Idk, maybe I just speak bot but it seems obvious from the wording that the app needs to split out its "report" button into "report content" and "report user". I don't think they need to do different things, but it will check the box of
> We confirm that your app has options to report and block abusive users but your app does not contain functionality to report objectionable content.
To be clear, I don't think this will actually make the Play bot go away and not keep coming back with bullshit, but it will trigger the bot to generate new bullshit which will almost feel like progress, if your soul has already been destroyed.
If you have to long press the comment to bring up the report screen. How do you conclude that you are reporting a user? I'd find it more logical if that related to reporting the content.
I somewhat doubt Google responds effectively anymore to bad PR on HN, because (a) they're so large and each group is acting in its own best interest, and (b) Google has for so long had a cultural belief in the fiction that better automation™ or at least mechanical turk-style automation (low-cost, powerless, script-following, outsourced support agents) is always preferable to personally serving people.
In other words, the further they position themselves from the people they serve, the better and more "scalable" their business will be.
> They should be ashamed for handling customers like this.
That's been the case with almost every Google service I've ever used =/ Even paid ones, like GCloud, Adwords, Workspace... even when you can get in touch with a human (which is hard enough on its own), they are usually not helpful at all.
Customer service really isn't your ex-company's forte.
I think the one exception to that has been Google Fi, the tiny wireless MVNO. For some reason their support has always been amazing, quick and helpful and to the point. No runarounds, they just do what it takes to solve your issues. I was astounded how much better they were not just compared to the rest of Google, but also compared to major carriers like Verizon and AT&T.
I've seen posts on HN within last year where Google screwed something up with censorship or app review. Posts get massively upvoted here and within a day or two Google fixes it. Could be coincidental, but highly probable that some Googlers read HN and act to fix high publicity problems or even just problems that they weren't really aware of until reading about it here.
It's not clear from the screenshot that the "Report" button is reporting content rather than a user, especially when it's listed right under "Block user". (Also keep in mind the viewer of the image has no idea how you brought up that popup, like whether you tapped someone's name or their comment, so that context is missing.) I would just make that clear in the app + screenshot by calling it "Report post" or "Report comment" or something like that.
There was a previous topic about this issue where the developer just iterated on things (changing font size, labels, add text, remove text) to past whatever bots they have.
I think that approach would be valid here. Change the link to "report content", etc.
That is exactly the solution I was thinking of. Under the block user, just add 'report content' and call it a day. You can't convince the machine that it is insane.
I think at least one thing worth a try is: make a tiny, relatively inconsequential change, and submit it again.
If you had a 93% success ratio before, you've got pretty good odds that you'll get a new reviewer on the next update and it'll be approved.
Maybe something like the copy change puffoflogic recommended. Just make any tiny change in the area, re-submit the app, and hope you get lucky with a better reviewer.
That's the sad thing about this story, it really just sounds like Goodhart's law in action, a certain % of apps need to get rejected/reviewed/appealed each month.
From my experience this is exactly what you need to do. You don’t even need to change the app. If your CICD pipeline is already incrementing the build number then just kick off a new build and re-submit that. If you frequently get apps kicked back then add notes to the “how to test section” like “you can test reporting user generated content by doing x, y, z. This is the only user generated content in our app.” It does seem like the “how to test notes” actually get read whereas the appeal notes do not.
Bingo. On Google Play - even for fairly serious alleged policy violations - if you just submit another update, it's very likely to be accepted and typically the policy issue won't be checked anyway.
We had a situation where one of our updates was rejected because they didn't like the app listing description (which has nothing to do with the update). The next update we pushed, we didn't change the listing metadata, and then it was accepted.
Always quite infuriating to work with Google Play.
The App Store is strict, but we've found it _far_ more consistent on applying the rules, and also dramatically faster to accept updates (usually accepts updates within about 6 hours, vs up to a week for Google Play).
As a little side project I wrote an Android app and went through similar turmoil—guess I can’t feel too bad for myself when the cofounder and lead developer of “~100” apps runs into similar issues. In this vein, I too wrote a similar story and it’s at https://medium.com/@mtc.dev/my-first-android-app-story-331c9....
We have ~500 applications in the Play Store and we have experienced the same thing from Google multiple times. Literally the exact same thing – we already have robust reporting mechanisms and Google are seemingly blind to them for a proportion of our applications.
This makes me think that they have some internal rating mechanism (perhaps based on reviews or previous reports or who knows what) which flags some apps for extra "review".
This whole app store thing with Apple/Google is BS. Imagine if your car could only drive to locations approved as safe by the car manufacturer, and they could auto-ban your Grandma's house with no recourse.
I've been using altstore successfully, minor hindrance of resigning side loaded apps every week, but if you can leave your PC on it does that automatically.
With a free apple developer account, you're also limited to only three "active" sideloaded apps. It's a huge hindrance. If you want more, you've got to shell out those 100 bucks per year.
> Imagine if your car could only drive to locations approved as safe by the car manufacturer
We're not very far away from that. Example: Tesla sells auto insurance based on real-time tracking of driving behavior, and explicitly lists "where you live" as a factor. So it's quite possible "real-time location safety" is already part of their model. So you may already be charged more for driving to your Grandma's house. Granted this is not a ban, but it is close enough for discomfort and all it takes is the right (or wrong) motivation and the loop can be trivially closed.
Location of the insured vehicle has been a factor since I started having insurance about 24 years ago (speaking for 20 years of Geico, and more recently Progressive).
The scale at which manufacturers and insurers like Tesla can use real-time location data in actuarial models (and whatever else they like) is quite new, though.
The important distinction is that the same entity tracking your real-time location also has unprecedented control over the car and your ability to use it, and very little transparency. This is basically the same dynamics as app stores.
There needs to be a way to have 3rd party app stores on these platforms. Tired of the private platform argument. Google/Apple works hard to crush viable competition. It's time for laws to be written to step in and fix this.
This already happens with Drone. you can only flight to locations approved as safe by the manufacturer, and they could ban a location without recourse.
It'd be great if google offered an option for a video call with a reviewer for $500/hr as an escalation option for businesses who are getting nowhere with the regular process. Ideally you'd get a refund if you turned out to be correct, but I'd be happy even without that.
Automated rules and policies are saving Google hundreds of millions of dollars an hour; they don't want to open the floodgates of spammers reverse-engineering ways to socially engineer the hapless app review humans.
That’s a terrible idea. What if instead they were held accountable to criminal and civil processes and if Google didn’t meet their end of a contract they were accountable for it.
They can offer their support via a legal accountability mechanism and not a paid-for escalation.
Funnily enough I once saw a post here with someone at fb I believe who had an entire side business like this for a couple hundred where they escalated issues to their pal in support.
IIRC there is already an option to pay Google 7500 $ or something for a new review? I can't remember exactly how it is dressed up to get around antitrust concerns, maybe as a security audit.
Although it's not app store review, Apple DTS is like that (but way cheaper). And I have to say the quality of developer support you get from it has been amazing for me.
There's only one conclusion: stay far away from google.
Don't use their products, as the possibility of having gmail cut off from you is a serious threat. Same for google voice and google cloud.
Don't publish apps for android - not at all if possible, or at least don't use the google store if you must deal with android, as the possibility of having your app that was A-OK for 5 years suddenly targeted like that is a serious threat too.
I'd add, don't ever work for google. There're not many jobs I would refuse to do, but having google as an employer is where I'd draw the line. It might be a lesser hell and easier for my conscience to work for a weapon manufacturer.
At this point, why not just add the link to report your non-UGC. If this is what they want, give it to them. You can just ignore the reports on the backend. You can probably remove it next update when you don't get Anthony since it's pretty clear it's just one stubborn, lazy reviewer.
All that said - the Play Store and App Store review hell is one dystopia I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'm so happy to work on the web now.
They've divorced themselves from Google funding in the past (and signed with Yahoo in the US, other search engines elsewhere) and likely could again.
Not to mention being paid by Google for a service and literally being Google are two very different things.
For some reason Firefox has horrendous issues on older devices. On my Win7 company-issued laptop a fresh window from a fresh FF install grabs 3.2 out of 4GB of RAM. On my phone (2GB RAM) it gets into a crash loop where trying to type into the address bar or load a new page crashes the browser. Data loss due to crashes is less frequent than when I was running Chrome, but spending 10 minutes every few days repeatedly restarting the browser is gradually getting me to move to Brave.
Something is wrong with your Win7 PC/Firefox. On my ancient Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 laptop I'm seeing ~400MB of RAM usage and a few percent CPU usage having a few bank and a few government websites open. Firefox version 107.0-64 bit.
Is there any large group representing App developers that could manage the large-scale negotiation and legal wrangling required to force Apple and Google to be more helpful when rejecting legitimate applications?
When I worked in Google (Ads, then later in Recommendations for Play and youtube) people often said this was intention to avoid teaching spammers how to get around the rules. But it's clear there are enough legitimate developers acting in good faith who are trying to change their applications without significant guidance that it seems entirely reasonable for a large-scale group negotiation.
I've been chewing on this idea for a while now. I would love to join a software buyer's cooperative and pool my money with other like-minded individuals.
Sounds like in this case it needs to be a craft union or industrial union: a union made up of laborers of a craft or industry (in this case, mobile app developers).
Get enough developers of high-profile apps on board, and now you have negotiating power. If they balk, make a union-controlled app store, threaten to sell apps only on the union store.
This is more like a guild than a union. There is no discussion of leveling pay or anything similar.
The doctors, lawyers, actors, musicians, and other professions have guilds like this. What makes them work is that there is a limited supply of available experts in the field, and a desire to raise their bargaining power.
If you're seriously asking, how about that unions have consistently and successfully fought for better treatment and pay for workers all around the world. Many of the standards we expect today only exist because of union action over the last century or so.
Developers are no different from any other worker in the sense that they have more power as a group than individually. That generally has translated to better conditions, better pay.
As the gp comment suggests, it seems entirely plausible that this same effect would apply when applied to vendors. A union/guild/group of people is more able to exert influence over vendors than any one individual, and vendors have a bigger incentive to keep them happy and address any issues promptly. Individuals are, as the op demonstrates, completely at the mercy of megacorps.
What, in your view, is the difference between organised workers and a trade union?
Trade unions are groups of workers organised around the common cause of improving worker pay and rights.
You said the organised workers part isn't a bad idea, so I have to assume you're objecting to the only other defining feature of trade unions: collectively striving for better pay and conditions?
This fundamentally mis-represents the players involved.
Organizing might be a valid response but a labor union completely misses the root of the issue and would not serve a constructive purpose in this situation.
A trade organization would seem a more appropriate fit than a union.
Outside of the US, where people seem to have licked some lead paint or huffed glue when learning about unions, developers often do unionise or join an appropriate trade union.
Why?
Its a form of insurance.
Your Union will provide legal cover in the event of a dispute with your employer (eg: wrongful termination), legal advice, representation if you are dealing with say, HR department, and are super useful when engaging in collective bargaining to get a better deal when your company starts down the road of stupid policies (eg, limiting WFH).
Think of union dues as a small fee you pay to retain a legal team for employment problems.
> Think of union dues as a small fee you pay to retain a legal team for employment problems.
I can see the benefit of this if you have absolutely no negotiation skill or even the option to negotiate (i.e. you’re an easily replaceable entry-level worker and your conditions of employment are “take it or leave it”, and you can’t really “leave it”), but in my case, I’m ready to walk at basically any time.
And if I’m ready to just walk away at virtually any time (as a highly skilled professional with more than a decade of experience), I hold all the cards I need for negotiation.
Wouldn’t I be more trouble for the union than I’d be worth?
If you only care about the dignity of your own job in the short term, maybe. If you care about the dignity of your coworkers and future workers in your industry generally, you would probably benefit from supporting a union.
One problem with this approach is that the customers of the app stores generally aren't individual developers, they're the companies that make the apps. It would be stronger to say
Uber, King Games (candy crush), Roblox, and PUBG Mobile are dissatisfied with the way policies are unevenly enforced on the App Store / Play Store. Here are our demands, kindly address them or we will collectively deprive Apple / Google of the app revenue and band together to make our own.
than
Developers Alice, Bob, Carol, Dan, [...], and Zelie, who work at Uber, King Games, [etc] are dissatisfied with [...]
... Although, I can't say I would like to live in a world where the biggest revenue producers for the app stores get to dictate terms to the app store providers.
That is a completely ridiculous solution to a very simple problem. How do we give bargaining power to developers? We break up the app store monopolies. That's it.
Google/Apple giving you shit? Give them the finger and put your app on another store. There's no stronger bargaining chip than the free market.
> They're probably not great places to try and grow your userbase based on the number of users
Cca 2012 there were thriving, competing stores then Google shut that shit down. They got sued and lost, but the competing stores were dead, never to recover.
Maybe courts can force phone manufacturers to include those stores just like they forced Microsoft to include other browsers on Windows. Without that, people are always going to stick to the default store.
That’s a chicken and egg problem. Break up the monopoly, and the competitors will come.
It’s not like the Google/Apple stores would be hard to compete with. They both have massive, longstanding problems that consumers and developers have been complaining about since forever. There’s a lot of opportunity to innovate in that space, if only it were actually possible to compete.
I think it will be pretty hard to fight a class-action legal battle with Google over a contract since every Android phone will happily install arbitrary APK files for users without the play store, but serving an APK from the play store in the first place requires agreeing to the above contract in full.
Part of the problem here might be conflating abuse prevention with policy compliance.
Abuse prevention is adversarial, and it's risky to reveal details about why something was flagged as abusive. Policy compliance isn't, or shouldn't be. A building inspector wouldn't say "this building has a code violation in the kitchen area" and refuse to provide specifics about what would fix it.
An app store needs both, and they need to operate differently.
> A building inspector wouldn't say "this building has a code violation in the kitchen area" and refuse to provide specifics about what would fix it.
Electrical inspections can be very much that way.
"This isn't up to code, I'm not signing off on it."
"How is it not up to code?"
"Your electrician knows. Or you can look in the electrical code."
Your electrician doesn't know; no other inspector has ever objected to the way they've done things.
That electrical code is paywalled, despite being official government policy (written and published by a trade association, which regularly updates said code mostly to force people to keep re-buying their volumes.)
Even a cartel would be easier to deal with. Google could then say "your Play Store Certified Compliance Specialist can tell you what's wrong".
It seems more likely that what's going on here is the issue was flagged by a bot which doesn't tell the human reviewer why it thinks there's a problem, and the reviewer believes they will be in more trouble if they make a mistake in overruling the bot than if they make a mistake in agreeing with it.
> That electrical code is paywalled, despite being official government policy (written and published by a trade association
If you're meaning the US National Electric Code written and published by the National Fire Protection Association, I would point out that it is available to the public for free:
But this is already about Google and Google already allows third party app stores. (I mean even Epic, which is a pretty well-known, high-profit company couldn't get very many people to download their store for Android.) The solution is to support legislation requiring companies to give specific details of what the problem is rather than allowing them to play these games of "bring me a rock."[0]
Doesn't Verizon lock down all their phones against sideloading? Doesn't do much good for google to allow something if everyone else is still allowed to do the same. The user needs to be able to download from the web like any windows/linux/mac app. Security and curation are no excuse for preventing it.
Homebrew development has been a thing for as long as video game consoles have been around. I don't think it'd be reasonable to require Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft to provide the development toolchains/SDKs/software they've developed for free.
However, it would be good if they were required to allow third-party software installations with software written using third party toolchains (like the homebrew ones). Consoles like the PS5/Xbox really aren't all that different from PCs nowadays, even from the software library side. Most games are cross-platform, and even Sony has been bringing their exclusives to PC.
So really, a PS5/Xbox/Switch is just a gaming PC with arbitrary anti-consumer, anti-competitive restrictions. Even if these restrictions actually subsidize the price of the hardware, it's still harmful to consumers since they end up spending a lot more money on software over the lifetime of the console. Plus, that hardware is extremely locked down, so it's not like consumers are really benefiting from those supposed subsidies. They're just paying slightly less up front for a machine designed to take a lot of money from them.
Google allows third party app stores, or just installing apps without any app stores at all. But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden.
> But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden.
That's due entirely to Google's aggressive anti-competitive business practices. Legislation that "allows third party stores" would also need to include rules preventing Google from, for example, blocking non-Google app installations unless users flip a switch buried in the settings app (which looks different on every phone), and then plastering the screen with scary technobabble about security vulnerabilities to scare the average consumer away.
Did you choose the Samsung App Store, or was it preloaded on the device by the phone manufacturer?
Consumer choice is restricted by those anti-competitive business practices I mentioned. Whatever deal Samsung has with Google for preloaded software is irrelevant. If you wanted to install the Epic Games Store, you'd have to go flip that switch[*]
[*] actually, Samsung allows Epic to distribute their store through the Galaxy store app. So that's a bad example lol, but EGS is the only major Android app store I could think of. If anything though, the fact that Samsung allows this is evidence that increased competition benefits consumers. Samsung doesn't have the market position Google does, so they need to make different decisions to compete. Making it easy to install a third-party store without Google's security theater bullshit is good for consumers.
Relative to almost anything else a consumer might want to choose in their purchasing lives, tapping a screen a couple of times doesn't seem to qualify as difficult. Definitely not as a restriction of consumer choice.
By “tapping a screen a couple of times” you’re referring to the process of enabling side-loading on Android?
Because if you don’t think that’s a problem, then you must be living in a bubble surrounded by techies.
Imagine you’re trying to start a competing app store. What does user acquisition look like for you on Android? Besides the regular ad spending to promote your app, you also need to figure out a way to guide consumers through the installation process.
Even if you manage to solve that problem effectively with some kick ass tutorial, your main competitor doesn’t have to worry about that. They will always be advantaged no matter how superior your product/service is.
And that’s just the side loading side of it. There are many other anti-competitive things Google does on Android to maintain their monopoly.
I have the consumer choice to buy any compatible car battery I want. That doesn't mean it's easy to install. Unless I'm living in an ivory tower with people who find app stores easier to install than car batteries.
Ease of installation (which, again, at least in my rarefied atmosphere of people who find tapping a screen under 10 times [0] easier than, say, going and buying a compatible battery, remove the old one, installing the new one, and disposing of the old one) still isn't particularly to do with choice. Android certainly has choice. It's Apple that doesn't.
It's insane enough that we even allow corporations to own platforms and users. Software development should be free. They should not be able to reject anything. We should reject that notion entirely instead of playing the game they made up.
It may be hard to believe, but free software development stacks are a relatively new thing. When I was growing up, you had to buy the compiler, and the documentation for how to use the tools, and the language. (Though I think most 70s and 80s era computers came with BASIC)
While I sympathize with the idea that this should be open and free and easy, there are too many bad actors out there, so we can’t have nice things. And for every “free” platform and language and toolset there is either a developer who’s being funded by some other source or not being paid at all.
But there might be alternate approaches that allow for more freedom. For instance, what if Google assessed the risk level of each app and presented that to users, rather than blocking publishing entirely?
They could add all sorts of scary warnings in-between a user and a suspicious looking app, but eventually still allow both users & app developers to proceed if they have sufficiently high intent.
They could even monetize it by getting developers to pay per update if they want a "detailed assessment" which was able to result in a "very low risk" rating, if passed.
The tooling wasn't free because it costs money to develop - that is sensible. But it didn't limit what you could do with the stuff that you made with said tooling. You didn't have to pay all OS vendors for the privilege of them allowing your code onto user's devices. I think that's really what OP refers to, not the cost of tooling.
And, yes, most computers from at least 1980s onwards came with something. DOS had BASICA first, then GW-BASIC, then QBasic - and these all were quite adequate for plenty of tasks, even games. By the 90s, we even had free 32-bit C++ compilers (DJGPP 1.03, 1991).
Software development, on Android at least, is already free. It only takes a few clicks to enable third-party apt files, and then you can install software from any source. (And if you complain that this is too complex.. well, it is simpler than many Windows InstallShield wizards at least). You can even install f-droid and then you have appstore experience without a review.
What Google controls is "endorsement" and that's where Google is rejecting things. If you want to reject it, go ahead... but a lot of people actually want it.
IANAL, but isn’t that group called “the court system”? This person is stuck in google’s kangaroo court, but they should just switch venues as soon as the apps are removed and sue google for damages. They can demonstrate google materially impacts their business and is acting in bad faith. Going through google’s legal department is probably going to quickly get the result they want.
However, ask the politicians at the European Commission, and they will boast that it is about this:
> By summer 2023, the first very concrete effects of the #DSA will be visible for all users. This includes: Accessible "button" to easily flag illegal content
They seem to be genuinely motivated by "individual rights", but with more of a focus on harassment rather than freedom of expression, so they usually err on the side of over-enforcement (of censoring rules, etc), since they're so used to the under-enforcement of the past.
I wonder if part of the problem is that Anthony is not a fluent English speaker, and perhaps does not realize that he is not as clear as he thinks he is.
If "Anthony" is an AI, why does he take days to reply? Surely a sufficiently capable developer relations AI could handle dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of developer queries simultaneously!
Legislation is clearly the only answer, assuming it is impractical for developers to band together in a union or other collective that would be large enough to harm Google's business or at least catch their eye. Contact your state and Federal representatives. Provide them with a copy of this transcript, and maybe attach a copy of your financial statement showing what's at stake.
Eiter way, whatever happens, these companies have brought it on themselves.
How is legislation going to help? of anything, countries will add their own bizarre restrictilns to protect children, morality, religion and politicians.
"We're sorry, but your app will be removed until you can satiafy legal reatrictions for Saudi Arabia, Popua New Guinea, France and Alabama."
The notion that companies with a presence on the Internet have to obey laws all over the planet is not how the Internet was ever supposed to work. Eventually people will remember that we used to think that way, and why.
So, as Google is a US company, US law would apply.
Developers in other countries would presumably benefit from the same requirement to provide a human support contact. If not, that's unfortunate.
You're right, but that's the abstract view. The more immediate issue is precisely the lack of a human contact with the necessary agency to fix the problem. There's no reason to think "Anthony" was a human. If he is now, he won't be next year.
Eventually market regulators will understand that companies like Apple and Google aren't just corporations, but their competition. Things will change in a hurry at that point. These companies simply can't be allowed to control entire markets without corresponding accountability to the public.
I clicked on this thinking "immature rant incoming", but darned if I didn't end up increasing my anger at the exact pace he did with every step! Nothing more frustrating than talking to a human refusing to behave like a human, and a process that isn't a process.
As a scientist, I often have to deal with similar BS of a reviewer misunderstanding a submitted journal article, literally insisting we do something we already did, and explained in the paper.
I try to just own the fact that I didn't make my explanation clear and visible enough, so I just submit an updated version along with a comment like "We thank the reviewer for pointing out that we didn't clearly articulate our work on X, so we revised the manuscript accordingly."
In this case change around the UI for this tool to make it slightly more idiot proof, resubmit, and it will be approved. Getting angry and adversarial will only make them have a bad attitude and intentionally be unhelpful. Take them seriously, stroke their egos, and take fully responsibility for having presented your feature in a way they didn't understand. Thank them for pointing out this huge flaw in your program and giving you the opportunity to fix it!
The editor reads the reviewer comments and replies also. In most cases replying to the reviewer like I suggest will allow the editor to realize it was the reviewers mistake, and they won't even bother sending it back to the reviewer... but if they do you've targeted both strategies with one response.
This advice is relevant in many aspects of daily life too. I visualize it like tug-o-war. The more they disagree, the more they both back up + pull harder. But the more they "agree" (it's all in the delivery as @universehacker mentioned) the more they approach one another + relax their grip. Meet in the "middle"!
This was illustrated in a business communications course when the instructor asked someone to place their hand up against his high-five style. When the instructor began to push the other person pushed back immediately without being asked, in order to stay in the same place.
>Take them seriously, stroke their egos, and take fully responsibility
With academic reviews, I'm a bit split on this approach. It's context dependent, but sometimes being on the offence is a better strategy. You shouldn't be rude, but if you clearly demonstrate that the reviewer is wrong and their understanding is wrong, it can have the effect of disarming them and swaying the other reviewers in your favour. It's extremely likely that 1 out of 4-5 reviewers that you typically get will be someone who puts minimal effort and doesn't get the paper. So this is something that you need to do often.
That is a decent approach to any "Gate Keeper" entity. The Gate Keeper might be anything from a budget holder to a government.
"The Prince" by an Italian lad off of the 16thC is still a pertinent read 400 years later and he's riffing off old Romans, Greeks and before and that's just in Europe. I'm sure China and India, int al, have similar writings. Coercion and other trickery is hardly the invention of Renaissance Italy but a fair few expert practitioners were extent.
Surprisingly enough, some people don't abide by some stated rules and need careful handling. Bonus points are awarded when you make your eventual goal the idea of your "adversary".
This is all a massive game of "us - decent types" vs "you - unpleasant types" and hence a form of tribalism.
As soon as you find yourself using a term like "As a ..." or even "We ..." why not look a little deeper and see if you can't find some common ground or defuse the situation somehow. Perhaps a chat over the blower instead of the usual email trail as a precursor to hostilities might help.
I don't know exactly what is allowed (lol) in refereeing a journal submission but surely the current situation is a bit rubbish. I've been a non scientist reader of New Scientist for 40 odd years and this sort of issue comes up quite regularly. Journos, scientists, engineers and the rest are all unhappy with the way "publication" happens at some level. This is way more fundamental than open vs closed too.
Change is indicated but it will require quite some effort.
Always, always, always “manage up”. When people in some service role like a counter person for an airline hold this much power over you, you lose almost nothing by treating them like they are the most important person in the universe. Talk them up, be overly kind, do everything you can to make their job and life easier. It isn’t fair, but I have found you will experience much less friction in life following this philosophy. Are they right? Is Anthony from the linked article “right”. No, of course not, but they have a sliver of power that happens to be extremely important to you for whatever reason and they can and will hit you with it as hard as they can and you never know what someone else is going through or where they are at in life. Don’t chance it, at least not over small stuff like this.
This "managing up" concept sounds remarkably similar to "face-work":
"With people we trust and know well, we don’t worry so much about face, but with those we don’t know – especially when those people have some power over us – we put in the face-work. When someone puts in face-work and yet doesn’t achieve the face they want, they feel bad. If you strive to be seen as authoritative and someone treats you with minimal respect, you feel embarrassed and even humiliated. In some circumstances you might try to sabotage the encounter to feel better."
They didn't get angry and adversarial, they just explained and asked for clarification. Of course, kafkaesque bureaucracies don't like that, so making a random trivial change and obsequiously resubmitting is still probably the approach to use if you want to stay in business. Google these days is like something out of Brazil.
You're right about the tone of those statements. But just how much dystopian bureaucracy can one take before expressing displeasure at the dystopian bureaucracy?
It’s important to understand that in order to navigate the world we live in, sometimes you’ll need help from someone “on the inside” and often those people don’t have direct control over the outcome but can be very valuable allies. Taking your frustration out on those people is directly against your own interest.
Being angry at what is essentially a front line customer service rep will do absolutely nothing at all to end the dystopia and just make one human’s day worse.
If you’re not mad at the person who actually has the power to fix the problem then you’re wasting your breath. And to get out ahead of it, your anger doesn’t “go up the chain” either. Like all service workers, dealing with angry customers is a standard workplace hazard.
But the service worker here (Anthony) has the power to approve the app, he is just incompetent or hostile to the author. The anger is warranted (though the statements are harmless), this is targeted sabotage.
Not sabotage, just incompetence. Anthony is probably overworked, and has seconds to approve or reject an app. He may also not be a native english speaker, and be unsure about the meaning of the words used in this app.
Sure, he has every "right" to be angry, but that strategy will only make things worse.
Quietly accepting the abuse, and getting angry are two sides of the same coin, both of which are basically "just embracing the dystopia." Notice that the same people that do the first, will eventually do the second once pushed far enough, with ultimately, the same results.
It's perfectly fine to express displeasure in a calm and collected way, the same way you would patiently correct a child... e.g. "I am really disappointed that ____, can you please ____?" (without being sarcastic or condescending)
But losing your cool doesn't correct anything, it just expresses emotional weakness and makes the person dislike you and not want to help you. Someone customer facing at a place like Google sees angry upset customers all day long, and probably makes fun of them to their friends and family, but doesn't go out of the way to help them.
What they don't often see is people showing strength and calm in the face of this BS. Someone that can endlessly adapt and redirect things back to their own clear goals regardless of what is thrown at them, without even needing to be adversarial. Think Bruce Lee's "Be like water." In most cases, this will be off script for them, and they actually won't know how to deal with that other than giving you what you want.
That's from the chat at the end, and I'd hardly call that "angry and adversarial", just exasperated -- and naively assuming the person they were talking to cared that "Anthony" had been giving them the run-around for 2 weeks.
Agreed. To me this is just barely touching angry or adversarial. As a person, who was dropped by a medical practice for threatening with a lawsuit and eventually dropping the f bomb after rather exhausting months of non-activity, that was just that: exasperated.
Google clearly has an issue. The issue is not mainstream, but the moment this hits a bigger name and its community notices, I am sadly certain there will be some adjustment. I do not get why it is only publicly shaming companies work well these days.
I understand that getting the right party is important, but in the article it seems like you can't even seem to get to the right person, because:
1. there is no real person talking to you
2. the person talking to you can ignore you and say buh-bye
Exactly - that is just venting anger and the reviewer is likely to pass and go on to the next App. Unfortunately a) the app guidelines/rules are often vague and discretionary and b) App reviewers have hundreds or thousands of apps to review a day and don't have the time to think about borderline cases.
With app stores it's guilty until proven innocent/compliant - I've found (particularly with Apple) that taking time to resubmit saying how you are now compliant (making sure you tick all the requirements) is much quicker than waiting days for them to turn around a no again.
I have a google pay support thread open. 49 exchanges. The features they keep telling me to use literally do not exist. They just keep posting the same canned response and then ignoring my response that the feature hasn’t been implemented. Then it gets passed to a new person who ignores previous happenings on the thread and repeats. It’s the most kafkaesque thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m going to print it out and bring it to court with me (I’m going to have to sue them to get my money back)
>literally insisting we do something we already did
>I try to just own the fact that I didn't make my explanation clear and visible enough
Exactly, I think this works the best. You don’t have to explain the reviewer’s mistake and risk them misunderstanding your reply for being argumentative, the reviewer doesn’t have to admit a mistake, and your writing likely benefits from additional clarity.
A comment added that he should just have added ,,Report objectionable content''. On the screenshot there was only a ,,Report'' button under blocking user.
I think the person who submits the app underestimates how much heat Google can get from advertisers and people for the content itself.
I think the root cause of confusion is that the reviewer took "Report" to mean "Report User". A simple fix would be to change the button to "Report Comment" or "Report Comment as Objectionable Content". To me this actually makes the interface more clear because honestly when I see "Block User" and "Report" I'm not completely sure that we have gone back to talking about the comment after the first button is talking about the user.
Not only all this but the system doesn't work. The play store is flooded with low quality baiting garbage. Somehow their onerous policies block out legitimate users and have a VIP line for spammers
This is an under-appreciated point. Look at the solution suggested in the top comment -- paraphrasing, it's "learn to game the system like the spammers, and accept that as a cost of doing business".
Google should be specifically designing towards mitigating this.
This is what surprises me the most about these stories of dealing with Google/Apple app stores. Most of the apps that aren't produced by very well-known studios or large corporations are just trash. There are few gems here and there but its like digging through a landfill to find anything decent.
This is why I'm still betting on the web. Every day, that vision gets closer.
I know, I know, it isn't the same... Yet. But on desktop, most of my apps have become web apps: email, docs, videoconf, design, slides, chat, even a little development. Many people use laptops where the OS is a browser. I hope this trend continues to miniaturize.
I want to guess the following and maybe knowledgeable people can chime in:
I would guess that the people reviewing these are contractors, paid by the app they review, and with a certain set of criteria that they're supposed to apply, but they make mistakes. And the supervisors of these contractors (who themselves are contractors) don't have great ways of comparing the work of one person to another / enforcing consistency, except by the customer escalating it.
I would guess that this is approached by Google as a piecework customer service task for contractors (a pure cost center to review and QA app submissions) and not employees, so it means that even something so important as developer experience is being outsourced, and not being daily internalized or felt by Google's own engineering team or product managers (who have moved on to more year-end-review-favorable projects after setting the top-level guidelines).
They probably only review (and whose job is it full time?) error reports / QA / complaints about this process every week and all you are is a line on a sheet that says to them well, "not that many people are upset, so it's going ok, we don't need to worry / put someone on it full time".
Until you get to be a huge revenue developer and worthy of some employee's attention -- and even then only on the "interesting" aspect of your needs, not the day-to-day is it working well experience. You're in the hands of minimum wage contractors reviewing whether you've adhered to sometimes subjective rules, with only so much interest in resolving something they have to study to understand -- and who has the patience for that? They're not SWEs themselves, they have no idea what your description of the problem is really trying to convey (unless they're talented people, and if so they're probably out of there soon).
Until that changes, there will be really frustrating cases like this. Even if your livelihood has come to depend on the app you built.
It's worse. The reviewers are explicitly forbidden from being helpful, as a protection against scammers "gaming" the reviews.
The store doesn't care about your app, unless you are a major company like Epic. They won't profit from your small apps' commissions enough to make paying for proper support worthwhile.
At least for my company's app, 100% of logins for the Google Play reviewer account come from IP addresses which geolocate to various cities in India. These are absolutely human reviewers because they have to use backup codes for TOTP. I don't know if the reviewers have a contractual or employee relationship with Google, though.
Based on the chat transcript Demz seems like either another bot or someone who just doesn't give a shit. Can't be bothered helping someone? Just spam the "I'm sorry you're frustrated" macro then cut them off. Easy job.
As ridiculous as it sounds, have you considered adding report functionality to the other (non-UGC) content in the app? It seems like the review team isn't budging with your current argument so it may be worthwhile to add report functionality (even if the actual reporting is basically a no-op) just to appease them.
Heck, even feature flag it and disable it once the app gets in. Probably won't be flagged again in subsequent reviews.
339 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] thread> We confirm that your app has options to report and block abusive users but your app does not contain functionality to report objectionable content.
To be clear, I don't think this will actually make the Play bot go away and not keep coming back with bullshit, but it will trigger the bot to generate new bullshit which will almost feel like progress, if your soul has already been destroyed.
In other words, the further they position themselves from the people they serve, the better and more "scalable" their business will be.
If I was still at Google, I would have posted this shit on memegen making fun of the Play team all day.
They should be ashamed for handling customers like this.
That's been the case with almost every Google service I've ever used =/ Even paid ones, like GCloud, Adwords, Workspace... even when you can get in touch with a human (which is hard enough on its own), they are usually not helpful at all.
Customer service really isn't your ex-company's forte.
I think the one exception to that has been Google Fi, the tiny wireless MVNO. For some reason their support has always been amazing, quick and helpful and to the point. No runarounds, they just do what it takes to solve your issues. I was astounded how much better they were not just compared to the rest of Google, but also compared to major carriers like Verizon and AT&T.
But is shame allowed by Play policy?
I think that approach would be valid here. Change the link to "report content", etc.
If you had a 93% success ratio before, you've got pretty good odds that you'll get a new reviewer on the next update and it'll be approved.
Maybe something like the copy change puffoflogic recommended. Just make any tiny change in the area, re-submit the app, and hope you get lucky with a better reviewer.
We had a situation where one of our updates was rejected because they didn't like the app listing description (which has nothing to do with the update). The next update we pushed, we didn't change the listing metadata, and then it was accepted.
Always quite infuriating to work with Google Play.
The App Store is strict, but we've found it _far_ more consistent on applying the rules, and also dramatically faster to accept updates (usually accepts updates within about 6 hours, vs up to a week for Google Play).
huh?
Approval of cars is based on whether those cars can harm other cars.
If I want to "drive" (use) an unapproved "car" (app store) on a "public road" (my own device), I should be able to do that.
If you use Apple, you're just out of luck unless you want to mess with whatever hacky workaround is popular this week.
there's nothing wrong with that, but a very wide array of preferences different than yours does exist.
Having an ad blocker is a core essential on today's internet. Even Apple makes $4B/year in just ads.
We're not very far away from that. Example: Tesla sells auto insurance based on real-time tracking of driving behavior, and explicitly lists "where you live" as a factor. So it's quite possible "real-time location safety" is already part of their model. So you may already be charged more for driving to your Grandma's house. Granted this is not a ban, but it is close enough for discomfort and all it takes is the right (or wrong) motivation and the loop can be trivially closed.
The important distinction is that the same entity tracking your real-time location also has unprecedented control over the car and your ability to use it, and very little transparency. This is basically the same dynamics as app stores.
Are people somehow forced to buy Tesla insurance when they buy a Tesla?
Surely this is exageration, right?
They can offer their support via a legal accountability mechanism and not a paid-for escalation.
As long as you're willing to give them business, this system is working as intended. It's not going to change.
Funny, given the author says that he usually expects problems like this from Apple.
I guess all respectable app developers require jail broken phones?
Don't use their products, as the possibility of having gmail cut off from you is a serious threat. Same for google voice and google cloud.
Don't publish apps for android - not at all if possible, or at least don't use the google store if you must deal with android, as the possibility of having your app that was A-OK for 5 years suddenly targeted like that is a serious threat too.
I'd add, don't ever work for google. There're not many jobs I would refuse to do, but having google as an employer is where I'd draw the line. It might be a lesser hell and easier for my conscience to work for a weapon manufacturer.
All that said - the Play Store and App Store review hell is one dystopia I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'm so happy to work on the web now.
Could it be an extension you installed?
When I worked in Google (Ads, then later in Recommendations for Play and youtube) people often said this was intention to avoid teaching spammers how to get around the rules. But it's clear there are enough legitimate developers acting in good faith who are trying to change their applications without significant guidance that it seems entirely reasonable for a large-scale group negotiation.
Get enough developers of high-profile apps on board, and now you have negotiating power. If they balk, make a union-controlled app store, threaten to sell apps only on the union store.
The doctors, lawyers, actors, musicians, and other professions have guilds like this. What makes them work is that there is a limited supply of available experts in the field, and a desire to raise their bargaining power.
If you're seriously asking, how about that unions have consistently and successfully fought for better treatment and pay for workers all around the world. Many of the standards we expect today only exist because of union action over the last century or so.
Developers are no different from any other worker in the sense that they have more power as a group than individually. That generally has translated to better conditions, better pay.
As the gp comment suggests, it seems entirely plausible that this same effect would apply when applied to vendors. A union/guild/group of people is more able to exert influence over vendors than any one individual, and vendors have a bigger incentive to keep them happy and address any issues promptly. Individuals are, as the op demonstrates, completely at the mercy of megacorps.
Organizing wouldn't be a bad idea, a labor union would be.
Trade unions are groups of workers organised around the common cause of improving worker pay and rights.
You said the organised workers part isn't a bad idea, so I have to assume you're objecting to the only other defining feature of trade unions: collectively striving for better pay and conditions?
When an app developer loses Google, they might lose 100% of their revenue (if they only develop for Android).
This fundamental mismatch in bargaining power is why unions are needed for fair resource allocation.
Organizing might be a valid response but a labor union completely misses the root of the issue and would not serve a constructive purpose in this situation.
A trade organization would seem a more appropriate fit than a union.
But you also probably mean "trade association" instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_association
Why?
Its a form of insurance.
Your Union will provide legal cover in the event of a dispute with your employer (eg: wrongful termination), legal advice, representation if you are dealing with say, HR department, and are super useful when engaging in collective bargaining to get a better deal when your company starts down the road of stupid policies (eg, limiting WFH).
Think of union dues as a small fee you pay to retain a legal team for employment problems.
I can see the benefit of this if you have absolutely no negotiation skill or even the option to negotiate (i.e. you’re an easily replaceable entry-level worker and your conditions of employment are “take it or leave it”, and you can’t really “leave it”), but in my case, I’m ready to walk at basically any time.
And if I’m ready to just walk away at virtually any time (as a highly skilled professional with more than a decade of experience), I hold all the cards I need for negotiation.
Wouldn’t I be more trouble for the union than I’d be worth?
Google/Apple giving you shit? Give them the finger and put your app on another store. There's no stronger bargaining chip than the free market.
They're probably not great places to try and grow your userbase based on the number of users compared to the Play Store, but they exist.
Cca 2012 there were thriving, competing stores then Google shut that shit down. They got sued and lost, but the competing stores were dead, never to recover.
It’s not like the Google/Apple stores would be hard to compete with. They both have massive, longstanding problems that consumers and developers have been complaining about since forever. There’s a lot of opportunity to innovate in that space, if only it were actually possible to compete.
I think it will be pretty hard to fight a class-action legal battle with Google over a contract since every Android phone will happily install arbitrary APK files for users without the play store, but serving an APK from the play store in the first place requires agreeing to the above contract in full.
That's backed by a severe economic impact for Google if they don't play nice.
Abuse prevention is adversarial, and it's risky to reveal details about why something was flagged as abusive. Policy compliance isn't, or shouldn't be. A building inspector wouldn't say "this building has a code violation in the kitchen area" and refuse to provide specifics about what would fix it.
An app store needs both, and they need to operate differently.
Electrical inspections can be very much that way.
"This isn't up to code, I'm not signing off on it."
"How is it not up to code?"
"Your electrician knows. Or you can look in the electrical code."
Your electrician doesn't know; no other inspector has ever objected to the way they've done things.
That electrical code is paywalled, despite being official government policy (written and published by a trade association, which regularly updates said code mostly to force people to keep re-buying their volumes.)
app store regulation is a new forming cartel, without any formal body nor oversight.
It seems more likely that what's going on here is the issue was flagged by a bot which doesn't tell the human reviewer why it thinks there's a problem, and the reviewer believes they will be in more trouble if they make a mistake in overruling the bot than if they make a mistake in agreeing with it.
If you're meaning the US National Electric Code written and published by the National Fire Protection Association, I would point out that it is available to the public for free:
https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-stand...
You need a free account and you can't download a PDF, but strictly speaking the contents of the document are not paywalled.
[0] https://jonathanbecher.com/2020/08/30/the-bring-me-a-rock-ph...
However, it would be good if they were required to allow third-party software installations with software written using third party toolchains (like the homebrew ones). Consoles like the PS5/Xbox really aren't all that different from PCs nowadays, even from the software library side. Most games are cross-platform, and even Sony has been bringing their exclusives to PC.
So really, a PS5/Xbox/Switch is just a gaming PC with arbitrary anti-consumer, anti-competitive restrictions. Even if these restrictions actually subsidize the price of the hardware, it's still harmful to consumers since they end up spending a lot more money on software over the lifetime of the console. Plus, that hardware is extremely locked down, so it's not like consumers are really benefiting from those supposed subsidies. They're just paying slightly less up front for a machine designed to take a lot of money from them.
That's due entirely to Google's aggressive anti-competitive business practices. Legislation that "allows third party stores" would also need to include rules preventing Google from, for example, blocking non-Google app installations unless users flip a switch buried in the settings app (which looks different on every phone), and then plastering the screen with scary technobabble about security vulnerabilities to scare the average consumer away.
Consumer choice is restricted by those anti-competitive business practices I mentioned. Whatever deal Samsung has with Google for preloaded software is irrelevant. If you wanted to install the Epic Games Store, you'd have to go flip that switch[*]
[*] actually, Samsung allows Epic to distribute their store through the Galaxy store app. So that's a bad example lol, but EGS is the only major Android app store I could think of. If anything though, the fact that Samsung allows this is evidence that increased competition benefits consumers. Samsung doesn't have the market position Google does, so they need to make different decisions to compete. Making it easy to install a third-party store without Google's security theater bullshit is good for consumers.
Because if you don’t think that’s a problem, then you must be living in a bubble surrounded by techies.
Imagine you’re trying to start a competing app store. What does user acquisition look like for you on Android? Besides the regular ad spending to promote your app, you also need to figure out a way to guide consumers through the installation process.
Even if you manage to solve that problem effectively with some kick ass tutorial, your main competitor doesn’t have to worry about that. They will always be advantaged no matter how superior your product/service is.
And that’s just the side loading side of it. There are many other anti-competitive things Google does on Android to maintain their monopoly.
Ease of installation (which, again, at least in my rarefied atmosphere of people who find tapping a screen under 10 times [0] easier than, say, going and buying a compatible battery, remove the old one, installing the new one, and disposing of the old one) still isn't particularly to do with choice. Android certainly has choice. It's Apple that doesn't.
[0] https://www.howtogeek.com/696504/how-to-install-third-party-...
While I sympathize with the idea that this should be open and free and easy, there are too many bad actors out there, so we can’t have nice things. And for every “free” platform and language and toolset there is either a developer who’s being funded by some other source or not being paid at all.
They could add all sorts of scary warnings in-between a user and a suspicious looking app, but eventually still allow both users & app developers to proceed if they have sufficiently high intent.
They could even monetize it by getting developers to pay per update if they want a "detailed assessment" which was able to result in a "very low risk" rating, if passed.
https://www.expressvpn.com/support/vpn-setup/enable-apk-inst...
That's a nice looking app, would be a shame if it had a big scary warning on it.
If they did that, they would rightfully be accused of running a racket.
And, yes, most computers from at least 1980s onwards came with something. DOS had BASICA first, then GW-BASIC, then QBasic - and these all were quite adequate for plenty of tasks, even games. By the 90s, we even had free 32-bit C++ compilers (DJGPP 1.03, 1991).
What Google controls is "endorsement" and that's where Google is rejecting things. If you want to reject it, go ahead... but a lot of people actually want it.
It's open to new members! It looks like the author of this post is already a member.
https://appfairness.org/members/
Why would enlightened individualists band together? It reeks of unions, or worse, tribalism! /s
However, ask the politicians at the European Commission, and they will boast that it is about this:
> By summer 2023, the first very concrete effects of the #DSA will be visible for all users. This includes: Accessible "button" to easily flag illegal content
https://nitter.it/ThierryBreton/status/1592856203935510528#m
Which just happens to be what the reviewer was complaining about (ways to report "objectionable content").
They seem to be genuinely motivated by "individual rights", but with more of a focus on harassment rather than freedom of expression, so they usually err on the side of over-enforcement (of censoring rules, etc), since they're so used to the under-enforcement of the past.
Antique webs of trust with documentation purporting legitimacy.
That's still, in real terms, how college degrees are done.
The play store could have tiers so beginners can still access it.
"Untrusted app" versus "trusted app".
Then if you had satisfied the trust for say the itunes store you can bring the documentation over to fast track it on the play store.
It shouldn't be an incremental one off pain in the ass every time. Do the passport paperwork once and be done with it
Eiter way, whatever happens, these companies have brought it on themselves.
"We're sorry, but your app will be removed until you can satiafy legal reatrictions for Saudi Arabia, Popua New Guinea, France and Alabama."
So, as Google is a US company, US law would apply.
Developers in other countries would presumably benefit from the same requirement to provide a human support contact. If not, that's unfortunate.
The problem is having no choice but to participate in a closed app store with opaque rules with no oversight or appeals.
Eventually market regulators will understand that companies like Apple and Google aren't just corporations, but their competition. Things will change in a hurry at that point. These companies simply can't be allowed to control entire markets without corresponding accountability to the public.
I try to just own the fact that I didn't make my explanation clear and visible enough, so I just submit an updated version along with a comment like "We thank the reviewer for pointing out that we didn't clearly articulate our work on X, so we revised the manuscript accordingly."
In this case change around the UI for this tool to make it slightly more idiot proof, resubmit, and it will be approved. Getting angry and adversarial will only make them have a bad attitude and intentionally be unhelpful. Take them seriously, stroke their egos, and take fully responsibility for having presented your feature in a way they didn't understand. Thank them for pointing out this huge flaw in your program and giving you the opportunity to fix it!
It is human nature!
With academic reviews, I'm a bit split on this approach. It's context dependent, but sometimes being on the offence is a better strategy. You shouldn't be rude, but if you clearly demonstrate that the reviewer is wrong and their understanding is wrong, it can have the effect of disarming them and swaying the other reviewers in your favour. It's extremely likely that 1 out of 4-5 reviewers that you typically get will be someone who puts minimal effort and doesn't get the paper. So this is something that you need to do often.
"The Prince" by an Italian lad off of the 16thC is still a pertinent read 400 years later and he's riffing off old Romans, Greeks and before and that's just in Europe. I'm sure China and India, int al, have similar writings. Coercion and other trickery is hardly the invention of Renaissance Italy but a fair few expert practitioners were extent.
Surprisingly enough, some people don't abide by some stated rules and need careful handling. Bonus points are awarded when you make your eventual goal the idea of your "adversary".
This is all a massive game of "us - decent types" vs "you - unpleasant types" and hence a form of tribalism.
As soon as you find yourself using a term like "As a ..." or even "We ..." why not look a little deeper and see if you can't find some common ground or defuse the situation somehow. Perhaps a chat over the blower instead of the usual email trail as a precursor to hostilities might help.
I don't know exactly what is allowed (lol) in refereeing a journal submission but surely the current situation is a bit rubbish. I've been a non scientist reader of New Scientist for 40 odd years and this sort of issue comes up quite regularly. Journos, scientists, engineers and the rest are all unhappy with the way "publication" happens at some level. This is way more fundamental than open vs closed too.
Change is indicated but it will require quite some effort.
"With people we trust and know well, we don’t worry so much about face, but with those we don’t know – especially when those people have some power over us – we put in the face-work. When someone puts in face-work and yet doesn’t achieve the face they want, they feel bad. If you strive to be seen as authoritative and someone treats you with minimal respect, you feel embarrassed and even humiliated. In some circumstances you might try to sabotage the encounter to feel better."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/16/how-to-have-...
They didn't get angry and adversarial, they just explained and asked for clarification. Of course, kafkaesque bureaucracies don't like that, so making a random trivial change and obsequiously resubmitting is still probably the approach to use if you want to stay in business. Google these days is like something out of Brazil.
> Who do I contact if Anthony is not doing his job correctly?
> This is becoming a joke at this point.
> So I just have to close my business because one person in the review team is having a bad day?
> Like is this serious?
If you’re not mad at the person who actually has the power to fix the problem then you’re wasting your breath. And to get out ahead of it, your anger doesn’t “go up the chain” either. Like all service workers, dealing with angry customers is a standard workplace hazard.
Maybe time to sue?
Sure, he has every "right" to be angry, but that strategy will only make things worse.
It's perfectly fine to express displeasure in a calm and collected way, the same way you would patiently correct a child... e.g. "I am really disappointed that ____, can you please ____?" (without being sarcastic or condescending)
But losing your cool doesn't correct anything, it just expresses emotional weakness and makes the person dislike you and not want to help you. Someone customer facing at a place like Google sees angry upset customers all day long, and probably makes fun of them to their friends and family, but doesn't go out of the way to help them.
What they don't often see is people showing strength and calm in the face of this BS. Someone that can endlessly adapt and redirect things back to their own clear goals regardless of what is thrown at them, without even needing to be adversarial. Think Bruce Lee's "Be like water." In most cases, this will be off script for them, and they actually won't know how to deal with that other than giving you what you want.
Google clearly has an issue. The issue is not mainstream, but the moment this hits a bigger name and its community notices, I am sadly certain there will be some adjustment. I do not get why it is only publicly shaming companies work well these days.
I understand that getting the right party is important, but in the article it seems like you can't even seem to get to the right person, because:
1. there is no real person talking to you 2. the person talking to you can ignore you and say buh-bye
edit: removed anecdote
With app stores it's guilty until proven innocent/compliant - I've found (particularly with Apple) that taking time to resubmit saying how you are now compliant (making sure you tick all the requirements) is much quicker than waiting days for them to turn around a no again.
Every interaction with them you can feel the disdain they have for human interaction. It makes me wish I was doing business with comcast instead.
Exactly, I think this works the best. You don’t have to explain the reviewer’s mistake and risk them misunderstanding your reply for being argumentative, the reviewer doesn’t have to admit a mistake, and your writing likely benefits from additional clarity.
I think the person who submits the app underestimates how much heat Google can get from advertisers and people for the content itself.
Little did he know that the entire google play store was set up as a gigantic Turing test. It was never about the apps...
GLaDOS: Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center activity.
Google should be specifically designing towards mitigating this.
I know, I know, it isn't the same... Yet. But on desktop, most of my apps have become web apps: email, docs, videoconf, design, slides, chat, even a little development. Many people use laptops where the OS is a browser. I hope this trend continues to miniaturize.
I would guess that the people reviewing these are contractors, paid by the app they review, and with a certain set of criteria that they're supposed to apply, but they make mistakes. And the supervisors of these contractors (who themselves are contractors) don't have great ways of comparing the work of one person to another / enforcing consistency, except by the customer escalating it.
I would guess that this is approached by Google as a piecework customer service task for contractors (a pure cost center to review and QA app submissions) and not employees, so it means that even something so important as developer experience is being outsourced, and not being daily internalized or felt by Google's own engineering team or product managers (who have moved on to more year-end-review-favorable projects after setting the top-level guidelines).
They probably only review (and whose job is it full time?) error reports / QA / complaints about this process every week and all you are is a line on a sheet that says to them well, "not that many people are upset, so it's going ok, we don't need to worry / put someone on it full time".
Until you get to be a huge revenue developer and worthy of some employee's attention -- and even then only on the "interesting" aspect of your needs, not the day-to-day is it working well experience. You're in the hands of minimum wage contractors reviewing whether you've adhered to sometimes subjective rules, with only so much interest in resolving something they have to study to understand -- and who has the patience for that? They're not SWEs themselves, they have no idea what your description of the problem is really trying to convey (unless they're talented people, and if so they're probably out of there soon).
Until that changes, there will be really frustrating cases like this. Even if your livelihood has come to depend on the app you built.
Am I guessing wrong?
The store doesn't care about your app, unless you are a major company like Epic. They won't profit from your small apps' commissions enough to make paying for proper support worthwhile.
Heck, even feature flag it and disable it once the app gets in. Probably won't be flagged again in subsequent reviews.
I'm ready to invest.