[dan-0]

> That is the most human behavior imaginable. Something bad happens to you, it's now an emergency, so you try every avenue to address it simultaneously.

I don't know the Apple ecosystem much, but on Android, it's very well known that this is a quick way to get completely banned from the Play Store. I would imagine it's the same.on iOS.

I don't like that this is the way it's handled, but don't disagree with it either or it'd be a fast path to bypassing quality and compliance checks in the app stores.

Even if Apple was to globally allow 3rd party app stores, 3rd party stores would hit this problem at scale eventually.

[AnthonyMouse]

> I don't know the Apple ecosystem much, but on Android, it's very well known that this is a quick way to get completely banned from the Play Store.

You're describing the behavior of the store rather than the expected behavior of the developers. Of course a developer is going to try to create a new account, you just broke their existing account for unexplained reasons and this is their primary source of income. They have to fix it right away or their business is destroyed, and it's just as well known that appeals are often capriciously denied without recourse. So how is it suspicious behavior? It's the same thing you'd expect someone to do even if they're naive and innocent.

> I don't like that this is the way it's handled, but don't disagree with it either or it'd be a fast path to bypassing quality and compliance checks in the app stores.

In order for this to be reasonable you'd need the appeals process to be both swift and accurate, and yet it isn't.

It also goes without saying that any actual scams are just going to do it anyway, and make up new company names etc. as necessary, so it seems like all they're doing here is punishing innocent people who try to open a new account using the same information, because unlike the scammers they're actually using a consistent identity.

[dan-0]

The process should be more accommodating of these situations, but if you're a developer you should know the policies and limitations of your deployment environment. If you don't and get bit by a policy violation, I feel bad for you, but it is still on you to know and your failure to own it.

Development isn't just slamming in code because Product wants a feature.

[AnthonyMouse]

I feel like this is the difference between bureaucracies and individuals.

If you're an individual developer, you interact with many bureaucracies. Not only the app store, but probably two of them, and a bank, and a couple of social media platforms, and a hosting company, and you use a bunch of software that each has its own license etc. Each of these come with a wall of text which is like 50 pages long. You have not read them, you would not understand them even if you did because they're written in lawyer, and the thrust of most of them is something like "the company reserves the right to do whatever they want".

No one is ever in compliance because the rules are designed to be broad enough to allow the company to declare you persona non grata under an unrelated pretext if they want to, so complying with the rules is not only not expected but purposely impossible. Then people have little idea which rules are real and enforced and which ones are just there so the company can act with impunity, and you can't glean this from reading them (which you don't have the time or understanding to do anyway), so instead they just behave as an ordinary person would while ignoring whatever it says in the documents, which is reasonable enough to keep most people out of trouble until it isn't.

Bureaucracies behave completely differently. They hire lawyers, because they have the resources to hire lawyers, and then demand that the rules are something they can actually comply with because otherwise they engage in malicious compliance and are big enough for that to cause problems for the entity making the rules. Then they pretend it would be reasonable for individuals to do the same thing, even though it's not.

[dan-0]

I agree to a degree, in that the policies are a lot to take in.

When your work poses a risk to the bottom line of another company, they have every right to be protective and implement the policies they feel will bring in more customers and money. If the store policies are too much for you to understand, that's on you for blindly adding to the risk of that company.

I'm speaking specifically from the Android side of things. People want to be on the Play Store and not FDroid or the many others because that's where the customers are, but you're free to use another store or distribute directly, which is not the case for iOS, particularly outside Europe. I do believe Apple is anti competitive in the US due to this, but it doesn't change the fact that you're your own victim for wanting to be in their store and not following the contact you agreed to. They take in the risk of hosting your app, you take on the risk and pain of dealing with their store policies.

It's no different than having a stall at a flea market, if they say you can have a stall, but have policies against selling certain items, and you sell them anyways, you can get the boot. If someone falsely accuses you of doing so and they suspend your stall while they investigate, then you come back the next week under a different name, don't be surprised about the result when they recognize you.

[AnthonyMouse]

> When your work poses a risk to the bottom line of another company, they have every right to be protective and implement the policies they feel will bring in more customers and money.

The issue is when that interacts with this:

> I do believe Apple is anti competitive in the US due to this

For two reasons. First, if the flea market is being unreasonable, you can just flip them off and go set up your stall in a less unreasonable flea market. Whereas if it's Apple, you have to find a way to get a working account with them or you're done.

And second, because of that, it allows them to be unreasonable because the developers have no other options, whereas normally the different stores would be competing with each other for both suppliers and customers.

But it's not that different with Google, because of this:

> People want to be on the Play Store and not FDroid or the many others because that's where the customers are

And specifically because of why that is the case.

Why are all the customers on Google Play? There many companies in a good position to create a competing store. Major retailers like Walmart and Amazon already have your payment information, already have a system for vetting third party sellers, how come they don't have Android stores as popular as Google's? Shouldn't Paypal be in a good position to put up a store where you can buy apps via a URL to the developer's site? Where are these things?

It turns out Google suppresses them in various ways. Notice how there are zero major Android OEMs who ship a preinstalled third party store that isn't their own. Normally that sort of thing is like free money. OEM gets like $1/device from each of Walmart and Amazon just to put their store on the home screen. But that's nowhere. Weird, right?

Alternate stores in theory is not the same as viable alternate stores in practice.

So to reiterate, the problem is not that they can boot you out for arbitrary reasons, it's that they can boot you out for arbitrary reasons and then you have no viable alternatives. Then innocent people reasonably try to create a new account or do whatever they have to do given the circumstances.

[dan-0]

Back to the flea market example, if that's the only market available, you can either abide by their policies or not, if not you can't sell.

The fact that Apple has made itself the only market available is what makes it anti-competitive. Even then you could argue that's what you bought on to when you opted into their currated ecosystem.

Apple and Google's customer reach is a direct result of them footing the effort to create a store and relationship with OEMs and currating the store in a way that works for the customers that use it.

If Google hadn't tightened the rope on the Play Store polices, it'd be a mess, just like it used to be and like some 3rd party stores are, not user friendly and full of low quality or malicious apps.

This doesn't change the core of the argument. Companies and customers have their free will. If a company doesn't serve quality products in their store, customers will leave, if they make their store too painful for other companies to host in, so will they. If you agree to a contract and don't follow that contract and get booted, that's in your.

If you want reach into Apple's customers, you have to buy in to the whole deal, doesn't make them right for being the only store for their ecosystem, but doesn't make you right for giving them the bird and crying foul when you violate the policies agreed upon.

I won't buy the argument for Android you're throwing out there. Publish to another store of you don't like the Play Store, I do. Google's store is their customers, and their customers to make policies to protect from bad apps. If another store was better, people would use it readily, and they have the open option to. That's why FDroid exists, don't like closed software, well it doesn't exist there, and the customer made that wants it uses it.

Bottom line, you sign a contract and agree to the policies, don't cry foul when you get bit for violating it, like anything else. You put yourself and your company at risk by not reading and understanding what you agreed to.

[duxup]

That worries me about 3rd party app stores. I'm not opposed to them, but it feels like there is just a wave of scam type activity waiting to be unleashed on them...

[dan-0]

This is exactly what Google has been trying to clean up. The Play Store is much cleaner and safer now than it was 10 years ago.

Unfortunately small companies and independent devs take the brunt of the downside as their ability to get timely support is almost non existent. Big companies often have a Google rep they can reach back to.