this is not business threatening to me I just decided to write something I thought would be snarky and hopefully amusing to read.
      - blunte 5y ago
        Those are all sarcasm. I suspect it's the last one that bothers you the most. However, keep in mind that Google has a monopoly on Android app delivery. (Yes, we will ignore the alternatives because they are not reasonably accessible to most users.) Since Google has a monopoly here, any app that pleases some users strengthens the platform, leading to more users which leads to more apps, some of which generate revenue for Google. If there were a reasonable competitor app store for Android, this developer could drop Google and go give his app away for free on the other app store. THAT would deprive Google of more revenue because it would strengthen the competing delivery platform. The only "entitled" party here is Google, because they believe they are entitled to a cut of all money possibly made anywhere from any app that runs on their "open source" platform - simply because they are the gatekeeper.
- sixothree 5y ago
  What if the payment is for something other than just the game or app? What if the app is part of a broader ecosystem that includes videos and merchandise (for example)?
  - cyral 5y ago
    There are numerous exceptions, which is how Amazon, Uber Eats, etc get away with bypassing the App Store payments (because they are providing physical goods). If an app is only unlocking content, even if that content is spread across other platforms, then it needs to use in app purchases. (And you enter a world of hurt as you try to sync a users subscription or purchases across all platforms)
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  I don't think that's necessarily true for Apple. The OP here is just asking for donations; users don't get anything in return. The App Store Review Guidelines only say "If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app [...] you must use in-app purchase." I haven't tried it (yet), but it looks like you might be ok with a Patreon link from an iOS app. The review process can be capricious, of course.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    In general patreon would effectively be providing and services outside the app (even if that service is ‘a warm and fuzzy feeling’). More so if you actually provide some reward via your patreon. > Apps in this section cannot, either within the app or through communications sent to points of contact obtained from account registration within the app (like email or text), encourage users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
    - fay59 5y ago
      There's a good point to make that Patreon's donation tiers mean patrons can be rewarded for their donations. I would hope that the digital equivalent of a tip jar is a different category since it's not a purchase.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        It technically is, but Patreon takes a percentage so it wouldn't be treated as a p2p money transfer app: > (vii) Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase.
- redthrow 5y ago
  Why does Signal (at least on Android) have the "Donate to Signal" link in Settings? It's allowed if it's a registered charity?
cube00 5y ago
At least they actually explained the problem in this case.
RHSeeger 5y ago
> Yes. I confess it. I added a link to my donation page within the game, depriving Google of some precious money it totally cannot survive without! How dare I?!? I am such a bad person. He seems squarely in the wrong here. Google provides a service, and they have rules that are intended to make sure they get paid for providing that service; while, at the same time, still allowing people to offer things without paying (ie, free apps). Using the service but deciding you don't want to pay because "Google has lots of money" doesn't make Google the unreasonable party. By the same logic, I should be able to walk into a store and just take anything I want because I'm using it to make items I sell "for donations". Obviously, that's ridiculous.
- coding123 5y ago
  This is a bullshit comparison and you know it.
- TheRealPomax 5y ago
  first paragraph is accurate. second paragraph is absolute nonsense.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  > By the same logic, I should be able to walk into a store and just take anything I want because I'm using it to make items I sell "for donations". Obviously, that's ridiculous. HN's favorite pastime, using terribly inappropriate analogies for things they don't understand. Because taking actual, physical items (also known as theft) is the same thing as not using Google's paid for service to receive tips. 1/ Developers already pay for access to the Play Store. A minimal fee, sure, but if Google wants to make more money, then they are fully free to raise that. 2/ You are not using their service to process the payment. Google forces themselves into the process simply to extract 30% while doing absolutely nothing.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    Theft and breach of contract are different crimes, sure. But I don't think that distinction makes much difference.
ShaneMcGowan 5y ago
This is "technically" circumventing the protections they have in place for users not getting scammed out of their money. As with all things at scale they have to turn you down unfortunately so they can have a specific stance with no wriggle room
Jan454 5y ago
I don't understand why Google (and Apple) at all are allowed to deny apps on their own. This is self-administered justice! They are monopols. If they say "there are alternatives, just go to Apple/Google/China/F-Droid" that's just a farce that should be punished hard.
- valuearb 5y ago
  I agree. Apple and Google should be forced to use their resources to distribute apps for any developer under any terms the developer wants.
  - newbie578 5y ago
    Oh what a burden it is to host APKs of 10 MB for people to download and use.. Let's stop the pretense that Google and Apple are doing us a big favor with hosting our apks for download. They are not paying for my cloud storage or cloud functions which my users actually use, but me personally. The only role Apple and Google have is to be the troll to take the toll to "allow" me to put a link and download my app from the stores. I would love to just put the same APK on my website and have people install it directly.
    - valuearb 5y ago
      Unlimited free downloads is not an inconsequential benefit. Imagine if Spotify tried to host their downloads on a SquareSpace account, how many microseconds would it be before that account was banned. Even a 10 Mb APK isn’t cheap to host when you have millions of monthly downloads. And then you can just ignore all the ancillary services that add value to being on an App Store, such as app review, marketing promotion, international market access, etc, etc. It’s as if you somehow think all those services appear out of the air instead of requiring thousands of expensive employees to design, build, test, and maintain.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  That's not the problem with Google, as there are other methods of distributing apps for Android. But with Apple it's a different story. Also AFAIK Android's browser is more advanced than Apple's one, so you can create web applications with more capabilities for Android compared to iOS. But web applications do not seem very popular for some reason I don't understand.
snthd 5y ago
Thanks for the game :-)
- agateau 5y ago
  You're welcome! :)
Qahlel 5y ago
There are many simps who would defend the Google-or-Apple's right to get a fixed cut from a 3rd party's work while also denying any other ways for that 3rd party to profit from its own work at the same time. Don't be that guy. Please. I don't like state capitalism. I genuinely hate digital monopoly capitalism. I do love free market capitalism btw.
- muro 5y ago
  Host the apk on your website and you can do whatever you like and not pay Google anything.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Unless you like providing auto-updates.
    - muro 5y ago
      I didn't think of that and didn't know that's not possible. Thanks.
- seaman1921 5y ago
  Yes they have a right if you are using their play store. You can host your app elsewhere mr. free market
- judge2020 5y ago
  > while also denying any other ways for that 3rd party to profit from its own work at the same time. It’s obvious that Google and Apple have a duopoly in mobile phones, and that makes sense since it takes a lot of time and money do so and most developers don’t want to deploy to an extra platform that doesn’t have any users (and thus you have a chicken-and-egg problem where users/phone manufacturers don’t want to switch to your platform with no apps due to this). If these monopolies are exploiting their position via anti-competitive business practices, then the current antitrust probes will hopefully deal with them and force some change. But you can’t ignore the reality of the current situation: Google and Apple have invested trillions of combined dollars into developing the mobile phone ecosystem and making it something that consumers feel safe conducting commerce on (Apple more so than Google). You’re not paying for a vhost to host your apk or ipa when you pay percentages of your in-app purchase revenue, you’re paying for the development of the operating system, payment system, and future APIs that enable your app to even exist. If you don’t like it, you are not forced to have a native app, as on Android and even on iOS you can make an offline-capable PWA.
candiddevmike 5y ago
I recently implemented Google Play billing in my app (after doing Stripe and Apple App Store) and Stripe was by far the easiest to implement/test/maintain. Google and Apple not only take their 15/30% cut, their payment systems add a very non trivial amount of work (cost) to implement and maintain while offering none of the (automated) testing capabilities of Stripe. Work that I'm forced to do, even though I had already implemented Stripe. All because they have a monopoly on their platform. For something as critical as payment processing, both Apple and Google make it an arcane journey into API documentation and stack overflow questions. Hoping to write a blog post detailing all of this in the near future.
- cyral 5y ago
  I really hope Stripe builds out a better payment solution around the App Store and Google Play APIs. I would love to see their take on it. There are services like RevenueCat that do this but they are small companies and still don’t have the best API. (And have a lot of bugs) Still better than dealing with the terrible APIs from Apple and Google directly though
- CodesInChaos 5y ago
  The google play subscription API is unbelievably buggy and generally terrible. Apple's and Amazon's APIs have major flaws as well, but Google is on a whole different level.
- shimfish 5y ago
  I used RevenueCat's API for Apple and Google just to avoid having to do all this crap myself and it's free up to $10,000 of monthly revenue. I was less happy with their Google implementation, mostly because of their bizarre insistence of treating every IAP as consumable but overall still less painful than having to roll my own code.
astatine 5y ago
Conflicted thoughts on this. On the one hand Google has this defined policy, which developers should be aware of. In this case they seemed to have generously explained the reason (must be the season for miracles). On the other, tarring all apps with the same brush and forbidding donation links looks excessive and predatory. Oh, and Bad Google.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Google/Apple should be regulated and forced to drop their anticompetitive clauses concerning third-party payment systems. They should also forced to fully allow third-party apps installation, including independent push notification services. Currently, both Android and iOS severely restrict background app running, and developers are forced to depend on push notifications services provided by google and apple. This effectively locks in users, who can't empoy full capabilities of the device if they do not use Google/Apple services.
- aaronharnly 5y ago
  I appreciate that perspective. As a user of a phone with various apps, I also appreciate those restrictions, which make my experience less of a jungle of different payment plans and questionable battery-sucking activities.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Ideal solution is giving YOU, the User, decide, which apps to run. All you need to make the decision is the data which app consumes how much energy. If I need a processor-intensive app to do some computations all the time, I should be allowed to run it, with full understanding that the device will need to recharge in 3 hours. It's my device, my battery, my use case.
    - MiddleEndian 5y ago
      Android is very opaque about what is actually running. I was walking by a shopping area with a new phone recently and Google Maps popped up with some irrelevant notification. But upon viewing running apps, Maps was not in that list, so there's basically an unknown number of useless background tasks running that the user cannot view or control. As a whole, Android is pretty terrible. You can't run the things you want and you can't stop the things you don't.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
meamin 5y ago
"Play-distributed apps must use Google Play's billing system as the method of payment if they require or accept payment for access to features or services, including any app functionality, digital content or goods" https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9858738?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... I think this is an algorithm mistake on Google's part. Their policy is clear that this scenario is okay. I wonder how they will respond? On a tangent, if I were to release a paid app to third-party stores. I would have a base price then add the third-party fees on top. A gripe would be that I don't see these stores allowing for a clear break down of fees. So I can't educate my users. And if a user is unaware of the added fees they can't take it into account on their next phone purchase. Beyond that, given that there are only two choices seems to imply high barriers of entry into the phone OS game. And that does imply free market issues. But nothing a bit of waiting might not fix? Well given the state of desktop market which has been around for decades there may be room for intervention, haha. Like grants/tax incentives for consumer apps selling on open source operating systems... idk
ArcVRArthur 5y ago
Free open source software funded by donations is evil because it undermines Google’s ads business. Free must be free with ads, not free with donations. Richard Stallman was right. :^)
- Spivak 5y ago
  You’re free to add “donation” buttons on your app you publish on either the App Store or the Play Store but Apple and Google still get their 30% cut. You can’t (currently) get around it by linking to your website and asking for donations there.
  - dgellow 5y ago
    That's not true, both stores only allow this (the "donation" button) for registered charities and foundations.
    - Spivak 5y ago
      Which is why I put it in scare quotes since they’re not charitable donations that have special status. They’re just regular purchases but with nothing attached to them — “pay what you want”, “support development”, “buy me a coffee.” Google and Apple (for now) say that this is just normal app revenue.
rubyist5eva 5y ago
I remember a time where Google was much more permissive than Apple - then I guess Google saw that being draconian about your app store made more money so they stopped being so nice (and why wouldn't they if you can get away with it).
blauditore 5y ago
Many comments here confuse paid apps or in-app purchases with donations. In fact, donations are sort of a blind spot on Google Play: They're forbidden through the platform's payment system (because it would be a price charged without service in direct return), but donation buttons are also forbidden. Since both are forbidden, it's not (just) commercial optimization by Google, but that just makes it weirder IMO. As a rule of thumb, don't include a direct link to PayPal, Patreon or similar, but create a dedicated page on your website listing those and link that page.
- tenuousemphasis 5y ago
  >As a rule of thumb, don't include a direct link to PayPal, Patreon or similar, but create a dedicated page on your website listing those and link that page. That's exactly what this developer did. They linked to a page on their website that has the donation options. Google still objected.
- themacguffinman 5y ago
  AFAICT donation buttons/links are not entirely forbidden, it's only permitted for organizations that are officially registered as tax exempt (eg. a non-profit) [1]. Apple's App Store has the same policy on donations. [1] https://pay.google.com/intl/en_in/about/policy/?visit_id=637536680064804556-2054669066&hl=en&rd=1 https://pay.google.com/intl/en_in/about/policy/?visit_id=637...
  - redthrow 5y ago
    You answered my question. Signal (a non-profit) definitely has "Donate to Signal" link in Settings.
macando 5y ago
I recently updated Pixel Wheels banner image on Google Play. That triggered a review of the game: shortly after the update I received a message telling me Pixel Wheels was "not compliant with Google Play Policies". What nefarious activity does the game engage in? Sneak on users? Mine bitcoins? This paragraph threw me off. I thought Google is offering some sort of carousel banner advertising thing for their Pixel phones. Figured out it's the name of your game. On topic, app store providers are super sensitive when it comes to anything related to payments. That's probably the first step in their review algorithm/process.
perryizgr8 5y ago
It's their platform. They can set the rules as they like. If you don't like it, just make your own os, sell billions of cellphones, then distribute your app on your own play store. They are not obligated to host you.
- sagolikasoppor 5y ago
  This is good sarcasm.
collaborative 5y ago
Nah, play by the rules or stop suing their service. They funnel users to your app, for free. Just use their payment processing service for donations. Donations make sense in open-source software, if you're making a game it's best to straight up charge for it or if you're starting to build your audience you can do in-app purchases for special things
- taormina 5y ago
  It's absolutely not free
  - collaborative 5y ago
    Publishing on Google Play is free last time I checked
    - taormina 5y ago
      Google charges a one-time $25 fee to get a developer account on Google Play, is needed to publish Android apps.
- agateau 5y ago
  The game is actually open-source (https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/ https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/), so which side do I pick?
  - collaborative 5y ago
    I also tried the donation-route with an app and had to desist (Apple also blocks donations that circumvent their payment system) Only speaking from experience. In the end I moved to small in-app purchases. You can still do donations, but you need to make them an in-app purchase. The donation will pay for your work, and for Google's app store presence. Consider the latter carefully. They do advertise your "product". Even though it's open-source, it's still a product because you hope to make money even if in the form of a donation. Their advertisement is actually really cheap if you compare it to what other real-life products pay in places like Google Ads So, if you really want to show that "feel free to donate" screen you need to make the donation an in-app purchase. What is allowed is linking the app to a website, without mentioning anything about a donation, and then showing a donation form straight after clicking. You can do something like "Help->Website" and link it to your donation landing page
whydoineedthis 5y ago
imho, the author should stop making apps for Google and iOS and start making them for the linux phones. "but so few people have a linux phone" you will argue. Well, one of the reasons for that is that good hardworking app developers are still naively giving away their time to the large corps that make the rules. Want to live outside the rules? Support an echo system that has less of them. Until then, complaining is just a waste of your time and everyone else. Google will only change when their pockets dictate it, no sooner.
xyzelement 5y ago
I have a lot of sympathy for the dev, but it also seems really naive to expect something different from a company trying to operate a service at scale. Simplest example, if Google allowed this benign thing, how do they protect from opening the floodgates to scams being run on their platform under the guise of donation pages etc? Basically if you are relying on a broad policy, any one-off exceptions are either very costly in validation or they undermine the policy.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  Scale is not a justification, it's an excuse for bad behavior. We should punish companies whose focus on scale hurts individuals.
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    Okay sure. I am just saying there's a big difference between "Google's policies are unfair across the board" (which I guess is the statement you'd advocate for) and "I am surprised that a multinational company didn't default to letting me break its policies" (the author's take) which is naive or disingenuous.
  - throw14082020 5y ago
    I seem to think his sentence reads better without "at scale". > it also seems really naive to expect something different. is enough
    - xyzelement 5y ago
      You are wrong, at least versus my intended meaning. If I am dealing with a small company and my business is a decent size chunk of theirs, then I would ABSOLUTELY expect them to cater to me. For example, I expect a ton of flexibility out of my real estate agent or the SaaA startup my company uses. I don't expect the same out of a company serving billions of people.
      - throw14082020 5y ago
mdale 5y ago
Google is so very clearly correct to engage in corrective enforcement is the point. Clearly stated rules clearly enforced with algorithmic efficiency likely detected by automated play store screening algorithms. Centralized digital mediation eliminates froth; no more can we let things slide; we don't bend rules in the way that happen constantly in person to person interactions. Where to go from here; Perhaps social trust tokens to provide some flex on rules where people have built some levels of trust. I.e if not a game dev farm obfuscating bad things ... Where below certain thresholds have no play store fees for Indy devs? I think Google has some such initiatives. Certainty unity had a progressive license structure that was great for both sides.
- finnthehuman 5y ago
  There’s a 2-page paper “how complex systems fail.” Its worth a read in general but one of its points in that humans are the grease that allow complex systems to flex in ways that could not be foreseen. https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/ Item #2
atum47 5y ago
I recently received an email from them saying that they are now helping small developers, cutting back their cut on the each game you sell. Seems pretty decent of them. Maybe publish you game (supported by donations) on platforms that encourage such practices, such as itch.io or outpan.
avereveard 5y ago
well yeah breach of contract is breach of contract no matter how draconian the contract is. you agreed to it, because you wanted the google play store eyeballs, then decided it was not enough, and tried to sidestep their share for the eyeball providing services. and that makes you the greedy one in the relationship.
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kazinator 5y ago
If this is not a free game as in FOSS, I'm not highly sympathetic. Basically, this sort of thing is a way of collecting money outside of the store. Bad agents can disguise "in-app purchases" by handling them via a "donations" page. It could easily be that donations are actually payments, because users who donate have some sort of preferential treatment in the software. If you run an operation like the Google Play Store, you cannot investigate everything into that level of detail. Next time, try having an unobtrusive link to a general website, without insinuating that it's a page where you pay.
- rpdillon 5y ago
  Interesting you raise this! It's not technically FOSS as far as I can tell, but it is on f-droid. CC-BY-SA is a very poor choice for software IMHO...too many ambiguities. https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/blob/master/LICENSE.CC-BY-SA https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/blob/master/LICENSE.C...
  - agateau 5y ago
    CC-BY-SA is only for assets: code is GPL3 and Apache 2, see https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/#license https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/#license
    - rpdillon 5y ago
      Excellent! I clicked through using GitHub's "License" link...I should have dug a bit deeper. Thanks for clarifying!
xbmcuser 5y ago
I don't see what google did wrong here. The op is calling it a donation when in actually it is a tip. i.e income skirting around by calling it donation doesn't change the fact the the op is trying to make money using google services without paying google its cut. Now we can argue about google cut being too high though they have changed it to less for apps making less than a million. But that's not the argument here. I am wondering do all the developers working on so called donations declare their income to the tax department as I believe it is income just like it is for restaurant staff.
- cabalamat 5y ago
  > The op is calling it a donation when in actually it is a tip. Er, unless I'm missing something, that's the same thing.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - temp667 5y ago
    Cool - I will start deducting the tips and gifts I give my friend and family on my taxes!! Can you provide your name and address so I can cite your views when the IRS comes knocking? So we are 100% clear, donations are things given to charities. Gifts and tips are generally given to individuals. In a lot of contexts, including with google, there is a major difference, and folks pretending to be charities to use the donation exceptions are basically scammers (in google's eyes). Not sure I disagree either.
    - bashinator 5y ago
      You seem to have an exclusively legalistic interpretation of language that doesn’t necessarily account for casual, real-life use of speech and writing.
      - temp667 5y ago
        The person is complaining about google's policies. Google's policies follow this accepted language. You are allowed to have donate now buttons to accept donations on or even off platform if you are a charity. If you want to make up your own words, and then be outraged that google and others don't agree with you - fine. We are living in alternative facts / outrage world these days. But if someone calls you out on this - and points out that plenty of scammers also try to thread this needle in lots of ways, maybe worth a minute of real life reflection.
echelon 5y ago
End app stores. The megamonopolies have no right to have their hands in so many cookie jars, yet have the back breaking ability to take our 30% and shut us down. They control too much, and only got there through monopoly forces. The Internet was not supposed to evolve in this direction. 1990 - 2007 was full of hope and dreams for an open ecosystem, then this app cancer showed up. Windows lets you install anything without central control. This is how it should be. Take the app stores down. Rip them out. Take away Google's ability to run a browser too. They shouldn't be able to set web standards and shape what we can see. Please, DOJ. You're our only hope.
agateau 5y ago
(author here) I thought I would answer to some of the comments here. > It's their place, their rules Definitely true. And I am not going to try to go against those rules. But I believe I am allowed to voice my opinion about them. > Use in-app purchases instead This is definitely a valid option, but that requires diving into Google Pay, which from what I understand is not the easiest API to work with. It also means I have to maintain additional code for Google Play. More not-so-fun work to do for a side project. > Make it a paid game Another valid option, but given how everybody is used to free games on Android, I doubt it would get much success. It also does not help that Google Play disallows switching a published app from free to paid and vice-versa: it's a one-way decision. I might end up going that way though, because it has the advantage of not having to write store-specific code. Pixel Wheels is not Android only: it also works on Linux, Windows and macOS, so not having to deal with store-specific requirements gives me more time to work on the game itself. The game would still be available for free on F-Droid and for pay-what-you-want on itch.io. I also happen to run other open-source projects, and my goal with donations is to get people to support this open-source work, not just my work on this particular project. I don't expect to ever live from this: in my wildest dreams donations would let me spend a work-day per week or every two weeks to work on open-source projects.
- scambier 5y ago
  > It's their place, their rules Yeah and then what's a viable alternative? They (with Apple) can unilaterally cut your revenue stream for any made-up reason with no recourse, and yet there's still people defending mono/duopolies.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Google and other companies now enforce rules to what happens to your phones and laptops, they have "home assistants' in your homes, they are in your car, on your watch, soon their will be some random software in your toilet seat. What has to happen before people realize that allowing megacorps to set arbitrary and capricious rules will render both consumers and other businesses into a subservient position? Why do the megacorps retain so much control of the device long after it has been sold and become my property? turkeys voting for christmas
lucb1e 5y ago
Hey, I know this game but from F-Droid! Played it a couple times when it was new on there. Fun game, and for being on touchscreen I found the input to work quite reasonably (which is an achievement! Without any tactile feedback it's very hard to get something workable for someone without a lot of practice). What I'm a bit missing from the article is what Google requires, though. Do they want you to offer a Google pay option on the donation page and then it's fine, or are you (like with Apple) not to link or even mention any other donation methods at all? Frankly I find the whole thing weird. You pay to be on the store, and now they want you to also give them a cut of donations? I'm surprised you're not just pulling it and "updating" the game to be a link to F-Droid for the remainder of your play store subscription.
hipposbigsister 5y ago
Google is making sure you can't have a backdoor "pay what you want" app in their store, and there's no way to distinguish between that and donations intended to be donations.
TrianguloY 5y ago
I know they won't do it, but imagine if the Play Store had a built-in button to donate/support/tip a developer. Like the member feature of YouTube. Small developers will have access to donations without doing anything, no more 'normal/donation' dual apps, no need to add 10MB of unused code to apps just to implement the payments api, probably more and better free apps... A developer can dream.

346 points by agateau 5y ago

I mean, it sounds fairly obvious that this isn't allowed. It is well known that Google (and Apple) do not allow you to have links in your app to payments outside of the ecosystem.

Pfhreak 5y ago
The author isn't balking at being told no, they are balking at the reasoning. The problem for them isn't the surprise, it's the denial.
- joshgoldman 5y ago
  Yes but people here are too dumb to realize and care more about defending thier masters
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
I would have expected a donation link, which doesn’t provide the user anything in return, to be different. Apple allows apps to sell physical goods (otherwise Walmart would have problems), would the situation be different if the people who donated got T-shirts?
ledauphin 5y ago
isn't there a pretty salient difference between soliciting donations and taking payment? I would have thought those were generally agreed to be qualitatively different things.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
If only it was that simple. Google allows large players to have payment services that do not go through Google, as long as all of the money is directed towards a single person and is not in exchange of physical or digital goods. Of course, that goes out of the window as soon as you're a small developer because then you simply get banned from the play store for doing this, your only recourse being talking to a bot that will never answer you.
dylan604 5y ago
Entitled dev gets told no, throws hissy fit. News at 11.
- blunte 5y ago
  > entitled dev You may disagree with his reasoning, your use of that expression is unreasonable.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    "What nefarious activity does the game engage in?" "Yes. I confess it." "depriving Google of some precious money" No, unreasonable it is not. These are very entitled quotes.
    - agateau 5y ago
      (author here) I am sorry this came up sounding entitled: I don't expect Google policies to change on this subject, and since this is not business threatening to me I just decided to write something I thought would be snarky and hopefully amusing to read.
    - blunte 5y ago
      Those are all sarcasm. I suspect it's the last one that bothers you the most. However, keep in mind that Google has a monopoly on Android app delivery. (Yes, we will ignore the alternatives because they are not reasonably accessible to most users.) Since Google has a monopoly here, any app that pleases some users strengthens the platform, leading to more users which leads to more apps, some of which generate revenue for Google. If there were a reasonable competitor app store for Android, this developer could drop Google and go give his app away for free on the other app store. THAT would deprive Google of more revenue because it would strengthen the competing delivery platform. The only "entitled" party here is Google, because they believe they are entitled to a cut of all money possibly made anywhere from any app that runs on their "open source" platform - simply because they are the gatekeeper.
sixothree 5y ago
What if the payment is for something other than just the game or app? What if the app is part of a broader ecosystem that includes videos and merchandise (for example)?
- cyral 5y ago
  There are numerous exceptions, which is how Amazon, Uber Eats, etc get away with bypassing the App Store payments (because they are providing physical goods). If an app is only unlocking content, even if that content is spread across other platforms, then it needs to use in app purchases. (And you enter a world of hurt as you try to sync a users subscription or purchases across all platforms)
Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
I don't think that's necessarily true for Apple. The OP here is just asking for donations; users don't get anything in return. The App Store Review Guidelines only say "If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app [...] you must use in-app purchase." I haven't tried it (yet), but it looks like you might be ok with a Patreon link from an iOS app. The review process can be capricious, of course.
- judge2020 5y ago
  In general patreon would effectively be providing and services outside the app (even if that service is ‘a warm and fuzzy feeling’). More so if you actually provide some reward via your patreon. > Apps in this section cannot, either within the app or through communications sent to points of contact obtained from account registration within the app (like email or text), encourage users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
  - fay59 5y ago
    There's a good point to make that Patreon's donation tiers mean patrons can be rewarded for their donations. I would hope that the digital equivalent of a tip jar is a different category since it's not a purchase.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      It technically is, but Patreon takes a percentage so it wouldn't be treated as a p2p money transfer app: > (vii) Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase.
redthrow 5y ago
Why does Signal (at least on Android) have the "Donate to Signal" link in Settings? It's allowed if it's a registered charity?

cube00 5y ago

At least they actually explained the problem in this case.

RHSeeger 5y ago

> Yes. I confess it. I added a link to my donation page within the game, depriving Google of some precious money it totally cannot survive without! How dare I?!? I am such a bad person. He seems squarely in the wrong here. Google provides a service, and they have rules that are intended to make sure they get paid for providing that service; while, at the same time, still allowing people to offer things without paying (ie, free apps). Using the service but deciding you don't want to pay because "Google has lots of money" doesn't make Google the unreasonable party. By the same logic, I should be able to walk into a store and just take anything I want because I'm using it to make items I sell "for donations". Obviously, that's ridiculous.

coding123 5y ago
This is a bullshit comparison and you know it.
TheRealPomax 5y ago
first paragraph is accurate. second paragraph is absolute nonsense.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
> By the same logic, I should be able to walk into a store and just take anything I want because I'm using it to make items I sell "for donations". Obviously, that's ridiculous. HN's favorite pastime, using terribly inappropriate analogies for things they don't understand. Because taking actual, physical items (also known as theft) is the same thing as not using Google's paid for service to receive tips. 1/ Developers already pay for access to the Play Store. A minimal fee, sure, but if Google wants to make more money, then they are fully free to raise that. 2/ You are not using their service to process the payment. Google forces themselves into the process simply to extract 30% while doing absolutely nothing.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Theft and breach of contract are different crimes, sure. But I don't think that distinction makes much difference.

ShaneMcGowan 5y ago

This is "technically" circumventing the protections they have in place for users not getting scammed out of their money. As with all things at scale they have to turn you down unfortunately so they can have a specific stance with no wriggle room

Jan454 5y ago

I don't understand why Google (and Apple) at all are allowed to deny apps on their own. This is self-administered justice! They are monopols. If they say "there are alternatives, just go to Apple/Google/China/F-Droid" that's just a farce that should be punished hard.

valuearb 5y ago
I agree. Apple and Google should be forced to use their resources to distribute apps for any developer under any terms the developer wants.
- newbie578 5y ago
  Oh what a burden it is to host APKs of 10 MB for people to download and use.. Let's stop the pretense that Google and Apple are doing us a big favor with hosting our apks for download. They are not paying for my cloud storage or cloud functions which my users actually use, but me personally. The only role Apple and Google have is to be the troll to take the toll to "allow" me to put a link and download my app from the stores. I would love to just put the same APK on my website and have people install it directly.
  - valuearb 5y ago
    Unlimited free downloads is not an inconsequential benefit. Imagine if Spotify tried to host their downloads on a SquareSpace account, how many microseconds would it be before that account was banned. Even a 10 Mb APK isn’t cheap to host when you have millions of monthly downloads. And then you can just ignore all the ancillary services that add value to being on an App Store, such as app review, marketing promotion, international market access, etc, etc. It’s as if you somehow think all those services appear out of the air instead of requiring thousands of expensive employees to design, build, test, and maintain.
vbezhenar 5y ago
That's not the problem with Google, as there are other methods of distributing apps for Android. But with Apple it's a different story. Also AFAIK Android's browser is more advanced than Apple's one, so you can create web applications with more capabilities for Android compared to iOS. But web applications do not seem very popular for some reason I don't understand.

snthd 5y ago

Thanks for the game :-)

agateau 5y ago
You're welcome! :)

Qahlel 5y ago

There are many simps who would defend the Google-or-Apple's right to get a fixed cut from a 3rd party's work while also denying any other ways for that 3rd party to profit from its own work at the same time. Don't be that guy. Please. I don't like state capitalism. I genuinely hate digital monopoly capitalism. I do love free market capitalism btw.

muro 5y ago
Host the apk on your website and you can do whatever you like and not pay Google anything.
- anoncake 5y ago
  Unless you like providing auto-updates.
  - muro 5y ago
    I didn't think of that and didn't know that's not possible. Thanks.
seaman1921 5y ago
Yes they have a right if you are using their play store. You can host your app elsewhere mr. free market
judge2020 5y ago
> while also denying any other ways for that 3rd party to profit from its own work at the same time. It’s obvious that Google and Apple have a duopoly in mobile phones, and that makes sense since it takes a lot of time and money do so and most developers don’t want to deploy to an extra platform that doesn’t have any users (and thus you have a chicken-and-egg problem where users/phone manufacturers don’t want to switch to your platform with no apps due to this). If these monopolies are exploiting their position via anti-competitive business practices, then the current antitrust probes will hopefully deal with them and force some change. But you can’t ignore the reality of the current situation: Google and Apple have invested trillions of combined dollars into developing the mobile phone ecosystem and making it something that consumers feel safe conducting commerce on (Apple more so than Google). You’re not paying for a vhost to host your apk or ipa when you pay percentages of your in-app purchase revenue, you’re paying for the development of the operating system, payment system, and future APIs that enable your app to even exist. If you don’t like it, you are not forced to have a native app, as on Android and even on iOS you can make an offline-capable PWA.

candiddevmike 5y ago

I recently implemented Google Play billing in my app (after doing Stripe and Apple App Store) and Stripe was by far the easiest to implement/test/maintain. Google and Apple not only take their 15/30% cut, their payment systems add a very non trivial amount of work (cost) to implement and maintain while offering none of the (automated) testing capabilities of Stripe. Work that I'm forced to do, even though I had already implemented Stripe. All because they have a monopoly on their platform. For something as critical as payment processing, both Apple and Google make it an arcane journey into API documentation and stack overflow questions. Hoping to write a blog post detailing all of this in the near future.

cyral 5y ago
I really hope Stripe builds out a better payment solution around the App Store and Google Play APIs. I would love to see their take on it. There are services like RevenueCat that do this but they are small companies and still don’t have the best API. (And have a lot of bugs) Still better than dealing with the terrible APIs from Apple and Google directly though
CodesInChaos 5y ago
The google play subscription API is unbelievably buggy and generally terrible. Apple's and Amazon's APIs have major flaws as well, but Google is on a whole different level.
shimfish 5y ago
I used RevenueCat's API for Apple and Google just to avoid having to do all this crap myself and it's free up to $10,000 of monthly revenue. I was less happy with their Google implementation, mostly because of their bizarre insistence of treating every IAP as consumable but overall still less painful than having to roll my own code.

astatine 5y ago

Conflicted thoughts on this. On the one hand Google has this defined policy, which developers should be aware of. In this case they seemed to have generously explained the reason (must be the season for miracles). On the other, tarring all apps with the same brush and forbidding donation links looks excessive and predatory. Oh, and Bad Google.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

Google/Apple should be regulated and forced to drop their anticompetitive clauses concerning third-party payment systems. They should also forced to fully allow third-party apps installation, including independent push notification services. Currently, both Android and iOS severely restrict background app running, and developers are forced to depend on push notifications services provided by google and apple. This effectively locks in users, who can't empoy full capabilities of the device if they do not use Google/Apple services.

aaronharnly 5y ago
I appreciate that perspective. As a user of a phone with various apps, I also appreciate those restrictions, which make my experience less of a jungle of different payment plans and questionable battery-sucking activities.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Ideal solution is giving YOU, the User, decide, which apps to run. All you need to make the decision is the data which app consumes how much energy. If I need a processor-intensive app to do some computations all the time, I should be allowed to run it, with full understanding that the device will need to recharge in 3 hours. It's my device, my battery, my use case.
  - MiddleEndian 5y ago
    Android is very opaque about what is actually running. I was walking by a shopping area with a new phone recently and Google Maps popped up with some irrelevant notification. But upon viewing running apps, Maps was not in that list, so there's basically an unknown number of useless background tasks running that the user cannot view or control. As a whole, Android is pretty terrible. You can't run the things you want and you can't stop the things you don't.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

meamin 5y ago

"Play-distributed apps must use Google Play's billing system as the method of payment if they require or accept payment for access to features or services, including any app functionality, digital content or goods" https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9858738?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... I think this is an algorithm mistake on Google's part. Their policy is clear that this scenario is okay. I wonder how they will respond? On a tangent, if I were to release a paid app to third-party stores. I would have a base price then add the third-party fees on top. A gripe would be that I don't see these stores allowing for a clear break down of fees. So I can't educate my users. And if a user is unaware of the added fees they can't take it into account on their next phone purchase. Beyond that, given that there are only two choices seems to imply high barriers of entry into the phone OS game. And that does imply free market issues. But nothing a bit of waiting might not fix? Well given the state of desktop market which has been around for decades there may be room for intervention, haha. Like grants/tax incentives for consumer apps selling on open source operating systems... idk

ArcVRArthur 5y ago

Free open source software funded by donations is evil because it undermines Google’s ads business. Free must be free with ads, not free with donations. Richard Stallman was right. :^)

Spivak 5y ago
You’re free to add “donation” buttons on your app you publish on either the App Store or the Play Store but Apple and Google still get their 30% cut. You can’t (currently) get around it by linking to your website and asking for donations there.
- dgellow 5y ago
  That's not true, both stores only allow this (the "donation" button) for registered charities and foundations.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Which is why I put it in scare quotes since they’re not charitable donations that have special status. They’re just regular purchases but with nothing attached to them — “pay what you want”, “support development”, “buy me a coffee.” Google and Apple (for now) say that this is just normal app revenue.

rubyist5eva 5y ago

I remember a time where Google was much more permissive than Apple - then I guess Google saw that being draconian about your app store made more money so they stopped being so nice (and why wouldn't they if you can get away with it).

blauditore 5y ago

Many comments here confuse paid apps or in-app purchases with donations. In fact, donations are sort of a blind spot on Google Play: They're forbidden through the platform's payment system (because it would be a price charged without service in direct return), but donation buttons are also forbidden. Since both are forbidden, it's not (just) commercial optimization by Google, but that just makes it weirder IMO. As a rule of thumb, don't include a direct link to PayPal, Patreon or similar, but create a dedicated page on your website listing those and link that page.

tenuousemphasis 5y ago
>As a rule of thumb, don't include a direct link to PayPal, Patreon or similar, but create a dedicated page on your website listing those and link that page. That's exactly what this developer did. They linked to a page on their website that has the donation options. Google still objected.
themacguffinman 5y ago
AFAICT donation buttons/links are not entirely forbidden, it's only permitted for organizations that are officially registered as tax exempt (eg. a non-profit) [1]. Apple's App Store has the same policy on donations. [1] https://pay.google.com/intl/en_in/about/policy/?visit_id=637536680064804556-2054669066&hl=en&rd=1 https://pay.google.com/intl/en_in/about/policy/?visit_id=637...
- redthrow 5y ago
  You answered my question. Signal (a non-profit) definitely has "Donate to Signal" link in Settings.

macando 5y ago

I recently updated Pixel Wheels banner image on Google Play. That triggered a review of the game: shortly after the update I received a message telling me Pixel Wheels was "not compliant with Google Play Policies". What nefarious activity does the game engage in? Sneak on users? Mine bitcoins? This paragraph threw me off. I thought Google is offering some sort of carousel banner advertising thing for their Pixel phones. Figured out it's the name of your game. On topic, app store providers are super sensitive when it comes to anything related to payments. That's probably the first step in their review algorithm/process.

perryizgr8 5y ago

It's their platform. They can set the rules as they like. If you don't like it, just make your own os, sell billions of cellphones, then distribute your app on your own play store. They are not obligated to host you.

sagolikasoppor 5y ago
This is good sarcasm.

collaborative 5y ago

Nah, play by the rules or stop suing their service. They funnel users to your app, for free. Just use their payment processing service for donations. Donations make sense in open-source software, if you're making a game it's best to straight up charge for it or if you're starting to build your audience you can do in-app purchases for special things

taormina 5y ago
It's absolutely not free
- collaborative 5y ago
  Publishing on Google Play is free last time I checked
  - taormina 5y ago
    Google charges a one-time $25 fee to get a developer account on Google Play, is needed to publish Android apps.
agateau 5y ago
The game is actually open-source (https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/ https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/), so which side do I pick?
- collaborative 5y ago
  I also tried the donation-route with an app and had to desist (Apple also blocks donations that circumvent their payment system) Only speaking from experience. In the end I moved to small in-app purchases. You can still do donations, but you need to make them an in-app purchase. The donation will pay for your work, and for Google's app store presence. Consider the latter carefully. They do advertise your "product". Even though it's open-source, it's still a product because you hope to make money even if in the form of a donation. Their advertisement is actually really cheap if you compare it to what other real-life products pay in places like Google Ads So, if you really want to show that "feel free to donate" screen you need to make the donation an in-app purchase. What is allowed is linking the app to a website, without mentioning anything about a donation, and then showing a donation form straight after clicking. You can do something like "Help->Website" and link it to your donation landing page

whydoineedthis 5y ago

imho, the author should stop making apps for Google and iOS and start making them for the linux phones. "but so few people have a linux phone" you will argue. Well, one of the reasons for that is that good hardworking app developers are still naively giving away their time to the large corps that make the rules. Want to live outside the rules? Support an echo system that has less of them. Until then, complaining is just a waste of your time and everyone else. Google will only change when their pockets dictate it, no sooner.

xyzelement 5y ago

I have a lot of sympathy for the dev, but it also seems really naive to expect something different from a company trying to operate a service at scale. Simplest example, if Google allowed this benign thing, how do they protect from opening the floodgates to scams being run on their platform under the guise of donation pages etc? Basically if you are relying on a broad policy, any one-off exceptions are either very costly in validation or they undermine the policy.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
Scale is not a justification, it's an excuse for bad behavior. We should punish companies whose focus on scale hurts individuals.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  Okay sure. I am just saying there's a big difference between "Google's policies are unfair across the board" (which I guess is the statement you'd advocate for) and "I am surprised that a multinational company didn't default to letting me break its policies" (the author's take) which is naive or disingenuous.
- throw14082020 5y ago
  I seem to think his sentence reads better without "at scale". > it also seems really naive to expect something different. is enough
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    You are wrong, at least versus my intended meaning. If I am dealing with a small company and my business is a decent size chunk of theirs, then I would ABSOLUTELY expect them to cater to me. For example, I expect a ton of flexibility out of my real estate agent or the SaaA startup my company uses. I don't expect the same out of a company serving billions of people.
    - throw14082020 5y ago

mdale 5y ago

Google is so very clearly correct to engage in corrective enforcement is the point. Clearly stated rules clearly enforced with algorithmic efficiency likely detected by automated play store screening algorithms. Centralized digital mediation eliminates froth; no more can we let things slide; we don't bend rules in the way that happen constantly in person to person interactions. Where to go from here; Perhaps social trust tokens to provide some flex on rules where people have built some levels of trust. I.e if not a game dev farm obfuscating bad things ... Where below certain thresholds have no play store fees for Indy devs? I think Google has some such initiatives. Certainty unity had a progressive license structure that was great for both sides.

finnthehuman 5y ago
There’s a 2-page paper “how complex systems fail.” Its worth a read in general but one of its points in that humans are the grease that allow complex systems to flex in ways that could not be foreseen. https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/ Item #2

atum47 5y ago

I recently received an email from them saying that they are now helping small developers, cutting back their cut on the each game you sell. Seems pretty decent of them. Maybe publish you game (supported by donations) on platforms that encourage such practices, such as itch.io or outpan.

avereveard 5y ago

well yeah breach of contract is breach of contract no matter how draconian the contract is. you agreed to it, because you wanted the google play store eyeballs, then decided it was not enough, and tried to sidestep their share for the eyeball providing services. and that makes you the greedy one in the relationship.

deleted 5y ago

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deleted 5y ago

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kazinator 5y ago

If this is not a free game as in FOSS, I'm not highly sympathetic. Basically, this sort of thing is a way of collecting money outside of the store. Bad agents can disguise "in-app purchases" by handling them via a "donations" page. It could easily be that donations are actually payments, because users who donate have some sort of preferential treatment in the software. If you run an operation like the Google Play Store, you cannot investigate everything into that level of detail. Next time, try having an unobtrusive link to a general website, without insinuating that it's a page where you pay.

rpdillon 5y ago
Interesting you raise this! It's not technically FOSS as far as I can tell, but it is on f-droid. CC-BY-SA is a very poor choice for software IMHO...too many ambiguities. https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/blob/master/LICENSE.CC-BY-SA https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/blob/master/LICENSE.C...
- agateau 5y ago
  CC-BY-SA is only for assets: code is GPL3 and Apache 2, see https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/#license https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/#license
  - rpdillon 5y ago
    Excellent! I clicked through using GitHub's "License" link...I should have dug a bit deeper. Thanks for clarifying!

xbmcuser 5y ago

I don't see what google did wrong here. The op is calling it a donation when in actually it is a tip. i.e income skirting around by calling it donation doesn't change the fact the the op is trying to make money using google services without paying google its cut. Now we can argue about google cut being too high though they have changed it to less for apps making less than a million. But that's not the argument here. I am wondering do all the developers working on so called donations declare their income to the tax department as I believe it is income just like it is for restaurant staff.

cabalamat 5y ago
> The op is calling it a donation when in actually it is a tip. Er, unless I'm missing something, that's the same thing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- temp667 5y ago
  Cool - I will start deducting the tips and gifts I give my friend and family on my taxes!! Can you provide your name and address so I can cite your views when the IRS comes knocking? So we are 100% clear, donations are things given to charities. Gifts and tips are generally given to individuals. In a lot of contexts, including with google, there is a major difference, and folks pretending to be charities to use the donation exceptions are basically scammers (in google's eyes). Not sure I disagree either.
  - bashinator 5y ago
    You seem to have an exclusively legalistic interpretation of language that doesn’t necessarily account for casual, real-life use of speech and writing.
    - temp667 5y ago
      The person is complaining about google's policies. Google's policies follow this accepted language. You are allowed to have donate now buttons to accept donations on or even off platform if you are a charity. If you want to make up your own words, and then be outraged that google and others don't agree with you - fine. We are living in alternative facts / outrage world these days. But if someone calls you out on this - and points out that plenty of scammers also try to thread this needle in lots of ways, maybe worth a minute of real life reflection.

echelon 5y ago

End app stores. The megamonopolies have no right to have their hands in so many cookie jars, yet have the back breaking ability to take our 30% and shut us down. They control too much, and only got there through monopoly forces. The Internet was not supposed to evolve in this direction. 1990 - 2007 was full of hope and dreams for an open ecosystem, then this app cancer showed up. Windows lets you install anything without central control. This is how it should be. Take the app stores down. Rip them out. Take away Google's ability to run a browser too. They shouldn't be able to set web standards and shape what we can see. Please, DOJ. You're our only hope.

agateau 5y ago

(author here) I thought I would answer to some of the comments here. > It's their place, their rules Definitely true. And I am not going to try to go against those rules. But I believe I am allowed to voice my opinion about them. > Use in-app purchases instead This is definitely a valid option, but that requires diving into Google Pay, which from what I understand is not the easiest API to work with. It also means I have to maintain additional code for Google Play. More not-so-fun work to do for a side project. > Make it a paid game Another valid option, but given how everybody is used to free games on Android, I doubt it would get much success. It also does not help that Google Play disallows switching a published app from free to paid and vice-versa: it's a one-way decision. I might end up going that way though, because it has the advantage of not having to write store-specific code. Pixel Wheels is not Android only: it also works on Linux, Windows and macOS, so not having to deal with store-specific requirements gives me more time to work on the game itself. The game would still be available for free on F-Droid and for pay-what-you-want on itch.io. I also happen to run other open-source projects, and my goal with donations is to get people to support this open-source work, not just my work on this particular project. I don't expect to ever live from this: in my wildest dreams donations would let me spend a work-day per week or every two weeks to work on open-source projects.

scambier 5y ago
> It's their place, their rules Yeah and then what's a viable alternative? They (with Apple) can unilaterally cut your revenue stream for any made-up reason with no recourse, and yet there's still people defending mono/duopolies.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Google and other companies now enforce rules to what happens to your phones and laptops, they have "home assistants' in your homes, they are in your car, on your watch, soon their will be some random software in your toilet seat. What has to happen before people realize that allowing megacorps to set arbitrary and capricious rules will render both consumers and other businesses into a subservient position? Why do the megacorps retain so much control of the device long after it has been sold and become my property? turkeys voting for christmas

lucb1e 5y ago

Hey, I know this game but from F-Droid! Played it a couple times when it was new on there. Fun game, and for being on touchscreen I found the input to work quite reasonably (which is an achievement! Without any tactile feedback it's very hard to get something workable for someone without a lot of practice). What I'm a bit missing from the article is what Google requires, though. Do they want you to offer a Google pay option on the donation page and then it's fine, or are you (like with Apple) not to link or even mention any other donation methods at all? Frankly I find the whole thing weird. You pay to be on the store, and now they want you to also give them a cut of donations? I'm surprised you're not just pulling it and "updating" the game to be a link to F-Droid for the remainder of your play store subscription.

hipposbigsister 5y ago

Google is making sure you can't have a backdoor "pay what you want" app in their store, and there's no way to distinguish between that and donations intended to be donations.

TrianguloY 5y ago

I know they won't do it, but imagine if the Play Store had a built-in button to donate/support/tip a developer. Like the member feature of YouTube. Small developers will have access to donations without doing anything, no more 'normal/donation' dual apps, no need to add 10MB of unused code to apps just to implement the payments api, probably more and better free apps... A developer can dream.