It’s hard to imagine that breaking up Google would allow for innovation; they brought us Google Search, Gmail, and surely nobody can afford to host Youtube. They gave us Android, Chrome, and so much more.

But good grief - If it weren’t for knowing how simple things can be, you wouldn’t realize how poorly they’re running these clown shows.

Take Android for example. If you want to upload an app to F-Droid, you make a Merge Request like shown here. 10 - 20 minute job. Let’s check in on what it’s like at Google Play…

The Frustration

So you want to upload something on Google Play. Register on the Google Console. Fill out a 9 page form talking about your past Android experience. Pay 25$. Account verification! We’ll get back to you in 3 days. Ah, we need more info. Please upload your ID. We’ll get back to you later. Oh you want to publish an app? First select the countries, and your category, and agree to 6 different terms and conditions, as well as the laws for every country you selected your app to be available in. Ah wait, you need more screenshots. Those dimensions are invalid. You’re missing tablet screenshots. Your app icon doesn’t have the background and foreground as different images. Wait, your app looks too similar to another app, denied. Hold on, are you trying to go to production without running an internal test first? Denied. Got all your ducks in a row? Good luck in the Review Gauntlet.

Ahh, so I see you want to integrate Google Play Games services. Follow this 7 step guide, go to Google Cloud, register for 3 different services, follow more UI steps that don’t align with the tutorial, and get the SHA-1 of the key you’re using in Google Play. Oh, you haven’t released your app yet? LOL. Anyways, you need to have a privacy policy page on a website you own. You own a website, right? Also we’re going to make your email public, to everyone, permanently, and you’ll get a lot of spam for that. Oh sorry, we couldn’t verify you owned the domain for the website you linked your privacy policy on. Denied.

How We Got Here

Google, as a monopoly, can continue to make horrendous decisions that force the ecosystem users (in this case app developers) to spend hours on workarounds and debugging the broken system; and app developers have no other choice. Smaller companies would collapse under the weight of these issues, but Google stands proud and tall, since you have no where else to go.

The Result

This stops app developers from making work out of passion. The tools Google leverages stops third party app stores from taking off. Take a step back for a moment: apps do not need to go through this for verification. It’s nonsense. It’s a result of Google becoming too large, and the Play Store becoming too centralized.

What Should Be Done

If you’re an Android user, consider using third party app stores like F-Droid. If you’re the DOJ, force Google to sell off Android. And if you’re a citizen of the EU passionate about this area, submit a petition to break Google up yourself: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/petitions/en/home

This has gone on for too long.