It'd be great if Android devs could organize and push our reps (I know it's likely futile) or something to get Google to stop bullying us. It's exhausting dealing with the non-stop struggle they force onto us, especially as someone who's trying to make a living by starting (in my case) a one person business building Android apps.
Play Store/Dev Console:
- the pettiness of and delays by their production reviewers
- won't take action on obviously spammed negative (or positive) app reviews
- allowing expired/fraudulent payment options to take advantage of trials
- not showing all possible search results for search terms which cuts off a ton of other apps from having any visibility
- among many other issues with the Play Store/Dev Console
It's beyond exhausting.
Add to it the fact that Admob:
- won't serve 98% of requests with impressions, having any way to contact them for support or get meaningful support (also have left their contact options unfixed for years which feels like it's being done on purpose)
- will put serving limits on the smallest friggin things, serving limits when they allowed a single user from a country that gets flagged for serving limits all the time was manually blocked months ago from my account after my first encounter of serving limits for the reason of ads being served to users from that country
- will put serving limits even after adding your device's ID/Add ID as a testing device
- etc etc etc
Nevermind that we don't even know if they're actually serving ads or not in our apps and just pocketing what they don't report to us.
Google Ads:
- Block ads all the time for any reason. In my case, my app is purely a crypto market charting and analytics application (yeah I know crypto markets/charts are looked down upon here, but whatever I and others use it. It's not a gambling or trading app, just analytics. please save your hate for NFTs) and it doesn't allow transactions, trading or anything of the sort. Just data. But because "crypto" is in the name of my app, I can't use my app's name in ad copy, nor the word "crypto", etc. And the support team refuses to understand this or make an exception. Because of this policy I can't even show ads in certain countries or languages unless I find some convoluted workaround.
Everything with them has just been a non-stop uphill battle. It's soul crushing and makes you feel helpless and hopeless. They don't care about us even when we've been/are the substrate for the Play Store.
Play Store/Dev Console:
- the pettiness of and delays by their production reviewers
- won't take action on obviously spammed negative (or positive) app reviews
- allowing expired/fraudulent payment options to take advantage of trials
- not showing all possible search results for search terms which cuts off a ton of other apps from having any visibility
- among many other issues with the Play Store/Dev Console
It's beyond exhausting.
Add to it the fact that Admob:
- won't serve 98% of requests with impressions, having any way to contact them for support or get meaningful support (also have left their contact options unfixed for years which feels like it's being done on purpose)
- will put serving limits on the smallest friggin things, serving limits when they allowed a single user from a country that gets flagged for serving limits all the time was manually blocked months ago from my account after my first encounter of serving limits for the reason of ads being served to users from that country
- will put serving limits even after adding your device's ID/Add ID as a testing device
- etc etc etc
Nevermind that we don't even know if they're actually serving ads or not in our apps and just pocketing what they don't report to us.
Google Ads:
- Block ads all the time for any reason. In my case, my app is purely a crypto market charting and analytics application (yeah I know crypto markets/charts are looked down upon here, but whatever I and others use it. It's not a gambling or trading app, just analytics. please save your hate for NFTs) and it doesn't allow transactions, trading or anything of the sort. Just data. But because "crypto" is in the name of my app, I can't use my app's name in ad copy, nor the word "crypto", etc. And the support team refuses to understand this or make an exception. Because of this policy I can't even show ads in certain countries or languages unless I find some convoluted workaround.
Everything with them has just been a non-stop uphill battle. It's soul crushing and makes you feel helpless and hopeless. They don't care about us even when we've been/are the substrate for the Play Store.