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Google Play cut payments to developers in Argentina
- seppo0010 13y agoNote that the article is in Spanish, but the full letter sent to the developers in English is included.
- demian 13y agoNothing new. "Educated" latin americans are expected to be able to, at least, read english. More so in tech fields.
- seppo0010 13y agoI know, I was saying that for English speakers that open the link and find an article totally in Spanish, that there is something for them to read.
- faboo 13y agoGoogle Translate actually doesn't do a terrible job on the article text (it's not perfect, but it's understandable). It does kind of mess-up the English in the email though.
- jstalin 13y agoThe Kirchners continue to work wonders for the Argentine economy.
- rpgmaker 13y agoIt has nothing to do with them. Read the article and try again.
- seppo0010 13y ago> Due to ongoing challenges making payments to Argentine developers, we will no longer be able to pay Google Play developers based in Argentina. https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3157692?hl=en&ref_topic=15867 https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... The main reason seems to be the integration of Google Play with Google Wallet which would definitely be a problematic product for argentinian dollars restriction.
- jstalin 13y agoOf course it has everything to do with them. The current administration consists of former Marxist guerrillas who openly state that they don't believe in the quantity theory of money, that, in fact, it's the stores that are causing inflation. They clamped down hard on dollar exchanges in 2011 and now there is a black market dollar rate (vs the "official" rate). Certainly, if you're happy with the situation and you're an Argentine, by all means, continue to support Kirchnerismo.
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- seppo0010 13y agoAlso covered in theverge http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/24/4363960/google-no-longer-able-to-pay-developers-in-argentina-for-apps-pulling http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/24/4363960/google-no-longer-a...
- Groxx 13y ago>The move appears to be related to new, restrictive regulations the Argentine government has imposed on currency exchanges, which The Telegraph[1] detailed this past September. Note that [1] is titled "Damming dollar flood comes at a huge cost to Argentine economy". Seems like it's a reasonable possibility, though I can't say I understand Argentine economics. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/9565126/Damming-dollar-flood-comes-at-a-huge-cost-to-Argentine-economy.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/9565126/Damming-d...
- wslh 13y agoThey can solve this opening a company abroad. It is cheap to establish an LLC in US.
- seppo0010 13y agoI don't even think they need to have a company, a person can sell apps. But it's a huge turn off for indie developers.
- markdown 13y agoCitation needed. You need a US bank account, social security number, a permanent address, etc. I'd be pleasantly surprised if you could do it without spending at least 10k.
- wslh 13y agoNo citation is needed. 1. Open an LLC: cheap. 2. Open a Bank Account: travel to US and they will open one with the LLC without a social security number. 3. Transfer funds to the LLC. You can do it for less than USD 2000.
- tellarin 13y agoBut USD 2k is a whole lot of money for people in some of the countries where they'd need to resort to this to put something on the Google store. Not something you'd easily have access to. And there are also the issues in sending that money abroad. It's not so easy in many of those countries too.
- rorra 13y agoBut if you get the money into a bank in a country close to Argentine (you can go to Uruguay and get back to Buenos Aires in the day for U$S 60), you can then get American Dollars from a bank account in Uruguay, and you get all that money back even with earnings by selling the dollars on the street. Definitely its not an easy way to start, but its a way to survive.
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- marcosdumay 13y agoI'm sad for our neighbours... At the same time, I really hope we manage to not do the same mistakes here at Brazil.
- braco_alva 13y agoThis is really bad news for latin american developers, as far as I know, Argentina was one of the few latin american countries that were able to sell in the Play Store and now it's gone. It kind of kills my hope that they may eventually give support to my country. I know I can establish an LLC in US to fix this, but it is something that we would rather not to do. It is kind of a bummer that Google makes it so difficult to do business in certain countries.
- sdfaf 13y agoWow, it seems that Mexico is the only Spanish speaking Latin American country that can sell android apps. And of all the countries in the continent of America only Brazil and Mexico (besides the USA, obviously) can sell in the Android play store. I guess it sucks to be from Latin America. Disclaimer: I'm from Latin America but currently residing in NYC.
- jarjoura 13y agoDoes anyone have any information to what actually changed in Argentina that caused this?
- rorra 13y agoIts not a big issue since we (Argentines) can open a company in Uruguay which is pretty close, or even a LLC online (U$S 250 per year). And probably most people doesn't know, but then we can get U$S in a bank account in Uruguay, and instead of change them for Argentine pesos in the Argentine banks (AR$ 5 = U$S 1), we can sell it on the street (AR$ 9 = U$S 1), and earn a 80% revenue because of stupid laws, crazy, right? The main problem we have now, is that the government spends a lot of money on social plans to get people to vote them (instead of creating real jobs, obama care?), and they steal too much money as well (google for "Lázaro Báez", "Raúl Copetti", "Rudy Olloa" among others) that they ended with an artificial inflation of 25% every year. So people started to buy U$S and other currencies to be able to save their money, and the government cut this right from the people (so they make you by law, to save your money in AR$, and your money will be devaluated 25% every year, you can invest if you have enough money, if you do well, the government takes 50% on your earnings, if you do bad, the government doesn't give you the 50% of the looses, and good luck having enough revenue from your investments in order to avoid loosing the annual 25% :P). I also have to mention that even when we are in a capitalist economy, the politicians in Argentine says all the time that we have a big economic problem because of evil business people, who run the business and increase the prices and make all this inflation problem, so while most of the countries in Latin America got thousands of millions of dollars in investments (and like Uruguay, they are starting to create laws to avoid so much money getting into the country so quickly), we don't know what to do or how to get foreign investments into the country. Why would you invest in Argentine if they are going to tell you that the inflation is your fault, that you are evil and most important, they won't let you to get your revenue to other country if you want to? So they had a brilliant idea on the last week, they are creating a law where everyone can get U$S to Argentine, they are going to give you a "bond" in exchange, and if the money came from drug deals, terrorism or whatever, it doesn't mind, the government is going to do the laundry service that the mafia usually do, for free!!! Anyway, Argentine is getting aligned to countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, and its following their politics, nothing good can came from that, but what can you expect from a government that used to put bombs on the street and kill innocent civilians? I would never ever understand how these people got into the government, or how these people ended giving "Ethic" classes in public universities, real story. Our last defense minister was an active member of "Montoneros", a terrorist organization in Argentine, they killed members of the military, they put bombs on the street where they killed civilians, tortured military members (google for "coronel Larrabure") and she ended being the defense minister? Can you imagine Al Qaeda member managing the USA Army? Our president, who talks all the time about the last military government and human rights, made a lot of money with that government by using the "Martinez de Hoz" law, so she worked for the banks, she put pressure to the poor people that couldn't pay his house loans, and told them "You are going to loose your house, and you won't get any money, or you can sell me the money for pennies, and I'll take care of the debt", and then went to talk with his clients (the banks) and get a better deal for the current house loan, that's the way she got rich, after stealing money from the poors, she and her husband got into politics, being a governor of a State (Province, Santa Cruz) they sold by law a company that is call YPF to private holders, and took all the money under their name out of the country in U$S (and now she said that U$S is an evil currency), we never saw that money again, she got elected president, and now she said that Menem government was worng (another dumb ass who gave all the government companies away and did a lot of corruption things), and bough YPF back for a lot of money. Now the company is filled with a lot of persons that just support her government, they steal a lot of money and we import most of the petroleum we consume (being a petroleum producer, we have to import petroleum). And most people in Argentine loves Kichner (54%) in the same way most people here loves Obama, so start paying a lot of attention to what's going on in Argentine, because you have the same kind of "Populist Government" that we had on many countries in Latin America for over the last years. I also forgot to talk about security, it doesn't exist, a uncle of my girlfriend (crazy uncle) made her wife to starve to death, he tied her to bed and waited until she died. He got 14 years on jail, then he went out and formed a new family. People who does violent robberies or whatever, they got into the police station and get released to the next day, last day, one person went with a gun into a federal court, the police got him, and he spent on the police station a couple of hours, threating all the people saying that we belonged to "La Campora", an organization that supports Cristina Kincher and was founded by his son. If you get robbed in Argentine, you usually say "Thank you" to the robbers because they didn't take your life, and they do it a lot, all the time, common business in Argentine. At this point, we would love to have a "Second Amendment", the right to have a gun and defend ourselves, pretty bad we never had it. You have this right and you are going to give it away, smart move. And by the way, if you start seeing a lot of smart Argentine developers in USA, don't get surprised, we are trying to get away from the country while we still have the right to do it (if we leave the country, then we loose all our money, no way to buy foreign currency even if you decide to leave the country).
- fmariluis 13y ago"Currently, developers in the below countries may register as Google Checkout merchants and sell paid applications. We're working hard to add more countries, but we're unable to provide any guidance on timelines. Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Canada Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Hong Kong India Ireland Israel Italy Japan Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Portugal Russia Singapore Spain South Korea Sweden Switzerland Taiwan United Kingdom United States" Source: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/150324?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... That leaves out Chile and Uruguay as well, so this change appears to be unrelated to the current situation in Argentina.
- molmalo 13y agoExactly, they left those countries out too. We'll have to wait until Google tells us why, if they ever do it.
- spikels 13y agoYou will wait in vain. Google has no incentive to explain. It would only damage any chance of other and/or future business in Argentina. But not every company is so timid. Brazil's Vale recently pulled out if a giant potash project and according to Reuters: Vale said the inflation and exchange rate could make the project unviable.[1] [1]http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-vale-riocolorado-idUSBRE93P1BL20130427 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-vale-riocolorad...
- coopdam 13y agoThere are still some options. Check this site: http://www.coopdam.org/ http://www.coopdam.org/
- coopdam 13y agoThere are still some options. Check this site: http://www.coopdam.org/ http://www.coopdam.org/