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Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

You know what I am going to say...

Google Play is owned by Google and is a private platform. They can remove, ban, suspend any app or app update they want when it breaks their policies.

That is tough.

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I don't have strong feelings about mastodon or this specific app, but the credo of "It's a private company" is just lazy reasoning and thrown around blindly far too often.

Being banned by big tech (whether apps, social media accounts, major payment processors for receiving donations) is in some cases almost equivalent to being shut down ; "it's a private company" : if the company has a monopoly and there's not a significant number of healthy alternatives for people to use (be it out of convenience and lack of skill, doesn't matter), then how about we take that into account?

It's sad and frustrating we wanted an open internet and companies took over a huge share of it and are not stopping amassing influence and control. I wish this wasn't so, but it is, and we have to open our eyes to it when we're debating such topics.

"You can still distribute your app when not being on the Play Store or Apple Store right?" "In theory yes" "Case closed" ; things aren't so simple! In a perfectly 'libertarian' world, I would be more inclined to be on your side. But we don't live in such a world. We live in a world of politics, extreme lobbying, complicated tax codes, one million parties with various interests locked into a power struggle for political / social control and influence.

I'd argue that any other stance would acknowledge and justify their position as a utility provider and the Play Store as a public space.

I don't want that.

Instead, Google should be required to provide equal capabilities to third-party app stores as the Play Store now enjoys on Android. Like Microsoft was forced to accommodate for other browser vendors in Windows way back when.

This is in contrast to ISPs, which I whole-heartedly believe should be subject to net neutrality.

I do think that solution has a lot going for it. Probably even best to allow for multiple app stores from the very beginning. For example during setup of the device being prompted:

"There are various app stores to install software from. Each comes with their own form of app curation, and policies regarding payments, privacy, updates and more ; please select the app stores you would like to use. If you'd like to learn more, click here."

with a list of app stores given and 'Google Play' being pre-selected for example.

It's not something I've thought about a lot before, so I'm sure we could do better than that. But in principle that doesn't sound too bad.

> I'd argue that any other stance would acknowledge and justify their position as a utility provider and the Play Store as a public space.

That's a false dichotomy. The options are not:

1. Any company, anywhere and at any time can refuse to do business with anyone, anywhere and for any reason.

2. All companies, everywhere and all the time must allow voices from everyone, everywhere and all the time.

There's a good middle ground - antitrust regulations could be modified so that, if the company has a large enough piece of the market they shouldn't have the /choice/ of denying access for any reason.

> It's sad and frustrating we wanted an open internet and companies took over a huge share of it and are not stopping amassing influence and control. I wish this wasn't so, but it is, and we have to open our eyes to it when we're debating such topics.

They took advantage of this 'open internet' and now they have made it partially closed for everyone since they have control of the platforms that most people do for everyday life. Web Browsing, Email, Chat, Calendars, Maps and now Meetings. The startups that have been acquired by them have just made the tech giants even bigger.

Developers recommending libraries, frameworks and services created by (you guessed it) the tech giants further locks in their app to depend solely on their servers and it makes the migration out of the app store very difficult.

We let them do this for decades and now we complain about it. The only way to fight back is to create free and open source alternatives.

> "You can still distribute your app when not being on the Play Store or Apple Store right?" "In theory yes" "Case closed" ; things aren't so simple!

Practically yes and it is that simple.

Take a look at how Cydia and F-Droid does it. Host a repository on your website, Put a 'Add to Cydia' or 'Add to F-Droid' deep link on your website and the users will freely see all the apps made by you. We need something like this but for the desktop.

It may not even be 'Cydia' or called 'F-Droid' that succeeds in being mainstream on this very old idea, but there will be an accessible alternative that will use this idea and it is free and open source and cross-platform.

Discord desktop is not on any App Store and you can download it freely without a Google/Apple account. Telegram is on Google Play and also self-hosts the APK and is also on F-Droid.

The solution has always been to have a self-hosted backup so that the users always have an accessible way of downloading your app and not just being ONLY available through any centralised App Store.

I agree with you on some parts. Don't rely on Google, be available via other methods as well. But that does not take away from the fact, that if you lose access to Play Store and Apple Store as a means of distributing your application, at that moment you will have permanently lost access to 98% of potential users. The few that bother to install a .apk manually or use F-Droid aren't significant. How many people do _ever_ even search for an app outside of these stores? I'm guilty most of the time myself. One more factor: Especially with social apps the network effect is everything. Even the few hardcore lovers of your app stop using it, if not enough 'non-technical' users do. Having 100 contacts, 98 of them on WhatsApp, 4 of them on some social media app you have to tell your contacts to download the .apk from somewhere in order to use it? More often than not you can't even get people to install Signal, and it's one click.

You don't survive something like this and you won't regain your user count outside of these curated app stores.

It's pretty much as simple as that. The dream of "if it happens enough times F-Droid and alternatives will become more prominent" is just naive, it doesn't work like that. There is no level playing field to compete.

"The solution has always been to have a self-hosted backup [...]" - the solution to what? The solution to compete from outside of these curated stores where companies dictate course? No, it's not a solution for that, because it won't do much for you.

Where does it say that people don't have the right to criticize them for their actions on the platform? Because I don't see how the fact that they have the ability and possibly the right (let's see what the antitrust cases say) to do this means that anybody has to take it without complaint.

I'll be waiting for the next time Google bans another app on the Play Store even after the antitrust lawsuits are over.

In the old days at least for the desktop, one just points to a website to download an app on to their computer. Discord already does this. No Microsoft or Apple App Store required.

For Android, F-Droid has a default main repository which is centralised but also allows you to add another repository if you want. While it is not as intuitive as adding a repository via a deep link at least you can do that.

For iOS, Cydia is an App Store for iOS just like F-Droid where the user can easily add a repository via a 'Add to Cydia' deep link, and they get all the apps from that developer. We need something like that for the desktop, where users can do this freely.

Centralisation of App Stores is not the answer, even if you 'break up' Google which I hope happens anyway. But for now, the Play Store is 'their service'. You're free to complain, critique, appeal, argue, scream, etc but it won't be the last time this will happen again.

The best thing to do is to self-host your app; like how Telegram and Discord are doing it.

Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should be able to do a thing or that you should do a thing, and it definitely doesn’t mean you should be immune to criticism for doing the thing.

This is quickly becoming the "cant yell fire" meme of the 2020's. hell I bet you even believe that meme dont you even though it is been rebutted for decades and universally cited as bad case law?

The "Mah private company" defense is flawed on many levels and you should really stop using

1. Just because they have the right to do it, does not mean people should not criticize them for it. Simply stating they "have the right" is meaningless and does not add anything of value to the conversation

2. There is a overlapping and complex set of principles and laws at play here. There are many avenues that can be explored from a legal front when they ban a company from selling their product on their walled garden, even outside of the Anti-Trust issues there is also contract laws that can be used, and even Deceptive Trade regulations given the uneven standard that their policies are applied.

So it is not as simple as say "Well there are a private company they can do what they want" The law, and society is far more complex than that, and it is time for people to stop using this useless platitude as a defense of bad actions

So break up google, easy

Don't know why you're being downvoted. This is an obvious solution.

Ostensibly, you are correct. However, an increased problem of app curation is that, all too often, perfectly innocent apps can get caught in the cross-fire of bad automation.

The fact that most people get their apps from one of two app stores (Google Play, App Store) makes this situation somewhat worse for people that effectively develop apps for the platform in their spare time. There are alternatives, like F-Droid...but, it's still not the same as mainstream distribution.

Keeping in mind that those who set the policies are the same people who were literally crying in the hallways at work after the 2016 election

And outright saying "WE lost"

When Google, YouTube, et al make decisions that appear to be careless, biased, or downright baffling, remembering this piece of data often provides valuable clarity, context, and insight

> Google Play is owned by Google and is a private platform. They can remove, ban, suspend any app or app update they want when it breaks their policies.

In this democracy, companies can only do what we, the people, allow them to do.

Don't know where you live but that's not the case in the U.S.

You, the people, vote for representatives who make the laws that Google has to adhere to. If you disagree with the current laws that allow Google to do what it does, then vote for other representatives.

At least that is how it works in my country, and from what I know, how it works in the US too.

Is that not "people allowing companies what they can do"?

Let's say they decide to change their policies on a whim, where overnight you are banned for life. Should we also accept something like that?

I'm sorry but what you are saying is pure ignorance. I consider myself also a libertarian to a certain degree, but in these kind of situations it is completely irrational to let these platforms behave however they want, regardless of the consequences.

That’s what they said about AT&T and the railroad monopolies. By breaking them up and restoring competition, our economy thrived.

There is no creative destruction under monopoly capitalism. It is only suffocating and dominance.

You know you're wrong yet you still write this.

Imagine you buy a car and use it legally then randomly all the Gas stations ban you. This is a similar situation.

You purchased a phone, so should be able to install any app you like, easily. This needs fixing.

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