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Comment by onimishra | Hacker News Reader

Had the exact same thing. Developed a small game, pushed it to iOS without much fanfare (well, other than having to pay the insanely high toll to get into the garden) and then turned to Android to do the same. Another toll gate at only a quarter the price - sure, lets pay that as well. But then we get to the point where they require images of government issued id and address verification. You can have my money, buddy, but that level of personal data for something small like a game? How about no…

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Google take $25 once, Apple takes $100 every year. For hobby projects, the former is reasonable, and the latter is a dealbreaker.

I'm surprised Apple doesn't make you scan your ID since there are laws that force both Apple and Google to publish real names of developers on app store pages. And address too, if you charge money.

Imo even the $25 is too much or at least promotes inequality. Plenty of countries with developers where $25 is a full day's wages, but for the average American software dev $25 is almost nothing.

With the changes they did recently, unless you find 12 people opting-in to google groups for your beta test and downloading a private build from a beta-tester link, keeping the app installed and engage with it for 14 conescutive days, your game is NEVER published on Play Store at all. And that is AFTER you submit government ID and paid the 25 bucks.

Only companies can now have instant publishes on the Play Store without that 12-tester limit.

It sucks, but it's more of a time gate and an inconvenience than an actual barrier. There are communities/apps where people do this for each other in an organized way, so you're pretty much guaranteed to pass after 14 days.

I published my first app a few months ago, and I hated 14 days part more than 12 people part.

> so you're pretty much guaranteed to pass after 14 days

Then why have it in the first place?

I don't complain about the money because my time to organize and go through this is worth more than the price difference. I'd rather pay 100€/year, same as on the Apple Appstore. Now I have to coordinate some fake weird closed-testing groups and hope I don't get banned for using unauthentic testers.

>Then why have it in the first place?

The inconvenience/effort is probably the point, likely to discourage people who aren't willing to put at least that much effort.

>and hope I don't get banned for using unauthentic testers.

I doubt Google cares about this, since they let apps for these testing groups into play store. Those apps organize people into groups, provide play store links, and buttons to open other people's apps, so all you do is just open and close each app once a day.

Since this takes like 30 minutes total over 14 days, I'd rather do that than pay $100 forever since I'm not made of money and it's less time than it would take me to earn $100 at my job even once.

What you doubt doesn't matter, google clearly even requires you to fill out details about the testing process, how you recreuited your testers, etc. [0]. This is mandatory. Good luck trying to fill in "I used Fiverr to recruit some chinese clickworkers". Any if you are lying about the process - well If Google doesn't like your App or anything about you in the future, they can just delete whatever your App is citing false claims on your side.

[0]: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

>Any if you are lying about the process - well If Google doesn't like your App or anything about you in the future, they can just delete whatever your App is citing false claims on your side.

They could do that for any reason or no reason at all anyway even without the testing requirement.

They do if you want to distribute your apps in the EU. And your physical address will be published as well.

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