Comment by SomeCallMeTim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SomeCallMeTim | Hacker News Reader

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>What's your preferred user response to the practice of seemingly every single app begging for reviews? An actual, actionable response.

Complain to Apple for having a broken system, but don't hurt the developers of the very apps you're F-ing using.

As OP said above, Apple could fix this issue. Maybe weight recent reviews more, but don't just wipe the history for every upgrade.

The profound sense of entitlement that users express is really frustrating to app developers.

We can either never ask for reviews and watch as 1 in 100 people EVER review our app (and THOSE reviews are skewed to the people who have a complaint, so the review average is typically crap), meaning that we barely get any downloads and can't actually make a living selling apps, or we can ask for reviews and have people complain with 1-star reviews because the app they continue using for free annoyed them once.

And entirely because of Apple it needs to annoy them more than once in order to stay relevant.

Here's what I'd love to do: Make it so that, if you rate an app 1-star, or even 2-stars, you can't use it any more. If you rate it that low and you still use it, you're lying to other users and harming the creator of the app that you're using for free. Give me a developer API to know what users rated the app how, and I'd implement that in a minute.

People could still rate it 1-star if it sucked. Because if it sucked they wouldn't want to use it.

Drop the review to 4 stars if you're annoyed by it, but know that the developers really, really have no choice. You're basically telling them to commit economic suicide for your minor convenience.

> that you're using for free

Rude assumption.

I always, as a matter of principle, buy the "remove ads" IAP if I use an app regularly. Even if I didn't it wasn't my choice to charge nothing for the app. That's on the developer. Apple doesn't owe you a living, I don't owe you a living. The state of the app store has been known for years now and you've had a long time to decline to participate.

Your problems with Apple are not my problems as a user.

They are user problems in a way, but indirectly. Without user reviews new apps are buried even when searched with exact names. So the exact app you need for a niche task will never be found in the first place.

The only real solution is for Apple/Google to not wipe the slate every app update. You have to see the user benefit to that - apple right now literally has a direct disincentive to updating an app.

> They are user problems in a way, but indirectly. Without user reviews new apps are buried even when searched with exact names. So the exact app you need for a niche task will never be found in the first place.

So as a user my problem with Apple is that search is crappy. Is this best fixed by the search being improved or app developers begging for reviews?

I'm sympathetic to developers for the problems of discoverability and customer support and think Apple could probably do a lot better for them. But by the same token I completely reject having it pushed back on to me via the annoying review popup every damn time I update something. I'll continue to express my displeasure with one-star reviews.

> The only real solution is for Apple/Google to not wipe the slate every app update.

As I understand it Google don't wipe reviews between versions, and this is still a problem.

Google doesn't wipe the slate, to my knowledge. Has that changed?

>Your problems with Apple are not my problems as a user.

My problems with Apple are exactly your problems as a user.

If you want the apps that don't ever ask for reviews, then search past the first 100 that show up. Almost no one does. You'll find them there, because they don't rank at the top of the results.

Guess how much money those apps make? Not enough to pay for development. It's a power law distribution. At the top of the search you can make a decent living. By the time you're down to 20th place, you might be making $20/month.

You want good apps to use? Even apps you pay for? Then work within the system that exists, and work to change the system. Don't screw the developers who provide you the apps your using.

All you're doing by using the apps that you're slamming is being a hypocrite. The very reason you found those apps is that they asked users to post reviews. And the only reason that an app developer can continue to make and support the apps you're using is that they stay near the top of the rankings. Meaning that they really have no choice, most of the time, but to ask for reviews.

You want to have apps that work, and that aren't exclusively created by huge companies that can afford to get them to the top of the charts with big ad buys? Then support the developers who create them.

You don't want those apps? Then why do you have them installed on your phone at all? Easy solution here. Uninstall the annoying apps.

No, you owe us nothing. But neither do we owe you anything. If you're using our apps, and you want us to be able to afford to continue to make such apps, your one time $1-2 payment to remove ads isn't enough to pay for development for more than a couple of minutes. It's appreciated, don't get me wrong. A typical user of an ad-supported app probably makes $0.25 in a lifetime (depending on many variables). So the only way to actually make app development work is to get hundreds of thousands of downloads.

I actually have stopped trying to participate as an indie app developer who depends on the arbitrary and awful rankings that are ubiquitous in all the various markets. But I have empathy for those who keep trying, and I do want apps to continue to exist.

If one annoys me, I'll uninstall it. That's the honest thing to do, and by the way, it also hurts the ranking of the app. Rating it one star for a single annoyance is effectively lying out of spite. A "one star" ranking should be reserved for an app that you intend to immediately uninstall. Period.

>> Guess how much money those apps make? Not enough to pay for development. It's a power law distribution. At the top of the search you can make a decent living.

It's unlikely and rare for an app developed exclusively for native iOS, with no existing user base built on desktop or physical business presence in the real world, to ever have a chance of succeeding. The fault for misguided expectations lies entirely with the developers, not Apple or its users. The real purpose of the App Store - that is, what a majority of users find valuable - is having mobile apps for brand names and services they are already acquainted with.

Your primary install base should be from users explicitly searching for your app by name because they already interact with you elsewhere. If you're depending on people to "discover" your app without having ever heard of you, then you are choosing to gamble and attempting to game a system that every other gambler is trying to game right alongside you.

The only real problem here is developers trying to use mobile apps as either a) a get-rich-quick scheme, or b) feeling entitled to earn full-time income solely from their dream job of working as their own boss from home. The App Store is a cesspool of every developer who figured out how to install XCode acting like they automatically deserve to win the windfall lottery. If you choose to develop apps that have no business plan behind them other than "hope I get popular through a closed-garden algorithm", the resulting fallout has nothing to do with Apple or device owners.

> If you're depending on people to "discover" your app without having ever heard of you, then you are choosing to gamble and attempting to game a system that every other gambler is trying to game right alongside you.

Bingo! All the popular indie apps that don't use every possible strategy to get to the top of the heap will fail.

By choosing the top rated apps in the top 20, you are playing the same game. If you don't like indie apps, don't download them. "The only way to win is not to play." You don't like that game, play a different game. Don't hurt the many, many developers who are in fact making a living making apps.

And don't spite them just because they're living the dream of earning a full time income working as their own boss from home and it's what you'd like to be doing.

>The App Store is a cesspool of every developer who figured out how to install XCode acting like they automatically deserve to win the windfall lottery.

I don't disagree, but it also has some very nice apps. If you think an app really sucks, by all means slam it in the reviews. It's a service to other people who may download it.

But I'm complaining about people rating apps they otherwise consider to be 4- or 5-star apps, and that they then vote down to 1-star because they're pissed about being asked to review. That's lying out of spite, is hurting a developer who otherwise did a good job on their app, and is uncool.

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