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Comment by rmrfrmrf | Hacker News Reader

> No, you're fucking not working hard, you added the last ones a year and a half ago.

I'm not even a Google fanboy, but what do you know about the challenges that Google might be facing? It's a really strong accusation to say that a company is not working hard just because you can't have exactly what you want.

Last I checked, neither Google nor Apple make guarantees about how much of a living a developer is going to make from their platforms. You're not getting shit on; you're getting impatient because the gravy train that you're banking on hasn't poured itself all over you. If you want to make money, stop waiting for other people to do the dirty work for you.

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I can assume what challenges Google is facing based on how successful other companies in the space are in providing the same service, namely Microsoft and Apple.

Google: 32 countries Apple: 90 countries (probably more now, info from 2012) Microsoft: 127 countries

Yes, Microsoft and Apple had a head start, but the difference is just way too big, and Google hasn't moved that number in a year and a half.

I don't want Google to do the dirty work for me. They should just let me do the dirty work, and let me implement other payment methods. Don't you see how saying "You can only use our payment processor on Google Play" and immediately following it up with "Our payment processor is not available in your country" is rage-inducing?

> Google: 32 countries Apple: 90 countries (probably more now, info from 2012) Microsoft: 127 countries

Or the 196(?) countries the Amazon Appstore supports.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

(* It appears that apps for China and, for whatever reason, Germany must go through amazon.cn and .de, respectively, instead of .com)

EDIT: I count 155 countries supported by the iTunes App Store, according to

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3599

> Google: 32 countries

Where did you get this info? I'm not doubting you; I just find it crazy that they have offices in over 40 countries[1], but only allow app submissions from developers in 32 countries.

[1]:http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/locations

Sligthly related to the part you find crazy, Google has their main European HQ in Ireland, basically because of the very low corporate taxes here, but guess what? It's impossible to buy a Nexus on Google Play from Ireland. If you try you get this message:

-- Sorry! Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet. We're working to bring devices to more countries as quickly as possible. Please check back again soon. --

They say they're working on it. But that's just a lie. This message has been there for at least the last two years (probably a lot more) and nothing has changed. And we're not talking about a small country in the middle of nowhere. Ireland is part of the the European Union. And they not only have offices here but their main European HQ. They just don't care at all.

Tell me about it. Or they do silly things like release sub-par Chromebooks to the Canadian market every other release, with the Canadian multilingual keyboard layouts nobody likes (because of the short enter key), and I have to ship and forward US models to get decent devices with the non-standard yet US english layout I want. (I say non-standard because they already changed the control key and caps lock, so they could care about localizing the keyboard improvements to other layouts, but they don't. Apple does.) Of course, I suppose I've the "advantage" of living so close to the US (2 hours drive) that I can go and pick up the latest devices from a US shipping address. But I shouldn't have to.

The list of all supported seller countries according to Google: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

It is crazy.

Edit: To be clear, this is a list of countries which can publish paid apps in the Play Store. The list of countries which can publish free apps is of course significantly larger.

Do you think that's good for users though? Especially with Google's lax oversight of the marketplace? If the developer using their own payment method changed their PayPal redirect to a phishing site, would users notice? What if you implemented your own credit card payment? Where's the guarantee that you're PCI compliant? I can tell you that 99% of your users won't know what PCI compliance is. If Google allows users to become accustomed to entering their credit card info to each individual app, there could be major liability issues that I'm sure Google doesn't want to deal with.

Reeaally?

So, is Chrome now filtering the internet to catch you entering your CC number to some vague service online? Because that's what we're talking about. Shopping (for an in app purchase, but still) online, in a browser. I wonder how Google checked if Amazon is PCI compliant..

If you're entering your CC everywhere that's not something Google can (or should - no need for a nanny..) fix. There's no way in my world that Google _could_ be liable for these kind of things.

You're trying to understand their motivation for banning alternative payment methods. We both have a theory. Mine is 'greed', yours is 'protecting the user and protecting the company against evil worldwide'.

I really think you're giving them too much credit here.

There's a very clear difference between native apps and web apps in my mind.

EDIT: I should make very clear to non-developers out there that, with a native app, you're able to display a web browser without a URL bar or any other UI, which makes it exceedingly easy to trick people into thinking that they're at an official PayPal site or other shenanigans that the unscrupulous dev wants to try.

More information: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebVi...

> EDIT: I should make very clear to non-developers out there that, with a native app, you're able to display a web browser without a URL bar or any other UI, which makes it exceedingly easy to trick people into thinking that they're at an official PayPal site or other shenanigans that the unscrupulous dev wants to try.

Nothing's stopping a non-standard browser (Opera, Firefox, etc.) from doing that, and they're permitted on Android. Hell, you could do it on iOS, too.

are you trying to miss the point?

Are you? A custom browser can be designed to quietly send people accessing PayPal off to a phishing site just as easily as an app integrating a PayPal payment method. If Google's going to use that sort of attack as a reason to prevent non-IAP payments, they should be banning non-Google browsers too.

So where does that leave your "do the dirty work yourself" argument? Apparently you don't want developers to do the dirty payment systems work themselves. Neither does Google.

So I suggest you reconsider your rather hostile attitude towards the developer who complained about Google's inactivity.

Wait, now I'm the hostile one? lol ok.

On that basis maybe Google should stop Chrome allowing credit card form submissions.

But instead of doing that, they now offer to remember your credit card numbers in the browser. That's a big no thank you from me.

> I'm not even a Google fanboy, but what do you know about the challenges that Google might be facing? It's a really strong accusation to say that a company is not working hard just because you can't have exactly what you want.

This argument works only because companies like Google prefer no communication with their user/developer base. If they took the time and posted a short note explaining which challenges Google faces in a specific country, this discussion would not take place.

I think it's time we stopped defending silent companies by hypothesizing scenarios where they are hard-working but can't tell us.

>If they took the time and posted a short note explaining which challenges Google faces in a specific country, this discussion would not take place.

If only Google had some kind of social media website or something where they could communicate en masse to their developers, like Orkut, but updated. Or even a website that could host a blog, like Blogger. If only...

I think it's time we stopped defending silent companies by hypothesizing scenarios where they are hard-working but can't tell us.

perfect

It's a lose-lose situation for Google to do such a thing. They're not making an argument; they're making policy. I'm under the impression that the policy isn't up for discussion, in which case it's wise for Google not to pay people to reiterate what we already know.

Why should moderate disclosure be a lose-lose situation? If Google has a problem with entering a country that is dependent on the country's laws or policies, explaining the problem to the local citizens could lead to public discourse about the laws and, eventually, change.

Zero disclosure is a winning strategy only because people will use their imaginations and think there are valid reasons for the progress being so slow. The people will argue that the reason Google is not telling us is the policy and not the fact that they don't have a good reason.

---

This discussion reminds me of the famous quote from Eric Schmidt:

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Does that rule apply to Google disclosures as well?

In context, it was clear that Schmidt was referring to doing "it" using Google services, since Google is subject to the Patriot act, etc.

The point is, if a company wants the public to forgive them for terrible outcomes, they should have to give the public the evidence that they deserve forgiveness instead of having random people shill for everything they do on spec. It is possible for corporations to make mistakes, or to do bad things, and it's perfectly legitimate to call them out when that appears to be the case.

(I also think Google has long past squandered any right to the benefit of the doubt, but I don't see the need to get into that right now)

Here in South Africa for example, it has been possible for at least 3 years to sell apps on iTunes, on Samsung Apps, and BlackBerry Apps world. So there's most probably not some major stumbling block that prevents it, as these other companies overcame it.

>If you want to make money, stop waiting for other people to do the dirty work for you.

The dirty work developers like us have been doing up to now was to implement an alternative mechanism for receiving payments, like the developer in the article. When Google bans that, there simply is no other way to receive payments. Or are you able to come up with an alternative way for developers to do the dirty work themselves? I know I'm very keen to know of one, as are many other Android developers in South Africa, Kenia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, etc.

To be fair, the developer did do the dirty work themselves - They implemented their own payment method using PayPal and then got banned for it.

I was more thinking along the lines of making a web app instead of a native app; IMO Google's implication is that, if you're not doing business in one of the supported countries, you're not allowed to conduct commercial transactions through your app. I'm guessing that this is more a legal issue than anything else (not to mention the developer getting around the kickback Google should be getting); I can imagine it sucking for Google to have accounts frozen because some auditor found out that Google was indirectly doing business in an unauthorized country. There could be tax issues, compliance issues, issues with trade agreements -- there are a TON of things to think about.

Each one of those ton of things have been solved by Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry in many of the countries Google doesn't support. They can copy what any one of these 3 did if they really wanted to help developers.

Can they? What if the process is patented?

Obviously PayPal, which is way smaller than Google, was able to pay to this developer.

You can't patent "compliance with the law", and you can't pass a law that requires licensing of a patent to be in compliance. So no, the "process" of being legally allowed to sell items in a country is not and cannot be patented.

By 3 different corporations?

licensing.

Then they can do the same thing. It's a non-argument, my favorite of the HN tropes.

There are no challenges, they are either lazy or doing this on purpose. I have AdSense for a couple of my websites and receiving payments monthly from it, so obviously sending payments from Google to my country is not a problem. Why can't the Play Store earnings be delivered the same way?

Considering Apple allows developers from all countries supported by itunes to sell their apps in the App Store, I too keep wondering if Google is actually working to add more countries to their developer program.

There are many app developers from my country (Indonesia) that sell apps in Apple App Store, but none of them can sell their apps in Google Play store.

IOS marketshare in Indonesia is less than 3%, while Android's marketshare is more than 40% [source](http://www.ibtimes.com/android-vs-ios-whats-most-popular-mob...). Also, Indonesia has 285.0m mobile subscriptions (US 345.2m subscriptions). On the other hand, Brazil (268.4m subscriptions) is already in the list of supported nations for publishing paid app. [source](http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile...). Yes, Indonesia's GDP per capita is really low, but so is India. Yet, India is in the list too.

Anecdotes like this one do indeed suggest they're not trying as hard as they can:

>I hate this bullshit, they've said exactly the same about my country for 3 years before actually adding seller support. They were about 3 years slower than Microsoft and Apple.

I actually am a Google fanboy for the record. But it does seem like they just don't care about this.

Yes, but Microsoft and Apple have the advantage of having physical products, stores, agreements, etc. in the international market already.

Google seems really flakey. It's a bamboo platform. Discontinued services... a road-map that focusses on creepy glasses, self-driving cars and ditches Motorola for Nest.

This isn't a factor. Apple has no offices in South Africa - all retail sales, support, etc are handled through a distributor, Core Group - but local devs can still sell paid apps through the App Store. Google, despite actually having a large-ish local presence, didn't allow the same thing for years. The local office only handled ad sales, it seems.

From the colour of your post i can tell that a lot of people disagree with you. I know you are just trying to give everyone google's prespective, but you should reconsider. You raise the point that maybe there are legal issues, or trade laws etc that prevent google's growth to other economic markets. Well there are workarounds, if google bothers looking for them.

For example, they find that the economic service they are using to pay devs, is not available in country X. they do a little research and find that skrill (formerly moneybookers) is available in country X, and it is also available in their country. They get in touch with skrill and work something out to be able to pay in country X. I cant imagine a law that says they cant contact services which are legally allowed to do transactions from your country to country X. Yes, i buy the reason that google itself may not be allowed, but it certainly can employ other services to do that for them. That's what channels are for!

PS: having EU HQ in ireland and not being legally allowed to pay people in ireland? that makes zero sense

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