It would certainly be nice if at least their feedback was a bit more meaningful and explained the actual problem, and not just a vague category that they thought most closely fits the issue.
Part of the problem as well here is that the alleged policy violation doesn't gives enough information for a developer to even figure out what behaviour they're seeing, let alone where in a complex app that feature is.
Then, secondly, when their automation gets it wrong, or there is some misunderstanding over something, there's no ability for the developer to actually have any kind of meaningful or substantive discussion - if you can't work out what the issue is, based on their incredibly high level description, you're out of luck, as you won't get any meaningful intelligent or personal response from anyone - expect templated, automated emails that are not in any way addressing the message you sent.
> If the app can't be in the Play store anymore, there is no point in continuing supporting this app because about 99% of the users download the app from the Play store.
And some more context:
--- Begin quote ---
The balance
The few euros I receive in return for what's being offered and the fun of developing things are no compensation for the thousands of questions I answer every month, for unfair Play store reviews and for stress about unclear Google requirements.
The verdict
I have not reached a conclusion yet, but the question I am asking myself is why I would continue with the project. Maybe it is the moment, with a sick girlfriend, but I currently don't see it.
Alternatives
GitHub only version: 98% of the audience will be lost.
Strip down the app: more bad reviews
Paid support: more bad reviews
Stop answering questions: more bad reviews
Bad reviews will shift the balance only in the wrong direction.
Core problem
Google. There is no sensible way to appeal in case of bad reviews or alleged violations of Play store policies.
People. They are generally pretty demanding and on the other hand everything should be free.
Myself. An old and grumpy developer, who maybe should retired.
I think we're reaching a point where because of the unreliability of the two major platforms there may be a path for developers to go the Youtuber route and start Patreon to fund development. You already see this in certain genres of games (notably adult content) that are typically just hidden on stores.
I can certainly understand the reasons behind simply abandoning ship at this point. If it's not worth it, it's not worth it.
My only hope now is that Thunderbird on Android will approach the quality without adding any heinous anti-features.
I suggested that in the forum too. I support quite a few developers through patreon, paypal subscriptions or Github: Calibre, a lot of mister devs, Karabiner Elements (Tekezo), Scummvm (Eugene Sandulenko)
From what I've seen from comments of supporters on patreon, the community tends to be much nicer to the dev than typical forums. It's always strange to me that people who don't want to pay tend to be the worst when it comes to support and politeness.
> From what I've seen from comments of supporters on patreon, the community tends to be much nicer to the dev than typical forums. It's always strange to me that people who don't want to pay tend to be the worst when it comes to support and politeness.
I would say that it is rather that only a small fraction of people pay, and those are usually the most satisfied users anyway to be willing to pay for the additionnal features. The platform has little to do with it.
Oh yes, I don't mean that's specific to Patreon the platform. It's just that in my limited experience dealing with a not that popular opensource software and dealing with support for an old school shareware back when that was a thing, the most entitled, the least friendly and the most aggressive emails were all from people who didn't donate, didn't pay or didn't contribute to the code (in the case of my opensource project).
And once you help them, they're not necessarily going to donate either or try to help in any way (a big percentage of those problematic users have the mentality of not paying for software ever). So filtering support to only supporters is a good way to stay sane as a developer and stop dealing with negativity.
I would wager the amount of android users who even know what fdroid is, is < 5%, if not much lower. Getting flagged as spyware or booted from the Play Store effectively destroys any project that relies on funding.
It’s kind of missing the point of having a company shutting down your business without much recourse for objection. I currently have to deal with Google on a matter, and the lengths I have to go through to even get a response is ridiculous. And this is on their ads platform, so technically I am their best kind of client who brings in money.
And there is no alternative, that is the monopoly.
Maybe in this case, Google didn't act in bad faith, but having such a system in place has a method.
It's something every developer should have in mind before deciding to develop anything on Google platform.