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by Someone1234 2232 days ago
It is good that this was resolved, but not so good that they had to shame Google on HN/Twitter to get it looked at.

I understand that the Chrome extension store is free, but if you're going to point a bunch of bots at it and have them de-list extensions based on unknown metrics, the least you could do is communicate the "gotcha" rules the extension supposedly violated.
2 comments
oefrha 2232 days ago
> I understand that the Chrome extension store is free

Pretty sure it’s not free, I had to pay a nominal $5 fee ages ago, and looks like that hasn’t changed.

https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/publish#pay-the-develo...

Even found a recent news article reporting that now you need to pay the fee immediately on signup as opposed to when you publish the first extension/app.

https://9to5google.com/2020/03/12/chrome-web-store-fee/

(In case anyone wonders why $5 is even worth mentioning — if you’re a teenager in a third world country you probably have neither the fund nor a credit card to publish a Chrome extension.)

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jiveturkey 2231 days ago
If you don't have $5, how do you have the resources to develop an extension?
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oefrha 2231 days ago
No first hand experience, but I’ve heard stories of African kids doing impressive tech stuff using very limited resources. Presumably quite a few have access to school computers these days? Developing extensions is free as long as you have access to a computer. Anyway, not having access to a credit card (also need to be capable of international payment, which is not a given) is a much bigger issue than not having $5.
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bovine3dom 2231 days ago
I have $5 but on principle I don't want to give it to Google so that I can make their web browser better.

That with the horror stories about the review process has stopped me from publishing an extension for Chrome.

Edit: there was a nice article on HN last week about how relationships change once you start to have a monetary exchange, which I think suggests I wouldn't be the only one to be irrational about it [1].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23104875

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sudosysgen 2231 days ago
The issue is a credit card that can pay US Dollars. These are heavily restricted in a lot of developing countries, for good reasons.
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smilekzs 2231 days ago
Having to pay US Dollars can still be a big hurdle
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imglorp 2232 days ago
Or hand out the de-list bot to let developers test-run against it locally before they push to the store.

Unless there are secret rules.

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