Posted by ezst 11 hours ago
The terrible support is really deeper than support. You literally stopped doing business here, because the lack of a feedback channel that allows Google to improve their business (i.e. realize they need a way to quickly correct stupid automated decisions) been Google's worst enemy and best friend. By ignoring support & feedback, the friction for internal decision making is low (no pesky customer demands, the product manager is king, management gets their way), but it leads to I think a lot of Google's products failing because they do not really understand their users, and the why behind the what they use.
I'm not sure being a monopoly alone explains Google's behavior here, but it could be as simple as that: who cares about one small customer... it's not like they have a viable alternative.
Like, their pipeline has been broken for months. No way to contact them. There is a support page for the api, but they close all issues as "the api is working". Well, sure, you accept the street view so the api is technically working, but haven't processed any for months.. It's probably a different team, but no way they would bother talking to each other..
The last line contradicts the first line. Being a monopoly means they don’t have to care. If Apple and Google were required to allow competing app stores as first-class citizens then they would have to provide better service or no one would use their stores and they’d lose out on all of the rents they’re collecting from app developers.
Say we do what you're suggesting. There's now three stores on Android devices when you take them out of the box: Google Play, Crumbt, and Dipple. Crumbt quickly gains a reputation for hosting sketchy software, with some diamonds in the rough, but users also regularly report getting malware on their phones. That said everything is free, which makes it the #1 stop for people who have to buy the down-market phones anyway because they can't afford apps either. Dipple, meanwhile, promises no AI features or content, and immediately gets a following with the more monied crowd that not only will pay for apps, but prefers to to avoid ads and spammy generative content.
The problem, as I see it, is we still have the old, bad experience from google, and we now have one other experience that lets anything in, so people are still getting malware, and we have still a third that's offering premium features to users with cash to spend and leaves everyone else out in the cold.
I know I'm being negative with my examples, but at the same time, the PROBLEM, as I see it, is power asymmetry: lack of oversight on the part of the platforms means nasty shit gets through, and lack of actionable routes to be remediated means the risk lands squarely on the user, who is disempowered already. Additional app markets solve none of that.
Like, sure, an app market could come along promising to be on the user's side: it will immediately not attract developers, because developers will (correctly) see that it's riskier there than elsewhere. And there's not really a monetary reason to make an ethical app store, whatever that happens to mean, because far more money is made being an unethical one that hangs it's users out to dry.
I just don't think these are problems yet more markets can solve, because fundamentally, what's broken about them is what makes them so wildly profitable. And I can't fathom another store not coming along and, even if not at first, doing the exact same thing again anyways that Play has already done, because it works. Because Play itself was immitating/innovating on the same axis as Apple's App Store.
The company's philosophy on the issue seems to be rooted in the hacker ethos of not giving repetitive work to humans if a machine could do it. When a machine can't do it, Google's thinking is to improve the machine. If the systems are good enough, nobody will need support.
The systems are not good enough, and that has been true for a long enough time that a reasonable company would have realized that a good support team is necessary until some far-future time.
I have not worked at Google, but rather at 4 different companies that built automation machinery (ie multi discipline execution between mechanical, electrical, and software engineers). In none of those cases was it ever “the hacker ethos”. It was mid to upper level management whose incentive loops tended to be associated more with either shareholder perception or HR head counts. All of the engineers were usually begging the company to do a better job (allocate resources) to last mile customer support. Engineers build things, and are usually more satisfied if the products they build are well received because of the “last mile” bit where someone helps a customer appreciate their creation.
Google is a crazy town, data driven by cherry picked post-hoc rationalizations driven by perf. The user never enters the equation.
I'd like to support that this goes "both" ways for companies who destroy their customer service. Not only do they not know what their customers want/problems they're having, but they don't know what their customers wouldn't want/problems they're not having. Like you say, it "lowers the friction," so some dumb, destructive idea that somebody has gets implemented based on title and force of personality.
But that's a monopoly. Nothing they do is destructive, other than putting any more work in than is necessary. If the store went down for weeks at a time, they might have a problem. The problem would result from this personally irritating and inconveniencing a regulator/politician, judge, or major stockholder/owner.
Sure, but they also won't generally bother if the fees are the same as the installed-on-every-device Play Store
The speed of government is slow, incredibly slow. It's measured in election cycles. It takes government eight, twelve years to simply turn around and notice. But once it does, it's a juggernaut.
Nothing can stop it. Nothing can avert it. Nothing can prevent it. And as everybody from Facebook to Microsoft knows, once it starts moving, you're screwed.
In the US, the oil companies thought they were too big. Then the telco companies thought they were too big. What really happens is eventually people just get pissed off, and then it's too late.
Google is fast approaching that. They almost had chrome and other things ripped away from them, and now they've got requirements to have alternate play stores. If they don't turn course, and turn course blazingly fast, they're going to have their entire empire wrenched away from them.
Oh well.
Unfortunately, that's no longer the case with the app store monopolies. While Apple is under some partial enforcement on parts of their app store policies, Google managed to play the game of regulatory brinksmanship better and largely avoided that for their app store. So the regulatory powers (such as they are) have already taken their best shot and this is where we are.
Juggernauts do not have to be fast. And the judge has seen Google being intractable and sneaky with alternate app stores too:
https://www.theverge.com/policy/979852/that-is-not-acceptabl...
There is now a record of this. The next action against Google, will see people pointing out each step they took to avoid compliance.
A case a year down the road about AI, will see stubborn attempts to comply like the above cited.
Google, with the gold plated shovel, digging a hole for itself. Put another way, breaking up a company typically comes after other methods don't work. Such as being sneaky and making them not work.
Or even because the required competition didn't occur, regardless of fault.
It's not over. It's a step taken, with a positive outcome, and a judge who is making sure there's follow through. Next step will be more stark.
Like you don't want to have fundamentals and pronciples change hardly ever. So you might take a long time to create or destroy say the FDA, but the FDA could be responsible for being on top of time-sensitive FDA things.
Maybe there could even be a body whos job is only to decide if something is time -sensitive or not, allowing other bodies to move as they need to, yet not just have no limits or accountability at all even within their own domains. So a rapid action can be done, then shortly after determined it was a bad idea and undone, or partly wrong and needs adjustment, and have that all be justified by a seperate independant process that judged or agreed "this is something that needed rapid action".
I don't think we have anything so organized yet. We do have some things where a body is responsible for a domain and can act more quickly within their scope, but we also have a lot of things where we get both forms of bad, making big changes on immediate whims, and being unable to make clearly needed even small changes simply because "government is slow".
We do have some examples of a reasonable organization and heirarchy and layers, and a whole lot of not, all together at the same time.
If they didn't develop Android they'd be paying $10s of billions annually for the prime positioning their apps and services and search enjoy too, so even if you buy their accounting tricks the development is paying for itself many times over.
But if the court allowed, Google would be paying that company $10s of billions for the prime real estate their software, search and services enjoy and it would then be a very weak argument that only IAP funds its development. Just like it is when Google earns $100s of billions in revenue from Android now.
Now that they have, they are also turning around on bits of that too.
it is parasitic to try and prohibit competing app stores and then leverage your monopoly by charging monopoly prices.
everything google is trying to do to discourage graphene, newpipe, competing app stores, etc. is parasitic and it's right that they are being fined by the EU for this behavior.
I think a more honest way to say this might be: Android OS development is massively funded by Google, and the Play Store feeds into this hugely. No other store does this, so it shouldn't be surprising that they can charge a lower fee. They're just doing the easy bit.
The basic services Google provides can effectively only be consumed by humans individually, creating an inevitable bottleneck.
Such bottlenecks impede interchangeability of goods, as you can't reasonably entertain multiple suppliers simultaneously there. And that means, you cannot have a free market, because you can't really have meaningful competition.
Google has captured services that really are public utilities. Them being "new" doesn't play a role.
https://stripe.com/managed-payments
This is what Apple said about it:
> Stripe and Paddle are leading full-service, turnkey payment processing, and merchant-of-record providers handling all the services necessary for link-out, including payment processing, tax compliance, fraud detection, and customer service. Across the top apps, the mean implied processing and merchant-of-record fee based on Stripe’s and Paddle’s rack rates (which few, if any, large developers actually pay because they negotiate discounts or provision in-house) is 8.1% using Stripe rates, or 7.8% using Paddle rates.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...
Your local monopoly of water provider charges a fee not a tax (although many collect taxes on behalf of the state that sanctions the monopoly)
Platform apps stores tend to be a monopoly (specially in iOS case) and that decreases incentive to provide a decent service/product to their customers who hate that fact - not because customer have no representation.
I never submitted an app to play store but knowing how Google handles app customers (or any customer of their services/products) its believable that app devs are shafted too. I personally wonder if there's any differentiated service level between an app that results in revenue for Google vs one that is 100% free. I'd be pissed if my 15% fee is not buying me priority over the latest adware filled flashlight app
We don't need better support. We need a way to fire Google via a robust market full of alternatives.
You don't have a real choice in an app store on android (except recently, and even then, the alternative stores don't behave well for google-based apps).
That's why it's not a tax when you choose to buy DQ burgers, but a tax when you choose to deploy an app to google app store.
I agree Google is using a tax here but the rule you suggested doesn't work
Because burger meat is commonly sold in the smallest of grocery stores, and is not technically dependent on what buns, sauces, tomatoes, lettuce … or other ingredients you pair them.
And you can grow your own veggies, and bake your own bread.
It is an entirely componentized market. No gatekeepers.
Even single groceries in tiny towns continue having to compete with larger stores in bigger towns. Because they carry small selections most people make the drive to load up their larder regularly.”
You need to find an example that matches the point you are trying to make.
TLDR: Analysis reveals burger markets are nearly perfect economic opposites of centralized app store markets.
This is getting confused. Just find an example that does make your point.
You do, and you also can pick iPhone. Or not a smartphone. Or not use apps.
> (except recently, and even then, the alternative stores don't behave well for google-based apps).
Google provides planetscale services like Google Maps for free and you want to build apps that use their services but not pay them 15% for their store, and still complain they don't work perfectly? You seem to be outsourcing a lot to Google but expect to give them nothing in return.
There are numerous examples of people needing a smartphone to do things in their daily lives. I’ve read compelling stories of people who ran into trouble after ditching their smartphone.
There are lots of parallels to the railroad monopolies. Choice is not as available as you say it is.
How so?
> I’ve read compelling stories of people who ran into trouble after ditching their smartphone.
It'd be helpful if you mentioned them instead of just saying everyone should trust that you were compelled by stories.
I thought it’s self evident that products like Gmail, Search, Maps and others aren’t free because Google is aiming to do charity but because your personal data allows them to build a digital model of you and charge other businesses for access to that knowledge.
Around me I can’t think of a bank that allows any remote operation without a TAN only available on iOS or Android. That’s the root of a lot of future problems, not the least of which being that the bank charges you more for in person operations.
I'd agree you have a choice with 3rd party stores but they're working on limiting/killing those tiny markets, already.
"Reee!! It's not a monopoly!!! It's a duopoly!!!!" screeched the pedant.
> Or not a smartphone. Or not use apps.
"Submit to the duopoly or else you're not allowed to develop for the most common consumer computing device on the planet"
some smart alec would then point out that because even the cheapest, shittiest beef isnt free that this price is justified.
See what I did there?
#mmt bay-beeee!
Given that, I think the world would be improved by reduction of such “development”.
2. Android comes bundled with chrome (and thus google search) as default. Google pays Apple $20B+ a year to keep Google search the default on Safari. That should tell you how valuable controlling Android is for Google's margins.
Like no-one at google seriously thinks they need to take a 15% play store cut to justify funding Android.
I just don't understand how these companies can get away with that. These are the aspects of life that tells very clearly how most Govts are not chosen and ran for "the people" but the few, not the conspiratorial spirals. These are the smaller, but harsh Kafkaesque realities of life that says we lost this to the power of the "rich" - and it's an abstract power, it's not fixed, and if someone from the "masses" manages to become part of it they also reap the benefit but by the design of things that number has to be really small.
Okay, it deviated. The point is
> provides terrible support for their own play store.
Something like this is so abhorrent and yet is it normal and I didn't even start at how they can just charge 15 and 33% for of the incomes.
If you are here, thank you for Conversations, Daniel, it has been my go-to for years for communicating with friends and family.
The farmer take care of his pigs but only to the point they get slaughtered.
(Long) distance communications, just like public roads, breathable air, potable drinking water and so on do not fit into a "free market economy" paradigm.
They simply don't fulfill the basic requirements that make the "market" idea work.
Specifically, a free market needs goods from different suppliers to be easily interchangeable. You cannot sensibly build multiple roads parallel to each other, or have multiple water pipes installed and you have only one airway to breath through.
I think part of what makes a utility a utility is that the nature of the service is naturally a monopoly. For example, you can only realistically have one set of waterways, so the company providing tap water as a service is a utility. Same with power lines, you can only realistically have one set, so the electricity-supplying company is a utility. With phone/internet service, I imagine that also requires sharing infrastructure.
Google doesn't fit in that paradigm. The nature of their services don't naturally require sharing resources to compete. They a monopoly simply because they amassed a ton a money to do things that other people can't, like drive on all roads on Earth with special cameras, or host however many videos there are on YouTube, serving those videos throughout the world, and even pay livable wages to the creators of the videos.
There should be an agency you can complain to for monopolies which has the power to dictate new rules to the monopolist with far reaching power to crack down on anything that smells like anti competitive behavior.
e.g.
- force banking apps that try to secure themselves with google play services to make that dependency optional.
- force google to stop blocking newpipe, aurora, etc.
- force google pay to make itself available on any platform that wants to integrate it (apple, graphene)
- force google to allow alternative app stores to become first class citizens.
So anyway, the US government should run an open-access, quad-track railroad and fiber backbone along every highway. Maximize the ROI on that ROW. Also they should nationalize Android and iOS.
[0] Because slavery. The South really, REALLY hated any government roads because it diminished the economic power of literally owning a lot of people. Hell, one of the stipulations of the Confederate Constitution was to strip the General Welfare clause out of the constitution.
And there are other companies: Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Tencent MyApp, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor, K Telecom T-Store, Jio, MTN Play.
Not even close to a captured utility. And if it were, which state on the planet should own it?
Tell me about the different OSes each of Samsung, Huawei, Tencent MyApp, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor etc. run then that we can choose from.
It's like saying Windows doesn't have a monopoly in the PC space because HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS.
Other companies using Google's incredible R&D spend and selling phones that use it is not Google's failing.
And we're talking app stores. They all have app stores disconnected from Google's app store.
> It's like saying Windows doesn't have a monopoly in the PC space because HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS.
No, on two counts. One: - and it's the same with Android - Apple exists, and so there's definitely not a monopoly from a lowercase personal computing perspective. Two: the conversation is about app stores. There are many app stores. It's like saying Microsoft doesn't have a PC hardware monopoly because HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS.
On the contrary. I disagree.
It's possible to build something so successful and difficult that it rises to the level of public utility.
If you make that comparison you clearly don't understand the point being brought up by others here. Which is fine. I'm not going to convince you, I'm just informing you how I'll be voting.
No they don't. Certainly not ones where my bank app or Netflix is. This is being obtuse on purpose.
Yes. They do.
> Certainly not ones where my bank app or Netflix is.
Blaming Google for this is just insanity.
> This is being obtuse on purpose.
Agreed.
Contrary to Google, Microsoft has a clear position on what OEMs are allowed to do with Windows.
Sure, they may ship a Samsung skin or preload some of their own junk, same as on Windows. That doesn't make what they ship a different OS.
The one exception would be HarmonyOS, but that's somewhat China specific.
Harmony NEXT is no longer based on Android.
If I buy a Samsung phone in North America or Europe today I get Google Play as the main app store, Google services etc. and if I want to develop an app for a Samsung Android phone, I use the official Google SDK and Kotlin like for every other Android phone.
They have their own skin and store, but nobody really uses that. Google Play it is, be it Samsung or Xioami. They're very far from offering any kind of genuine alternative to Google Play, Google or Android. Their stores are junkware no different than ASUS preinstalling some antivirus nobody wants.
> Harmony NEXT is no longer based on Android.
That's my point. Huawei is the only OEM offering something different, but not easy to get in Western markets and thus doesn't have app mindshare.
Google SDK naturally doesn't have the support for OEMs specific features.
Leaving just one Samsung example here, too lazy to dump everything else,
https://developer.samsung.com/mobile/galaxy-sdk-getting-star...
I am yet to see anyone disable OneUI, MIUI, HyperOS, EMUI for bare bones AOSP UI.
Pretending, some other company could come stroll along and take over Google's turf, completely ignores the underlying reality.
People don't talk on two phones at once, they only use one search engine regularly and they even only use one browser to surf the internet.
That bottleneck leads to market capture due to inevitable logical reasons, not because I say so.
If you want autonomous states, each one has to control their own infrastructure. Just don't forget to question your assumptions.
But try telling the internet that their "morally pure" addiction to skirting compensation is actually what is killing (killed?) the web.
Every competitor dies in the cradle because 40% of the internet won't pay them while using their service.
Youtube with ad-blocking is the best video service on the internet, and no one can touch that.
When Google charges me a monthly fee for storage, takes a percentage of my Play Store sales, or manufactures a Pixel that I purchase from their online store, I am absolutely their customer. I may also be providing data they will sell, but I am still paying them for goods or services and that makes me a customer.
The problem is that they continue treating their customers like livestock, and it seems they have little incentive to change.
The problem is that there's no pressure on them to act any differently. If they made 100x as much money from app purchases, they wouldn't suddenly treat app developers better just because of that. They might treat them better if the app developers had better alternatives, but that would also be enough to force Google to behave differently even with the current amount of revenue.
My hypothesis: turkeys think the farm is an amazing life until the week before Thanksgiving. Nobody really groks that Google is shit until it's too late.
Please try to engage more deeply.
For example, connect your turkeys more explicitly to a point you are making about Google. When is Thanksgiving coming? What will it look like?
They are just so big, they can afford not giving a shit at all.
> They are just so big, they can afford not giving a shit at all.
You have to realise your idea that people use them for no reason is not very likely, don't you?
"your idea that people use them for no reason"
I definitely know my reasons why I still use google despite knowing they don't care about me. That does not change the complaint.
That's not why.
I called the bus company, a native speaker of my language immediately picked up, rescheduled the ticket, and told me to pay €2 extra to the bus driver.
I was shocked that customer support could be so simple.
BTW I spent 6 hours total spread along 12 months calling an Indian customer service before I got my money back for the cancelled flight.
They introduced a phone verification step for the support phone number that you provide. But their apparent assumption is that app authors are individuals or tiny companies. They expect to be able to send a text to the support number, or have it answered instantly by a human to validate the number. Any kind of IVR means the number can't be validated.
I have been going back and forth with their support for a year. It takes months at a time for them to respond, to say "we fixed it try again" and I try again and the process is identical.
Is is annoyingly ironic because I am sure that Google themselves could not pass this process to get listed in the Play Store. Their advice of "just redirect your corporate number to someone's cellphone to get validated" is laugable.
You now need a business address and a bunch of other documents for apps that will probably lose money.
Google has also decided they really don’t like users installing apps outside the Play Store. Today it’s a bunch of scary warnings, soon it’s a convoluted process to enable all installs and eventually they probably just ban it all together.
Literally nothing about Android is worth while to me now. iPhones are more stable , easier to use and have vastly better end user support.
The App Store is also a living hell for developers. They will look for any excuse to deny you an account and later reject your app.
Dare I say programming isn’t as fun anymore. I guess I can still build WebGL games. Best not speak too loudly, Apple and Google might go after that next
I listed my reasons for IOS. It’s ultimately just a much better user experience. You just have to give up on writing your own code to run on it.
[1] (Disclosure: the AI gave me this link) https://unifiedpush.org/news/20250131_push_for_decentralized...
Interestingly, the link you posted relates to Unified Push, which is a protocol that relies on a "distributor" app which acts as a proxy, receiving reliable notifications on behalf of other applications. And it happens that Conversations can be configured as a UP distributor, because of how good it is at that/how well the XMPP protocol lends itself to it.
Long way to say you should give XMPP a shot, it really works well!
The trade off is that you gain some extra privacy with simpler architecture and accept that some notifications will be delayed as ios decides when to run the bg job for the app.
source: I develop e2e app with self-hostable server (145 lines of zero deps python for the whole server).
Even Android is not predicatable from my testing or I'm doing something wrong
But yeah, if you need a predictable way is either APN or safari push notifications.
That just about sums up Big Tech
Free to read online - https://charleseisenstein.org/books/sacred-economics/