8 ms·

This is because they removed any app from any individual-human developer who didn't care to jump through the hoops of getting and submitting a DUNS number: http

by Lammy 1y ago

This is because they removed any app from any individual-human developer who didn't care to jump through the hoops of getting and submitting a DUNS number: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/07/boosting-trust-and-transparency-in-google-play.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/07/boosting-t... “On August 31, we’ll start rolling out these requirements for anyone creating new Play Console developer accounts. In October, we’ll share more information with existing developers about how to update and verify existing accounts.” Source: happened to me and all of my apps despite them being Free Software and offline-only. Here's one of the emails they sent me about it: https://i.imgur.com/dVzQj2p.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/dVzQj2p.jpeg Notice how they open with “Hi Developers at [my first and last name]” – developers, plural, and “at” like they only expect me to be a company and not a single person.

cyral 1y ago
The DUNS number thing is such a disaster even for companies with it. We had a the account under a DUNS of a subsidiary but somehow they wanted us to upload verification docs for the main company, of course not matching exactly how they expect, and there is no way to change it without jumping through a bunch of hoops. Similar issues at Apple. Eventually they let us verify the account with "company letterhead" as if that proves anything (despite them insisting the letterhead needs to say dev@company.com instead of support@company.com, again proving nothing really) For both Apple and Google it's one of those processes where the support doesn't even really seem to understand how it works (they probably don't know what automated emails are being sent, and what the dev side looks like). They would randomly close cases for "no response" immediately after they replied, ask us to upload something despite their being no way to upload it, tell us to ignore the "your account will be closed email" because it actually won't be (wrong again), etc. DUNS own lookup page doesn't even let you look up by DUNS number (so we could figure out what company some ancient number was associated with). I bet it's because you have to pay for one of their "solutions" to do this.
- arghwhat 1y ago
  Validation issues happen all the time for subsidiaries when the parent company likes to own/manage things. Always fun when e.g. EV certificate validation (sigh windows update stuff) calls the parent company reception and asks for the manager listed as owner, and they just go "who?".
  - geraldcombs 1y ago
    The One Weird Trick I learned was to to get a company attorney to write a professional opinion letter saying that you are indeed authorized to get a cert on behalf of your company.
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    Incredible experience with this: our App Store account was from an acquired company that was no longer doing business. The Apple representative requested documentation that the no longer in use LLC was in fact, no longer in use. When I requested what documents they might think a defunct LLC was creating that would prove it was defunct, they didn't have an answer. Same as others we ended up just making a new fucking developer account. Hell of a first project as a team lead.
    - BobAliceInATree 1y ago
      When I’ve closed down an LLC, I’ve received a document from the Secretary of State certifying such.
    - cyral 1y ago
      Same issue but we actually got the account assigned to the new company, but I think the DUNS was still the old company so any time they require verification (e.g. for trader status), the account is stuck in some weird state that is halfway between two companies.
- jll29 1y ago
  It seems like to Google, "customers" will only ever be anonymous data points in an A/B test. They would have gone down quickly if they hadn't "borrowed" Overture's business model of paid ads. They have no culture of valuing the customers, or (like Amazon) obsessing about what they need. Apple is at least slightly different: hardware customers and high-value employees are treated okay from what I hear, but devs are left alone. Indie developers bring both Apple and Google a lot of revenue indirectly, but they don't really have much of a lobby (maybe they should unionize/hire a lobby firm together).
  - maxoakland 1y ago
    Indie developer lobby is a great idea
    - jjeaff 1y ago
      Probably something more like a trade organization/association would be better. Like the Dairy Farmers Association. Which may or may not hire lobbyists.
      - nativeit 1y ago
        It’s not hard. Start a 501(c)3, ask for members to donate and/or pay dues, hold some annual conventions (paid for by vendors) to evangelize the broader mission(s) and recruit new members, hire lobbyists to pursue the collective interests of members, rinse/repeat.
        jjeaff 1y ago
        Well, it's a little more complicated than that. For example, a 501c(3) has limited abilities to lobby or otherwise engage in politics.
  - GenerocUsername 1y ago
    You'd think a well running A/B system would not be seeing 47% declines in a yoy basis
- 827a 1y ago
  Yeah, DUNS numbers are super easy IME for companies to get, but its hell after that. We had some crazy problems with the App Store where our legal address with DUNS didn't match what we provided Apple, even though we had updated it with D&B, but Apple's systems weren't pulling in that update, Apple told us to talk to D&B, D&B told us to talk to Apple... we ended up literally just making a new corporation and starting from scratch.
  - huxley 1y ago
    The last time I dealt with that they were still updating DUNS batch data via an FTP
    - CoastalCoder 1y ago
      If it's secure and frequent, e.g. daily, I'd think that approach is good enough.
      - shakna 1y ago
        FTP is not secure. And when companies say they use FTP to exchange data, they don't tend to mean SFTP. They really do mean FTP.
        ddingus 1y ago
        Ah the specter of EDI! I first encountered Electronic Data Interchange in the early 90's. The small shop I worked for at the time had no idea and just wanted to make the parts they quoted and send them when done. The EDI request came in a box, with external modem, a paper with phone number and directions and then a smaller box with PROGRESS database software for MSDOS in side and a handful of disks containing the EDI system. Good lord that was painful! I just plowed through it and all that pain completed a check box at Honeywell, who then sent us jobs electronically! Yes, via FTP. The CAD they were sending was Computer Vision and it was a full on solid model representation! At the time we were running CAD from the early enlightenment, CADKEY 3.5 for MSDOS! Our best micro computer lacked the storage to handle the uncompressed file, which arrived on another handful of floppies that formed a multi part. Zip file, which uncompressed totaled about 40 megabytes and change! Entire systems only had 20! The CAD system failed to translate the data too. 16bit pointers lacked the range needed. They had me fetch a patch a day or two later and it took a few hours to do. 300 kilobytes of wireframe CAD, and the parts we made were basically 5 percent of that data! Crazy times!
- echelon 1y ago
  Both Apple and Google need to be regulated. Their vice grip on app distribution, app defaults, search defaults, payments defaults, user credential saving defaults, messaging defaults, browser defaults, and then their brutal taxation of almost all web e-commerce and businesses is beyond the scale of whatever Standard Oil had. You cannot do business on the Internet without paying the Apple and Google toll. They control all the points of ingress and egress, and they tax everything that moves. It'd be bad enough if they were just charging money, but they also make you jump through hoops to design software their way, do unplanned upgrades to their cadence, prevent you from deploying emergency hot patches, prevent you from updating software dynamically, prevent you from knowing your own customer, etc. etc. etc. And they're happy to sell your competitors ads to outrank you for your own trademark. These companies need to lose their control over this. Web distributed apps must become the norm. You can't tell me that with sandboxing, signature scanning, and some clever heuristics, that we can't make mobile completely safe for free and open distribution.
  - MatthiasPortzel 1y ago
    This requirement is the result of EU regulation.
    - Lammy 1y ago
      It's Google's decision to enforce it worldwide. I'm not in Europe, and most of my apps' users were not in Europe.
      - achierius 1y ago
        It's really hard to know that for sure. Why risk antitrust lawsuits or European fines because you tried to do the bare minimum?
      - ghurtado 1y ago
        [flagged]
        1y ago
- yieldcrv 1y ago
  yeah for real, if you have a holding company for the one asset, the app, these stores make it a nightmare to manage some normal best practices
- eitally 1y ago
  This happens to Google Cloud partners all the time, too, when there are acquisitions, mergers, or DBAs where the legal business entity changes even though the practical relationship stays the same (with the same people, same contact details, same billing/payment accounts, same contract terms, etc). It's extremely irritating.
arghwhat 1y ago
I haven't tried the specific flow for private individuals (seems to just be a radio button), but I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees. A bit silly to require for private individuals, and a bit annoying to have to go back and do, but not itself a big deal.
- Lammy 1y ago
  > I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero hoops is too many. I got nothing out of having my apps on Google Play except the joy of sharing in what was at the time a new and exciting medium. See Windows Phone for a great example of how it would have played out if Google hadn't successfully courted small-time devs like me and countless others. Corporate publishers would have never colonized Google Play in the first place if an audience wasn't already there. The way they addressed me makes it very clear that solo devs are no longer needed, so I will never submit to it on principle no matter how easy it's claimed to be.
  - arghwhat 1y ago
    Going through hoops usually refer to an excessive effort. Having to go through between zero (it you have needed the number before) and one free forms from a standard entity to get a widely recognized identifier used for many things is objectively not an excessive effort. Sharing apps on app stores is a continuous commitment with various responsibilities like, such as ensuring safety of users through regular maintenance. If the idea if submitting one number is too much of a burden given the joy/finances you get out of it, then the rest of the maintenance responsibilities likely are too and maybe it's better to skip the publishing part. Not sure what you're on about with corporate colonization. Colonizing implies forcefully taking what was rightfully someone elses. Also, in many places, making a company is just a form and standard practice even if you're just going to sell a single bogus app for 0.99 USD or whatever, so even individuals will be "corporations".
sneak 1y ago
I’m currently working with a startup that was just incorporated. We needed to join the Apple Developer Program to get APNS push certs to set up our MDM. It took over five weeks to get our ADP membership approved, and that was with internal backchannels. We had to launch without MDM, all the laptops on mostly default settings. These companies are making so much money from ads and rentseeking and IAP cancer that they have zero incentive to do anything else well. They know they have a monopoly position, so just like the public utilities charging you an extra $2 convenience fee to pay your bill, you’ll shut up and take it, because they are the only game in town. You know it, and they know it, and they know you know it. At least on Android you can install f-droid. On iOS they are the only game in town. There’s fuck-all that’s “insanely great” about not being able to install the programs you want to use (such as Fortnite). It’s pure rentseeking.
- pokstad 1y ago
  Apple App Store has been like this since the early days before IAP existed. It’s just how they operate.
  - sneak 1y ago
    It’s just how they choose to operate. It’s not a force of nature, it’s an engineered customer-hostile circumstance. Apple weren’t always service-revenue shitheads, it’s a new thing. The company is nearly 50 years old, and for most of it they didn’t treat their customers and developers with contempt.
streptomycin 1y ago
It's not just getting a DUNS number. You also need to consent to having your home address (no PO box or virtual mailbox, needs to be a physical address for your "business") listed publicly on the DUNS website and on all your Google Play Store app pages. Other app stores are similar, so probably it's some dumb government regulation.
- cyberax 1y ago
  Home address? They asked me for an address in a commercially zoned district.
  - streptomycin 1y ago
    They didn't explicitly ask for a home address, just a physical address. But for a hobbyist dev, home address is probably all you have so effectively that's what they're asking for. Or for you to rent an office somewhere, which I guess is what they wanted you to do by asking for a commercially zoned adddress.
- bcye 1y ago
  It seems that is only the case should you choose to monitise your app, which is fair? https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/13628312?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
  - olalonde 1y ago
    No it wouldn't be "fair" and it's not just if you want to monetize your app. D-U-N-S number is required for developer account creation regardless of whether you plan to monetize or not.
    - bcye 1y ago
      I'm referring to the developer address for individual accounts, is there a misunderstanding? DUNS is only required for organizations.
odo1242 1y ago
There’s even more than that, actually: if you’re an individual developer you also need 10 people to beta-test your app for 2 weeks, along with having your home address listed online. Google really doesn’t wan’t anyone who isn’t a company developing apps for Android lol
- asdfman123 1y ago
  Yeah. I wanted to make an Android productivity tool that helped me but I didn't want to bother (then) 20 of my friends to test it. Huge hurdle if you just want to build an app.
- bugfix 1y ago
  12 people, actually. And it's down from 20 individual testers requirement from when they introduced this policy last year.
- georgemcbay 1y ago
  Ran into this myself late last year. Registered as an individual developer for a free, non-monetized app and had to find 20 people (they reduced the number since) to sign up (and remain signed up) as beta testers for a 2 week period to get the app listed. Luckily I was able to hit that number (the app is a stat tracking app for the game Destiny 2, so I was able to get beta testers via posting on a subreddit filled with Destiny 2 PvP players). But it took way longer and was way more of a burden compared to getting the same app listed on both the Apple App Store and the Microsoft Windows Store (the app is written in Kotlin/Compose Multiplatform and was relatively easy to make multiplatform). If I didn't happen to be an Android "main" myself (creating a vested interest in wanting to make the Android version easily available) I might not have bothered with the Play Store hoops give how much of a pain in the ass it was compared to the other listings.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  Watching it happen, it also felt like hurdle after hurdle kept being added (in addition to the never-stopping API level treadmill). Even if I were OK with jumping through the current set of hurdles, the promise of a never-stopping hurdle-jumping exercise with new requirements being thrown at me every quarter is not exactly encouraging for anyone who actually has a life outside of developing their apps.
moffkalast 1y ago
> Assigned by Dun & Bradstreet Uh huh, Google just blatantly requiring every app developer on the planet to register with some specific random company. Absolutely no corruption to see here, none at all. This is the kind of shit why smartphone vendors can't be trusted with their own walled garden stores, the EU has not yet stomped them into mulch hard enough yet I see.
- jodrellblank 1y ago
  In what sense is that corrupt? (“dishonest or illegal behaviour”, “the abuse of power or authority for personal gain or benefit”)
- pkaye 1y ago
  I thought this was an EU requirement?
- cowsandmilk 1y ago
  The irony of your comment thinking the EU is going to fight this. The DUNS number is the European Commission standard for business identification; the choice of D&B isn’t random, it literally came from EU requirements.
  - quadrifoliate 1y ago
    Yeah, it's surprising how badly the EU as a government has fumbled the crucial job of business identification by outsourcing it to an American company. And we keep wondering about why there are so few world changing companies coming out of Europe. Maybe they could start with one that handles business identification?
    - moffkalast 1y ago
      It's really shocking to me that the EU would demand people use a US corporation for something that really needs to be done by national governments. I think the corruption might be on our end in this case, time to write my MEP or whatever.
bcye 1y ago
The linked source only mentions DUNS only being required for organization accounts, not individuals? And I've recently successfully created an account (albeit haven't published an app yet) without one?
greatgib 1y ago
Exactly, I happened to have long running apps, in the store, I didn't update them for some time but they were simple and working as designed, good for their job. Suddenly there was this weird obligation to declare a company or disclose publicly info about me, so i did nothing and it expired, and they removed the app.
mattmaroon 1y ago
I did not know that and that’s preposterous, but I don’t think that is the only reason or even the biggest one. The android store had a whole lot of garbage in it, and a lot of it was the kind that is easy to find and remove.
calderwoodra 1y ago
You need a DUNS number for iOS too, fwiw
- watusername 1y ago
  Only for businesses, not individuals. Source: I pay my yearly Apple tax and I have no DUNS.
maxoakland 1y ago
Oof. Here I was hoping they were removing the scams
redbell 1y ago
I saw many solo devs recommend switching to an LLC company to avoid the hassle Google introduced since late 2023, but it doesn't seem to be an easy task either. I've already witnessed two experiences: https://x.com/stacy_siz/status/1875849200291975339 https://x.com/stacy_siz/status/1875849200291975339 https://blog.jakelee.co.uk/publishing-on-google-play-without-exposing-info/ https://blog.jakelee.co.uk/publishing-on-google-play-without...
- Ferret7446 1y ago
  Honestly you should probably do that anyway. Liability is no joke. This is also Yet Another Example of how regulation is anti-competitive and hurts small businesses/sole proprietors.
wyager 1y ago
The process for getting a DUNS number and getting it approved by Apple was such a nightmare. Even when I did everything correctly, I got flagged for some unspecified reason that required a bunch of extra back-and-forth. I didn't even want to list on the app store - just to allow other people to run some music-related code I wrote without getting stomped by Gatekeeper.
matejdro 1y ago
Lately I've noticed many projects on Github either using F-droid or Obtainium. Play Store has really become toxic to anyone not a corporation.

by Lammy 1y ago

cyral 1y ago

The DUNS number thing is such a disaster even for companies with it. We had a the account under a DUNS of a subsidiary but somehow they wanted us to upload verification docs for the main company, of course not matching exactly how they expect, and there is no way to change it without jumping through a bunch of hoops. Similar issues at Apple. Eventually they let us verify the account with "company letterhead" as if that proves anything (despite them insisting the letterhead needs to say dev@company.com instead of support@company.com, again proving nothing really) For both Apple and Google it's one of those processes where the support doesn't even really seem to understand how it works (they probably don't know what automated emails are being sent, and what the dev side looks like). They would randomly close cases for "no response" immediately after they replied, ask us to upload something despite their being no way to upload it, tell us to ignore the "your account will be closed email" because it actually won't be (wrong again), etc. DUNS own lookup page doesn't even let you look up by DUNS number (so we could figure out what company some ancient number was associated with). I bet it's because you have to pay for one of their "solutions" to do this.

arghwhat 1y ago
Validation issues happen all the time for subsidiaries when the parent company likes to own/manage things. Always fun when e.g. EV certificate validation (sigh windows update stuff) calls the parent company reception and asks for the manager listed as owner, and they just go "who?".
- geraldcombs 1y ago
  The One Weird Trick I learned was to to get a company attorney to write a professional opinion letter saying that you are indeed authorized to get a cert on behalf of your company.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  Incredible experience with this: our App Store account was from an acquired company that was no longer doing business. The Apple representative requested documentation that the no longer in use LLC was in fact, no longer in use. When I requested what documents they might think a defunct LLC was creating that would prove it was defunct, they didn't have an answer. Same as others we ended up just making a new fucking developer account. Hell of a first project as a team lead.
  - BobAliceInATree 1y ago
    When I’ve closed down an LLC, I’ve received a document from the Secretary of State certifying such.
  - cyral 1y ago
    Same issue but we actually got the account assigned to the new company, but I think the DUNS was still the old company so any time they require verification (e.g. for trader status), the account is stuck in some weird state that is halfway between two companies.
jll29 1y ago
It seems like to Google, "customers" will only ever be anonymous data points in an A/B test. They would have gone down quickly if they hadn't "borrowed" Overture's business model of paid ads. They have no culture of valuing the customers, or (like Amazon) obsessing about what they need. Apple is at least slightly different: hardware customers and high-value employees are treated okay from what I hear, but devs are left alone. Indie developers bring both Apple and Google a lot of revenue indirectly, but they don't really have much of a lobby (maybe they should unionize/hire a lobby firm together).
- maxoakland 1y ago
  Indie developer lobby is a great idea
  - jjeaff 1y ago
    Probably something more like a trade organization/association would be better. Like the Dairy Farmers Association. Which may or may not hire lobbyists.
    - nativeit 1y ago
      It’s not hard. Start a 501(c)3, ask for members to donate and/or pay dues, hold some annual conventions (paid for by vendors) to evangelize the broader mission(s) and recruit new members, hire lobbyists to pursue the collective interests of members, rinse/repeat.
      - jjeaff 1y ago
        Well, it's a little more complicated than that. For example, a 501c(3) has limited abilities to lobby or otherwise engage in politics.
- GenerocUsername 1y ago
  You'd think a well running A/B system would not be seeing 47% declines in a yoy basis
827a 1y ago
Yeah, DUNS numbers are super easy IME for companies to get, but its hell after that. We had some crazy problems with the App Store where our legal address with DUNS didn't match what we provided Apple, even though we had updated it with D&B, but Apple's systems weren't pulling in that update, Apple told us to talk to D&B, D&B told us to talk to Apple... we ended up literally just making a new corporation and starting from scratch.
- huxley 1y ago
  The last time I dealt with that they were still updating DUNS batch data via an FTP
  - CoastalCoder 1y ago
    If it's secure and frequent, e.g. daily, I'd think that approach is good enough.
    - shakna 1y ago
      FTP is not secure. And when companies say they use FTP to exchange data, they don't tend to mean SFTP. They really do mean FTP.
      - ddingus 1y ago
        Ah the specter of EDI! I first encountered Electronic Data Interchange in the early 90's. The small shop I worked for at the time had no idea and just wanted to make the parts they quoted and send them when done. The EDI request came in a box, with external modem, a paper with phone number and directions and then a smaller box with PROGRESS database software for MSDOS in side and a handful of disks containing the EDI system. Good lord that was painful! I just plowed through it and all that pain completed a check box at Honeywell, who then sent us jobs electronically! Yes, via FTP. The CAD they were sending was Computer Vision and it was a full on solid model representation! At the time we were running CAD from the early enlightenment, CADKEY 3.5 for MSDOS! Our best micro computer lacked the storage to handle the uncompressed file, which arrived on another handful of floppies that formed a multi part. Zip file, which uncompressed totaled about 40 megabytes and change! Entire systems only had 20! The CAD system failed to translate the data too. 16bit pointers lacked the range needed. They had me fetch a patch a day or two later and it took a few hours to do. 300 kilobytes of wireframe CAD, and the parts we made were basically 5 percent of that data! Crazy times!
echelon 1y ago
Both Apple and Google need to be regulated. Their vice grip on app distribution, app defaults, search defaults, payments defaults, user credential saving defaults, messaging defaults, browser defaults, and then their brutal taxation of almost all web e-commerce and businesses is beyond the scale of whatever Standard Oil had. You cannot do business on the Internet without paying the Apple and Google toll. They control all the points of ingress and egress, and they tax everything that moves. It'd be bad enough if they were just charging money, but they also make you jump through hoops to design software their way, do unplanned upgrades to their cadence, prevent you from deploying emergency hot patches, prevent you from updating software dynamically, prevent you from knowing your own customer, etc. etc. etc. And they're happy to sell your competitors ads to outrank you for your own trademark. These companies need to lose their control over this. Web distributed apps must become the norm. You can't tell me that with sandboxing, signature scanning, and some clever heuristics, that we can't make mobile completely safe for free and open distribution.
- MatthiasPortzel 1y ago
  This requirement is the result of EU regulation.
  - Lammy 1y ago
    It's Google's decision to enforce it worldwide. I'm not in Europe, and most of my apps' users were not in Europe.
    - achierius 1y ago
      It's really hard to know that for sure. Why risk antitrust lawsuits or European fines because you tried to do the bare minimum?
    - ghurtado 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - 1y ago
yieldcrv 1y ago
yeah for real, if you have a holding company for the one asset, the app, these stores make it a nightmare to manage some normal best practices
eitally 1y ago
This happens to Google Cloud partners all the time, too, when there are acquisitions, mergers, or DBAs where the legal business entity changes even though the practical relationship stays the same (with the same people, same contact details, same billing/payment accounts, same contract terms, etc). It's extremely irritating.

arghwhat 1y ago

I haven't tried the specific flow for private individuals (seems to just be a radio button), but I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees. A bit silly to require for private individuals, and a bit annoying to have to go back and do, but not itself a big deal.

Lammy 1y ago
> I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero hoops is too many. I got nothing out of having my apps on Google Play except the joy of sharing in what was at the time a new and exciting medium. See Windows Phone for a great example of how it would have played out if Google hadn't successfully courted small-time devs like me and countless others. Corporate publishers would have never colonized Google Play in the first place if an audience wasn't already there. The way they addressed me makes it very clear that solo devs are no longer needed, so I will never submit to it on principle no matter how easy it's claimed to be.
- arghwhat 1y ago
  Going through hoops usually refer to an excessive effort. Having to go through between zero (it you have needed the number before) and one free forms from a standard entity to get a widely recognized identifier used for many things is objectively not an excessive effort. Sharing apps on app stores is a continuous commitment with various responsibilities like, such as ensuring safety of users through regular maintenance. If the idea if submitting one number is too much of a burden given the joy/finances you get out of it, then the rest of the maintenance responsibilities likely are too and maybe it's better to skip the publishing part. Not sure what you're on about with corporate colonization. Colonizing implies forcefully taking what was rightfully someone elses. Also, in many places, making a company is just a form and standard practice even if you're just going to sell a single bogus app for 0.99 USD or whatever, so even individuals will be "corporations".

sneak 1y ago

I’m currently working with a startup that was just incorporated. We needed to join the Apple Developer Program to get APNS push certs to set up our MDM. It took over five weeks to get our ADP membership approved, and that was with internal backchannels. We had to launch without MDM, all the laptops on mostly default settings. These companies are making so much money from ads and rentseeking and IAP cancer that they have zero incentive to do anything else well. They know they have a monopoly position, so just like the public utilities charging you an extra $2 convenience fee to pay your bill, you’ll shut up and take it, because they are the only game in town. You know it, and they know it, and they know you know it. At least on Android you can install f-droid. On iOS they are the only game in town. There’s fuck-all that’s “insanely great” about not being able to install the programs you want to use (such as Fortnite). It’s pure rentseeking.

pokstad 1y ago
Apple App Store has been like this since the early days before IAP existed. It’s just how they operate.
- sneak 1y ago
  It’s just how they choose to operate. It’s not a force of nature, it’s an engineered customer-hostile circumstance. Apple weren’t always service-revenue shitheads, it’s a new thing. The company is nearly 50 years old, and for most of it they didn’t treat their customers and developers with contempt.

streptomycin 1y ago

It's not just getting a DUNS number. You also need to consent to having your home address (no PO box or virtual mailbox, needs to be a physical address for your "business") listed publicly on the DUNS website and on all your Google Play Store app pages. Other app stores are similar, so probably it's some dumb government regulation.

cyberax 1y ago
Home address? They asked me for an address in a commercially zoned district.
- streptomycin 1y ago
  They didn't explicitly ask for a home address, just a physical address. But for a hobbyist dev, home address is probably all you have so effectively that's what they're asking for. Or for you to rent an office somewhere, which I guess is what they wanted you to do by asking for a commercially zoned adddress.
bcye 1y ago
It seems that is only the case should you choose to monitise your app, which is fair? https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/13628312?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
- olalonde 1y ago
  No it wouldn't be "fair" and it's not just if you want to monetize your app. D-U-N-S number is required for developer account creation regardless of whether you plan to monetize or not.
  - bcye 1y ago
    I'm referring to the developer address for individual accounts, is there a misunderstanding? DUNS is only required for organizations.

odo1242 1y ago

There’s even more than that, actually: if you’re an individual developer you also need 10 people to beta-test your app for 2 weeks, along with having your home address listed online. Google really doesn’t wan’t anyone who isn’t a company developing apps for Android lol

asdfman123 1y ago
Yeah. I wanted to make an Android productivity tool that helped me but I didn't want to bother (then) 20 of my friends to test it. Huge hurdle if you just want to build an app.
bugfix 1y ago
12 people, actually. And it's down from 20 individual testers requirement from when they introduced this policy last year.
georgemcbay 1y ago
Ran into this myself late last year. Registered as an individual developer for a free, non-monetized app and had to find 20 people (they reduced the number since) to sign up (and remain signed up) as beta testers for a 2 week period to get the app listed. Luckily I was able to hit that number (the app is a stat tracking app for the game Destiny 2, so I was able to get beta testers via posting on a subreddit filled with Destiny 2 PvP players). But it took way longer and was way more of a burden compared to getting the same app listed on both the Apple App Store and the Microsoft Windows Store (the app is written in Kotlin/Compose Multiplatform and was relatively easy to make multiplatform). If I didn't happen to be an Android "main" myself (creating a vested interest in wanting to make the Android version easily available) I might not have bothered with the Play Store hoops give how much of a pain in the ass it was compared to the other listings.
tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
Watching it happen, it also felt like hurdle after hurdle kept being added (in addition to the never-stopping API level treadmill). Even if I were OK with jumping through the current set of hurdles, the promise of a never-stopping hurdle-jumping exercise with new requirements being thrown at me every quarter is not exactly encouraging for anyone who actually has a life outside of developing their apps.

moffkalast 1y ago

> Assigned by Dun & Bradstreet Uh huh, Google just blatantly requiring every app developer on the planet to register with some specific random company. Absolutely no corruption to see here, none at all. This is the kind of shit why smartphone vendors can't be trusted with their own walled garden stores, the EU has not yet stomped them into mulch hard enough yet I see.

jodrellblank 1y ago
In what sense is that corrupt? (“dishonest or illegal behaviour”, “the abuse of power or authority for personal gain or benefit”)
pkaye 1y ago
I thought this was an EU requirement?
cowsandmilk 1y ago
The irony of your comment thinking the EU is going to fight this. The DUNS number is the European Commission standard for business identification; the choice of D&B isn’t random, it literally came from EU requirements.
- quadrifoliate 1y ago
  Yeah, it's surprising how badly the EU as a government has fumbled the crucial job of business identification by outsourcing it to an American company. And we keep wondering about why there are so few world changing companies coming out of Europe. Maybe they could start with one that handles business identification?
  - moffkalast 1y ago
    It's really shocking to me that the EU would demand people use a US corporation for something that really needs to be done by national governments. I think the corruption might be on our end in this case, time to write my MEP or whatever.

bcye 1y ago

The linked source only mentions DUNS only being required for organization accounts, not individuals? And I've recently successfully created an account (albeit haven't published an app yet) without one?

greatgib 1y ago

Exactly, I happened to have long running apps, in the store, I didn't update them for some time but they were simple and working as designed, good for their job. Suddenly there was this weird obligation to declare a company or disclose publicly info about me, so i did nothing and it expired, and they removed the app.

mattmaroon 1y ago

I did not know that and that’s preposterous, but I don’t think that is the only reason or even the biggest one. The android store had a whole lot of garbage in it, and a lot of it was the kind that is easy to find and remove.

calderwoodra 1y ago

You need a DUNS number for iOS too, fwiw

watusername 1y ago
Only for businesses, not individuals. Source: I pay my yearly Apple tax and I have no DUNS.

maxoakland 1y ago

Oof. Here I was hoping they were removing the scams

redbell 1y ago

I saw many solo devs recommend switching to an LLC company to avoid the hassle Google introduced since late 2023, but it doesn't seem to be an easy task either. I've already witnessed two experiences: https://x.com/stacy_siz/status/1875849200291975339 https://x.com/stacy_siz/status/1875849200291975339 https://blog.jakelee.co.uk/publishing-on-google-play-without-exposing-info/ https://blog.jakelee.co.uk/publishing-on-google-play-without...

Ferret7446 1y ago
Honestly you should probably do that anyway. Liability is no joke. This is also Yet Another Example of how regulation is anti-competitive and hurts small businesses/sole proprietors.

wyager 1y ago

The process for getting a DUNS number and getting it approved by Apple was such a nightmare. Even when I did everything correctly, I got flagged for some unspecified reason that required a bunch of extra back-and-forth. I didn't even want to list on the app store - just to allow other people to run some music-related code I wrote without getting stomped by Gatekeeper.

matejdro 1y ago

Lately I've noticed many projects on Github either using F-droid or Obtainium. Play Store has really become toxic to anyone not a corporation.