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Comment by folli | Hacker News Reader

This has a (not so surprising) resemblance with the current state of app development for Google's Play Store.

This is discussed e.g. here: https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/9n88wv/the_futu...

It's really quite unnerving that Google (and Apple) has the potential to destroy any of the numerous mobile-first companies out there with effectively the flick of a switch. An entire company could be shut down, and many jobs ended, just by having their app suddenly deemed to be unacceptable. I'm looking forward to seeing what the EU will try to do about it.

Having your business model around Google is not a good idea. Try to be as independent as possible.

If you really depend, you are in high risk and should be ready to be shut down at any time.

Sounds like obvious advice in theory, but in practice you will run into a lot of problems.

Google's Play store has a quasi-monopol on Android app sales, alternative app stores make up a small fraction in the promille range.

Make a web app in addition to your native apps? Then if they pull the native app you can direct people to the web app. I think Uber has this?

Has anyone actually made a mobile webapp that isn't a completely miserable user experience? People keep talking about how PWAs are the future or whatever but then every time I try using one the performance is really poor.

Twitter for example claims their PWA "Loads quickly on 2G and 3G networks" compared to their native app but my actual experience using it was very much the opposite. Everything takes seemingly 2-3x longer to load.

Uber would be in deep trouble if their app got pulled. It's not that easy to get people to use your web site once they are used to the app.

Could you make an app that just installs your web app in the launcher so the user only uses your webapp directly? iirc that can't be pulled as easily by Google.

I've done that - it's a pretty poor experience in practice.

Why is that? What has been your experience?

I found it harder to make a clean, smooth user interface. Lots of workarounds to make things fit into the right place, to make the right thing in focus for user input. I'm not a professional front-end developer so maybe I just wasn't any good at it, but achieving a basic level of quality was much harder.

True but if that is the case, you have to play by their rules, even if they are idiotic. It kind of is what it is until things change.

That's the the thing - if it's a case of "play by our very specific, unambiguous and consistently applied rules" then I think most people would have no issue. However I know that Apple for example have kicked a few apps off the App Store after they made their first party replacements. And while I have no first-hand experience with Android, a friend of mine has been grousing about some Google Play store ranking or recommendation changes (I don't know exactly what it was) within the last few months that decimated his income overnight. These stories pop up relatively frequently on HN, and I'm sure you'll have seen them if you've been around for a while.

The issue is that you can find yourself completely kicked off (literally or figuratively) a platform with no recourse whatsoever even when you play by their rules. One day you have a business and an income, the next you don't.

+1 was not enough, therefore verbal +100.

(Will be nice once comment systems allow multiple upvotes on a budget)

Then don't be in the Android app business.

> Try to be as independent as possible.

Having worked SEO for a number of midsized e-commerce companies, their revenue lives and dies on the latest Google dance.

These are regular shopfronts running regular websites. Non-Google organic traffic is negligible. What other platform choice do they have?

Get a sudden Google penalty for no obvious reason? There goes 70% of your monthly revenue, have fun trying to reverse engineer the problem.

That's what I said. If you depend on Google at least be aware that you can lose everything overnight. Be prepared

> That's what I said.

And that's my point. The web is supposed to be an open platform but no longer, you just married Sergey.

Make an iPhone app? OK understood you're in bed with Apple now. But a website should be a free agent. That's no longer an option because monopoly.

Possible other choices:

1. create enough valuable original content to drive organic traffic

2. run an affiliate program for referrals

3. Facebook advertising

1. Is a frankly a Google lie. Matt Cutts likes to bang the OC drum but in my measurements it is only one fragment of the SEO picture and not a big one at that. Google rewards content volume and freshness waaaay more than uniqueness and quality. If you get a sudden penalty, OC will not save you.

2. That's a great way to get autoflagged for a penalty.

3. You're on the money here this is actually a viable alternative. But then you're at the mercy of Facebook instead of El Goog. Different boss same crap.

People said the same thing back when the web was the thing and everyone depended on Google search traffic. They didn't listen. They're not going to listen this time. Whatever the solution is, it won't be telling people not to follow the latest proprietary gold rush.

> Having your business model around Google is not a good idea. Try to be as independent as possible.

The surprising thing is it's 2018, it shouldn't be that hard to do. Diversify to do websites, maybe look at other platforms like Salesforce, or build desktop apps along with mobile apps.

I've known many friends who were building apps and none of them relied solely on Google for the success of their company.

It's really gross that your first instinct is to call for government regulation.

Why? Are there other options? Signing petitions won't help, obviously

The recommended approach is to get to scale in terms of customer awareness ASAP - so you have public channels available, and fans, to complain about any unfair actions on the part of the platform owner.

There are non-google app store places to get apps though. APKpure, for example.

Sure, and there's places other than amazon to sell.

That doesn't matter when the Play store, or Amazon, controls the majority of all sales. How much money are people making on APKpure? Is it enough to support a dozen software engineer salaries?

Didn't think so, no. Getting booted off of the Play store does not mean your app is impossible to share, but it decimates the size of your audience - worse, even. Will even one in one hundred be left?

Amazon has about a 44% e-commerce market share in the US, which is huge but not yet a majority.

Indeed there are, but most people are wisely taught to avoid them as there is more risk of installing an app that may have nefarious (hidden) behaviors.

So practically speaking, distributing your app outside of Play store is going to severely limit your reach.

I'd rather build a web app and try to get people to create a "desktop" shortcut.

I think a PWA (progressive web app), that people get directly through your website, is a more viable alternative.

As long as you don't need some native-only functionality of course.

What fraction of a percent is the market share in app installs?

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