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.
So now Google is in a position where they can place unreasonable rules on their service and no one can do anything about it. So, naturally, that's what they are doing. You can argue it's their right to put whatever restrictions they want on "their" service. But we can still argue that their restrictions are unfair.
This rule in this case seems unfair. The cost to Google to distribute this app is vanishingly small, probably on the order of cents. The benefit Google gains from exerting total control over the availability of apps on Android is quite large. It seems like Google is already getting the better end of the deal, and saying "you are not permitted to ask for donations to support your free art project unless you give us a 30% cut" just seems petty.
Can Google do it? Sure, they have the right. Is it fair? In my opinion, no. Being legal doesn't make it fair.
The whole concept of some action being "legal" is nebulous at best in the US. At the cutting edge of technology where there isn't any directly analogous precedent, it just means that someone with deep enough pockets or enforcement authority hasn't challenged the status quo. There is so much going on with Google, Facebook, Apple, the telecom/media mergers, and so on that clearly is worth investigating and litigating in courts but we're doing the bare minimum. Once they're a certain size, companies just do whatever they want, pay their fines, pull out their token gestures on Twitter, and keep steam rolling ahead as if nothing had happened.
At this point, the whole system of conglomeration, regulatory capture, "cost of doing business" penalties, and arbitrary enforcement looks like a total farce as do the rights it gives its "constituents".
/rant
What are these restrictions? I've heard this mentioned before, but I'm not finding information on what the restrictions are.
I think maybe its time to discuss what 'rights' mean in a purely digital economy.
Not to point out the obvious, but doesn't that mean that Google is providing a service that is providing you with value? I can't imagine someone saying that TV ads should be free because that's the only way to reach 70% of the market...
When that revenue is labeled “donations”, it doesn’t make it not revenue.
> “you are not permitted to ask for donations to support your free art project”
The host is not in the business of differentiating art projects from non-art projects or donation-based payments from non-donation-based payments, which could easily be abused by developers offering in-app rewards for “donations.” That is a slippery slope that would be ripe for abuse and satisfy no one.
When we have a complicated system, like the US tax laws, people abuse it and everyone complains. When we have a simple system applied fairly across the board, people think exceptions should be made for them and complain. The lesson seems to be that someone will always be complaining.
Epic/Fortnite beg to differ. Unlike with Apple, no one is forced to use the Play Store to get apps for your phone.
Google's actual infrastructure costs are not low, they're actually so high that many people don't think it's feasible to do it. It's so high that they're reduced to complaining about how difficult it is to do anything other than use Google's existing infrastructure.
Maybe that still feels unfair. I'm not totally unsympathetic to that perspective. But it's wrong to characterize Google's costs as trivial and claim that there are no options. Both you and the author imply that Google's 70% marketshare platform is a triviality worth far less than they charge, and that doesn't strike me as entirely fair either.
Not really if you consider huawei without a play store. Also consider the IE case where microsoft only was forced to allow a browser chooser window. I think if the same would happen on android all would be fine.
> There is no realistic alternative if you want to reach the 70% of the market Google controls.
I think just because they are big they shouldn't be forced to allow everyone to use their platform.
On a more serious note, this is why Google and Apple need regulation. The fact that they can dictate business modes to others - whether or not they’re within their legal rights - should worry everyone.
Edit: Not the author in case there was any confusion.
I agree that some regulation is necessary, especially since these are near monopolies, but at least on Android you're still using expensive infrastructure Google provides to you and your users for free. I don't think its unfair for them to demand to not make money using what they provide for free.
- publish for free, and doesn’t allow you put donations links
- pay monthly cost for publishing, and be able to put link for donations
Choose one
No, this is why devs need to read the TOS, realize Google/Apple are not platforms they want to support, and work to create/support platforms that are developer-friendly (e.g. F-Droid/itch.io, as highlighted here).
Or they are the platforms they want to support (because, for instance, they're where the people are), in which case they're just trying to both have and eat their cake, like Epic on the Apple store.
It wouldn't be the consumers, but these companies. There's a thing called regulatory capture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture).
Try to introduce such regulation, and what would happen is that the regulations themselves would be even manipulated or even drafted by the big players in the market.
Why is that so bad? Because it means the regulations will be harsh to everyone else who tries to join that given market.
This happens all the time in other industries. We don't need this in computing, please.
But, Google/Play is different; developers who decide to distribute outside of Play don't receive any significant negative impact to their application outside of the marketing and operations that Play gives you, basically for free. There are other options, including no option ("go to my website and download the APK").
The pre-installation of Play on millions of Android devices is a weird sticky point. But, the most popular android devices on the planet (Samsung, Huawei) also ship with secondary (or, in some markets, primary) storefronts, and devs can distribute on those. Google set a norm with most customers, that all apps are on Play, but I also don't really see much tactile anticompetitive behavior from them in making it that way; its just the cultural norm, primarily due to convenience. I'd support government intervention to force device manufacturers to prompt users to install alternate storefronts on device setup, but its not the biggest of deals on Android.
Also; developers can monetize their "donations" via in-app purchases. I've seen tons of devs do this; either one-time or subscription, sometimes for little dumb non-functional stuff like extra theme colors, sometimes for nothing. I've paid for a few. Google will take their 15%. So, you're paying maybe an extra 10% on-top-of whatever you'd already have to be paying Stripe or whoever. Is the marketing, distribution, metrics, bandwidth, customer base, and even tangentially, developer tooling (Android Studio), worth that? The answer to that is different for every developer, but I think you'd have to be turning some huge revenue (some may say, some "Epic" revenue) for the absolute number underneath that percentage to start drawing scrutiny.
Or, in case of your store example: The store owner does not have a store "for free". He still needs to pay the bills and be there. By suddenly earning money with his goodwill you're basically monetizing the space he is gifting to you.
> People are welcome to offer items for free on my shelf space, but if they make money based off the items people got from those shelves, then I get a cut
Then, if you accept a donation because of such items, then you pay. Because it was stated up front and it's part of the owner's business model.
As to how it effects the store owner. Let's say the store owner does not allow free items on their shelves at the moment. And they make enough money to pay their bills, plus a little extra. The owner decides to allow free items on their shelves, with the above caveat. They figure they will make less money overall (free items now take the place of items non-free item), but still make enough to live on. Only now, just enough, no extra.
If all the people that give their items for free + donations decide not to pay a share of their donations, then the business owner does _not_ make enough to pay their bills... because the assumption of people paying that money was built into the decision to allow free items in the first place.
So there _is_ a different to the store owner.
Obviously, Google doesn't make "just enough to pay their bills", so the analogy is loose... but the concept of people following the rules that were set out at the beginning being built into the business model, and the decision to support that model at all, doesn't change because of that.
But now he is accepting donations for the items people are taking "for free", and is therefore in breach of the lease agreement he signed with his landlord.
Can’t do that with the app stores, hence your analogy falls apart due to the lack of available competition.
I would be sympathetic to Google if the Play Store was just one realistic choice of many, or if like FDroid it allowed you to create and use other sources of packages, but at the moment it's like saying "You can't use Chrome to visit a donation page without also giving Google a cut, you're using THEIR service after all to do so."
Now if you can't access the app at all, such as by browser or etc, then i think there's a better parallel to Chrome. But when you're using someone elses infra entirely it feels odd to say you have the right to use it for free.
The donations aren't the problem in my mind. Installing applications outside of the app store is the problem. Because locking app installs down and not supporting alternatives like PWAs is the real devil.
I still partially think we should just avoid Google phones period, but other comments suggest Microsoft already was forced to allow alternate browser installs, so there in i think that sets a precedent to require Google/etc to better support 3rd party app installs (out of store).
Lets say I run a backup service; companies and people pay me to run my backup agent on their desktops, and the backup agent backs up all their important files to my server.
I provide the desktop agents for free. Does it mean that I cannot write an android agent and make it available for free on the Play store?
What about iOS? Can I make an iPhone agent that my (already signed up and paying customers) download from the Apple store?
If my main business is providing a service and using a client program that my customers install to make use of that service, am I simply now allowed to tell my customers "You can use our free app on the Play store"?
How do Banks do this? My bank has an app on the play store, but it's free. I'm definitely paying for the service my bank offers through that app, but Google doesn't seem to mind.
1. No sign-up/subscribe/payment buttons in-app, and no links in-app to external payment forms for those purposes, (effectively the app is a convenience for the users you already have) or,
2. Integrate your sign-up/subscription/upgrades available in-app to Apple's systems, and give up a cut for any subscriptions/upgrades that originated via the Apple app. (On this side, you're effectively paying Apple commission for converted leads generated through their app as an advertising channel.)
They included this in part of their review process, and they did not give much leeway. Even linking to your service's website from in-app was risky, if your website was plastered with sign-up/subscribe/upgrade buttons.
Whether there is a problem (and a solution if so) I will not judge. But the society are already on it, and we probably will see some legislation rendering the "free market" arguments futile.
No, it'd be more like if you paid for a stall in a flea market or something and the owners of the market not only took a cut of your profits off sales but bans you from telling customers to come to your store down the street.
This is the worst sort of "you wouldn't download a car, would you?" analogy. Stealing a physical product from a retail store is nothing at all like publishing a piece of software that people choose to install on the devices that they own. This comment really illustrates how far we have diverged from people actually owning and controlling their own handheld computers, in the google or apple "walled garden" ecosystem.
Individuals don't think of themselves as businesses, but they really should. If you're making a game, and distribute it via the App/Play Store, you should think hard about providing something of value to the player, and how much you can charge it. Even if it's just a one time in-app-purchase. It's a much better experience for the users to let them buy something they want, and the success is directly tied to how much value the game provides. Rather then just putting it out there for free, and hope someone will support it.
That's how I see it, for Google it's probably more about revenue sharing and also tax issues, but I do believe not relying on donations leads to better products, that make more sense, as they need to be able to stand for themselves.
It seems like this is about a donation link on an external developer page. Can they not provide a donation link for other games not on the Play store? Surely you're allowed to have a donation link on your developer page somewhere. How buried does google need the link to be? Is the policy clear?
Its essentially a tax on anyone doing commerce on the most installed computing platform on the planet, used by two billion people (not including China).
This is why tech needs interoperability requirements.
>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.
No, this is nothing like literal theft.
In-app purchases have value to developers to verify payment validity and function as DRM to prove the user did purchase a thing, and they have value to the user to provide legitimacy to the transaction and assure that if they don't get what they paid for, there's reliable customer service to help them. None of these things are relevant when users donate.
So what's Google's role in this? If they're OK not getting a cut of subscription services paid for outside the app, what's the problem with not getting a cut of transactions users get nothing out of?
The link was added on the support webpage, which is viewed in the browser in the app.
Google's rules are shitty.
Google is a monopoly that must be broken up.
So you might say that Google/Apple should just start charging directly for the app store spots, with some markup. e.g. $30/m for up to 10k downloads, $50/m for 30k, etc.
But arguably app stores wouldn't be the juggernauts they are without the loads and loads of free apps people can download for no upfront cost, and it seems unlikely that this would've happened if the app store business model had been the one above from the outset.
In other words, the author is complaining about the existing model, but it is unclear if putting his stuff on the app store would've been such an appealing thing to do without said model. Bit of a catch-22.
The problem for them isn't the surprise, it's the denial.
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?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
This doesn't apply when you control more than 50% of a huge global market. Or at least it shouldn't.
Users will think they have right for personalized support (which makes sense, of course) and will contact you for refunds, the reviews will get meaner as well and then you have to keep the library updated.
I got a notice that I have to re-do the IaP code on my app, an app that made me $600 over it's lifetime of which I saw nil because of how hard (and expensive really) it is to get the money into my country... just removed the whole purchase thing, it should make some users happy and my life easier.
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.
I love that as a user. Android used to not do that, and apps in background would just kill the battery in a few hours.
You will think differently when Apple/Google will remove the app you need from AppStore, because your government told them so, and you'll be out in the cold, with no backup and a useless device, which you paid for, but you don't really own, using only those apps which you are allowed to run. But your lack of imagination does not allow you to foresee that before it happens.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
put that on a tshirt
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.
Apple's and Amazon's APIs have major flaws as well, but Google is on a whole different level.
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.
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.
[1] https://pay.google.com/intl/en_in/about/policy/?visit_id=637...
That's exactly what this developer did. They linked to a page on their website that has the donation options. Google still objected.
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.
> it also seems really naive to expect something different.
is enough
Er, unless I'm missing something, that's the same thing.
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.
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.
CC-BY-SA is a very poor choice for software IMHO...too many ambiguities.
https://github.com/agateau/pixelwheels/blob/master/LICENSE.C...
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.
https://how.complexsystems.fail/ Item #2
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
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.
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.
Oh, and Bad Google.
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.
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.
Maybe publish you game (supported by donations) on platforms that encourage such practices, such as itch.io or outpan.
and that makes you the greedy one in the relationship.
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.
