Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last year
152 comments
·April 30, 2025Lammy
cyral
The DUNS number thing is such a disaster even for companies with it. We had a the account under a DUNS of a subsidiary but somehow they wanted us to upload verification docs for the main company, of course not matching exactly how they expect, and there is no way to change it without jumping through a bunch of hoops. Similar issues at Apple. Eventually they let us verify the account with "company letterhead" as if that proves anything (despite them insisting the letterhead needs to say dev@company.com instead of support@company.com, again proving nothing really)
For both Apple and Google it's one of those processes where the support doesn't even really seem to understand how it works (they probably don't know what automated emails are being sent, and what the dev side looks like). They would randomly close cases for "no response" immediately after they replied, ask us to upload something despite their being no way to upload it, tell us to ignore the "your account will be closed email" because it actually won't be (wrong again), etc.
DUNS own lookup page doesn't even let you look up by DUNS number (so we could figure out what company some ancient number was associated with). I bet it's because you have to pay for one of their "solutions" to do this.
jll29
It seems like to Google, "customers" will only ever be anonymous data points in an A/B test.
They would have gone down quickly if they hadn't "borrowed" Overture's business model of paid ads.
They have no culture of valuing the customers, or (like Amazon) obsessing about what they need.
Apple is at least slightly different: hardware customers and high-value employees are treated okay from what I hear, but devs are left alone.
Indie developers bring both Apple and Google a lot of revenue indirectly, but they don't really have much of a lobby (maybe they should unionize/hire a lobby firm together).
arghwhat
Validation issues happen all the time for subsidiaries when the parent company likes to own/manage things. Always fun when e.g. EV certificate validation (sigh windows update stuff) calls the parent company reception and asks for the manager listed as owner, and they just go "who?".
geraldcombs
The One Weird Trick I learned was to to get a company attorney to write a professional opinion letter saying that you are indeed authorized to get a cert on behalf of your company.
ToucanLoucan
Incredible experience with this: our App Store account was from an acquired company that was no longer doing business. The Apple representative requested documentation that the no longer in use LLC was in fact, no longer in use.
When I requested what documents they might think a defunct LLC was creating that would prove it was defunct, they didn't have an answer. Same as others we ended up just making a new fucking developer account.
Hell of a first project as a team lead.
eitally
This happens to Google Cloud partners all the time, too, when there are acquisitions, mergers, or DBAs where the legal business entity changes even though the practical relationship stays the same (with the same people, same contact details, same billing/payment accounts, same contract terms, etc). It's extremely irritating.
827a
Yeah, DUNS numbers are super easy IME for companies to get, but its hell after that. We had some crazy problems with the App Store where our legal address with DUNS didn't match what we provided Apple, even though we had updated it with D&B, but Apple's systems weren't pulling in that update, Apple told us to talk to D&B, D&B told us to talk to Apple... we ended up literally just making a new corporation and starting from scratch.
huxley
The last time I dealt with that they were still updating DUNS batch data via an FTP
echelon
Both Apple and Google need to be regulated. Their vice grip on app distribution, app defaults, search defaults, payments defaults, user credential saving defaults, messaging defaults, browser defaults, and then their brutal taxation of almost all web e-commerce and businesses is beyond the scale of whatever Standard Oil had.
You cannot do business on the Internet without paying the Apple and Google toll. They control all the points of ingress and egress, and they tax everything that moves.
It'd be bad enough if they were just charging money, but they also make you jump through hoops to design software their way, do unplanned upgrades to their cadence, prevent you from deploying emergency hot patches, prevent you from updating software dynamically, prevent you from knowing your own customer, etc. etc. etc.
And they're happy to sell your competitors ads to outrank you for your own trademark.
These companies need to lose their control over this. Web distributed apps must become the norm.
You can't tell me that with sandboxing, signature scanning, and some clever heuristics, that we can't make mobile completely safe for free and open distribution.
MatthiasPortzel
This requirement is the result of EU regulation.
yieldcrv
yeah for real, if you have a holding company for the one asset, the app, these stores make it a nightmare to manage some normal best practices
streptomycin
It's not just getting a DUNS number. You also need to consent to having your home address (no PO box or virtual mailbox, needs to be a physical address for your "business") listed publicly on the DUNS website and on all your Google Play Store app pages.
Other app stores are similar, so probably it's some dumb government regulation.
jonas21
> so probably it's some dumb government regulation.
Yeah, they need to show your address and phone number to comply with the EU's Digital Services Act.
There's more info here (from Apple's docs, but the same applies to Google):
https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-co...
zuminator
That link says PO Boxes are okay-?
bcye
It seems that is only the case should you choose to monitise your app, which is fair?
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
a2128
I created a free, offline, opensource app on Google Play, no monetization or payments, as an individual. When this change rolled out I was required to verify my identity and set up a payment profile or else my app and account would be deleted.
After I went through half of the process, they showed a "here's what your users will see on the play store listing under 'About the developer' section!" This included my full legal name, personal email address, and country, which is enough information to find my home address and other information in public registries. This app serves an online community that can be quite crazy and I was absolutely not going to doxx myself to them. I decided I had enough of Google so I gave the app away to a company
olalonde
No it wouldn't be "fair" and it's not just if you want to monetize your app. D-U-N-S number is required for developer account creation regardless of whether you plan to monetize or not.
cyberax
Home address? They asked me for an address in a commercially zoned district.
streptomycin
They didn't explicitly ask for a home address, just a physical address. But for a hobbyist dev, home address is probably all you have so effectively that's what they're asking for. Or for you to rent an office somewhere, which I guess is what they wanted you to do by asking for a commercially zoned adddress.
odo1242
There’s even more than that, actually: if you’re an individual developer you also need 10 people to beta-test your app for 2 weeks, along with having your home address listed online. Google really doesn’t wan’t anyone who isn’t a company developing apps for Android lol
bugfix
12 people, actually. And it's down from 20 individual testers requirement from when they introduced this policy last year.
asdfman123
Yeah. I wanted to make an Android productivity tool that helped me but I didn't want to bother (then) 20 of my friends to test it.
Huge hurdle if you just want to build an app.
georgemcbay
Ran into this myself late last year. Registered as an individual developer for a free, non-monetized app and had to find 20 people (they reduced the number since) to sign up (and remain signed up) as beta testers for a 2 week period to get the app listed.
Luckily I was able to hit that number (the app is a stat tracking app for the game Destiny 2, so I was able to get beta testers via posting on a subreddit filled with Destiny 2 PvP players). But it took way longer and was way more of a burden compared to getting the same app listed on both the Apple App Store and the Microsoft Windows Store (the app is written in Kotlin/Compose Multiplatform and was relatively easy to make multiplatform).
If I didn't happen to be an Android "main" myself (creating a vested interest in wanting to make the Android version easily available) I might not have bothered with the Play Store hoops give how much of a pain in the ass it was compared to the other listings.
greatgib
Exactly, I happened to have long running apps, in the store, I didn't update them for some time but they were simple and working as designed, good for their job.
Suddenly there was this weird obligation to declare a company or disclose publicly info about me, so i did nothing and it expired, and they removed the app.
mattmaroon
I did not know that and that’s preposterous, but I don’t think that is the only reason or even the biggest one.
The android store had a whole lot of garbage in it, and a lot of it was the kind that is easy to find and remove.
arghwhat
I haven't tried the specific flow for private individuals (seems to just be a radio button), but I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees.
A bit silly to require for private individuals, and a bit annoying to have to go back and do, but not itself a big deal.
Lammy
> I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees
Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero hoops is too many. I got nothing out of having my apps on Google Play except the joy of sharing in what was at the time a new and exciting medium.
See Windows Phone for a great example of how it would have played out if Google hadn't successfully courted small-time devs like me and countless others. Corporate publishers would have never colonized Google Play in the first place if an audience wasn't already there. The way they addressed me makes it very clear that solo devs are no longer needed, so I will never submit to it on principle no matter how easy it's claimed to be.
Keyframe
Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero hoops is too many.
For sure, but it's a KYC for companies. How else would you expect B2B dealings and compliance to go through? They could do tax ids per country, but with DUNS, compared to local tax id, they get global ultimate beneficial owner as well as other insights. Getting a DUNS is free and relatively fast, unless you're in a hurry then there's a faster route that costs some relatively cheap amount. It's a common ID for global companies, especially those with international supply chains to rely on as "the id number" for companies.
arghwhat
Going through hoops usually refer to an excessive effort.
Having to go through between zero (it you have needed the number before) and one free forms from a standard entity to get a widely recognized identifier used for many things is objectively not an excessive effort.
Sharing apps on app stores is a continuous commitment with various responsibilities like, such as ensuring safety of users through regular maintenance. If the idea if submitting one number is too much of a burden given the joy/finances you get out of it, then the rest of the maintenance responsibilities likely are too and maybe it's better to skip the publishing part.
Not sure what you're on about with corporate colonization. Colonizing implies forcefully taking what was rightfully someone elses. Also, in many places, making a company is just a form and standard practice even if you're just going to sell a single bogus app for 0.99 USD or whatever, so even individuals will be "corporations".
bcye
The linked source only mentions DUNS only being required for organization accounts, not individuals? And I've recently successfully created an account (albeit haven't published an app yet) without one?
calderwoodra
You need a DUNS number for iOS too, fwiw
watusername
Only for businesses, not individuals.
Source: I pay my yearly Apple tax and I have no DUNS.
serial_dev
Gee, I wonder why.
Publishing on the Play Store for indie devs or hobby projects just doesn’t make any sense.
You need to jump though so many hoops and doxx yourself in the process, only to make basically no money with the apps, and even if you miraculously do, risk getting kicked out of their platform without any way to contact a competent human.
Even before all this, the general consensus amongst solo app devs was that “don’t waste your time with Android”, now add about a hundred hour of bureaucracy to even get started with your first app, the choice is obvious for many.
I was a long time Android user and switched to iOS because the apps there are just better, I honestly think that Google of running the Android ecosystem into the ground and only the big players will want to go though this mess.
As a Flutter developer, it makes me want to switch to other technologies, because if Android loses its appeal, Flutter, another Google product, offers basically nothing. On web, it scks, on iOS SwiftUI will always have an advantage, Android as discussed is in steady and fast decline, and who the hell needs Flutter desktop apps that have poor integration with the operating system…
shakabrah
Amen. I write Flutter at my day job and am working toward an exit ramp every day.
xdfgh1112
And here I am writing flutter as a hobby and dreaming I could do it as a day job! That sucks
fidotron
I expect Google will attempt something highly amusing, like launching the Play Store on iOS in the EU, with the apps running via a port of the VM (and libraries) to iOS.
throwaway743
Ugh I'm so fucking fed up with the Play Store and Admob, and how they have no meaningful recourse for solving issues or providing support. It makes me feel hopeless and helpless knowing I have little options outside of relying on them (don't have any apple devices to test on or build my app) and knowing they could give two shits. Especially seeing that their contact options for Admob have been broken for years now and they refuse to fix it or provide actual help. And there seems like there's no way to get them to budge, like even through our reps.
Fuck them. I hope they collapse.
fidotron
> One factor Google didn’t cite was the new trader status rule enforced by the EU as of this February, which began requiring developers to share their names and addresses in the app’s listing.
Yep, it was probably that.
trunch
I'm usually very supportive of EU tech regulation, but to be honest I don't really want to put my name and address up on apps I throw up on the store
Would like to keep my identity separate to whatever projects I have usually, especially if they're ones that don't 100% align with the your own developer brand that employers might screen for
ragnese
I have the same mentality as you. But, rather than form an opinion on whatever EU regulation is being interpreted as "requiring" these steps from Google et al, I think I'm going to assert that it's a red herring.
The real issue, IMO, is that it's still too hard to distribute and install applications on my general-purpose computing devices! You can't be on Google's app store if you aren't a "real business" with a physical address and everything? Fine. Let's just distribute our apps on F-Droid, or by just releasing APKs in our GitHub pages, etc.
At least that's still possible with Android. But who knows how much longer they'll even allow that?
braiamp
Yeah, if you have a market that can be installed by the user without passing through a marketplace. The EU regulation gets blamed, but that's not the actual issue.
LPisGood
I think the issue may be thinking of your phone, running a non-open OS, as a general-purpose computing device.
whimsicalism
Presumably F-Droid is subject to the same regulatory requirements, so in this case it is directly the regulation to blame.
makeitdouble
That's probably where F-Droid is a better choice in the first place ?
Google Play (and the App store) assume by default commercial intent, and I'm sympathetic to stricter verification rules when there's money changing hands.
o11c
From what I can tell, this all should apply only to monetized apps (and I agree with that). If that's not actually the case, Google is using malicious compliance to misguide developers into hating the EU for daring to regulate them.
colechristensen
> I don't really want to put my name and address up on apps I throw up on the store
As a customer I really want the ability to sue someone who does me wrong, call them out publicly, or at least avoid their products. In no way is it reasonable that someone should want to stay anonymous while selling me something (or profiting off of it in one way or another). I really don't see a reason to make an exception for people who have free+offline+etc apps.
You're publishing software, you need to be identifiable.
xdfgh1112
This punishes the people who release apps for free or open source. For the money generating app farms it doesn't slow them down at all.
stringtoint
Agreed. My 3 free apps, one with +100k downloads were also removed because of the EU ruling. Don't want my personal address and phone number to be more accessible to bad actors more than it already is. While I can somewhat follow the idea, the execution in practice has serious flaws.
tslocum
Several FOSS apps of mine were removed from Google Play because of this. I wrote about one solution for other affected developers here:
sschueller
My personal phone number is listed on Google play because I could not get my business number verified. I tried for weeks.
cyral
Almost the same here until they let us verify by document. Can't receive texts to our support number, and also can't get the verification code by phone since there is a "Press 1 for ___" thing at the beginning of the call.
Aerroon
This effectively kills apps that are made by individuals or very small businesses that can't afford an office.
It's kind of incredible how the EU makes changes like this and then politicians scratch their heads about the weakness of European tech. You would think that the politicians would give some thought to that and make it easier/cheaper to fulfill these requirements, but nope. Either pay up for a company (hundreds of euros) and an office (hundreds of euros) or just have your information publicly available.
And when that information becomes publicly available you will be inundated with spam.
On top of that some services will then take Google street view pictures of your home and link all of that information together in an easily searchable database.
makeitdouble
> the EU makes changes like this
The actual change is not by the EU, but by Google who interprets a EU directive and decides how to apply it to its platform.
This is a big difference, in that the EU requires a verified _contact_ address for _traders_ operating on a marketplace.
From there Google deciding to blanket require onerous verification on anyone publishing any app is Google's call and they should get the blame for it.
For comparison you get a different application of the same rules on the AppStore, and none of that for F-Droid.
leonidasv
Apparently you can use a P.O. Box as address for this purpose[0] when registering for AppStore, which is substantially cheaper. However, Reddit says Google does not accept P.O. Boxes [1], so the only option is a "virtual" office address or something like that. A shame.
[0] https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-co...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/FlutterDev/comments/1f4nmny/comment...
null
dusted
Yep, this is why I dropped out.
jsnell
For me the really unreasonable change was the app testing requirements on non-corporate developers. Having to get 20 users to beta test an unlisted Android app for two weeks before getting it on the store is not a reasonable thing to require for hobby projects. I'm not sure I even know 20 Android users well enough that I'd feel comfortable asking for that level of engagement from them.
It's a particularly bad policy to launch with existing developers grandfathered out, because the policy probably looks really successful to start with due to the difference in new developer vs. old developer populations -- the entities who are right now making most of the quality apps aren't affected. What's being affected is the pipeline of new developers, but the effect of killing that pipeline won't become obvious for years.
DecentShoes
This is absolutely insane and will kill the app I'm making. Google has too much power.
Is there some commercial service I can just pay to do this?
aetimmes
It's called "20 BlueStacks instances in a trenchcoat"
xdfgh1112
Same here, android already seems less profitable than iOS but this killed any interest I had in supporting android.
leesalminen
My app’s organization is outside the “west”. So in order to complete verification with Google I had to pay some subcontractor of Dunn&Bradstreet almost $500 to get the DUNS. Then I had to get an original certified copy of the organization’s registration from the national registry. Then have an official notarized translation to English and get all that apostilled (another $500 through a service).
Also, Google support refused to tell me what set of documents they would accept. I had to figure it out myself.
kylehotchkiss
Sounds like you just found a business - offer this to others, you could be the fourth party in the transaction!
dusted
Yeah, I dropped my apps from Play, couldn't find a way to avoid putting my personal address on there.. fuck that, I'm making something for free, and they force me to dox myself for it? Nah, I'm good.
brap
By “they”, you mean the EU?
healsdata
The EU regulations don't exclude P.O. Boxes. Google choose to add that requirement.
sieabahlpark
[dead]
maxoakland
This is phrased like a bad thing, but it’s actually a good thing. I’m an iOS user and I can tell you Apple is not doing a good job keeping the App Store free of scams. I’m guessing Google is doing a much better job and this is the result
zmmmmm
Sounds like there are a range of reasons, but the bigger picture explanation is : Google no longer cares about incentivizing apps to be on the store.
The mobile OS wars are over: every company and dev that wants to do anything is locked into having to provide an Android and iOS app no matter how difficult it is, so all the incentives are for Apple / Google to insulate themselves from risk now by raising the bar on devs.
We need to start exercising the minimal rights / capabilities to ship alternative app stores on these platforms. Easier said than done.
xdfgh1112
I dunno, many developers already choose to ignore android entirely because it's less profitable. Raising the bar will only encourage that. At least for me the dox your own address + onerous testing requirements make android extremely unappealing
I guess I could publish on fdroid but why bother? The android platform clearly doesn't care about me.
SchemaLoad
Web APIs are also more capable than ever before and can be added as icons on the home page. For an individual developer, you are probably better off just doing a web app.
aucisson_masque
Android already has many alternative app store. I believe there is nothing currently for paid app (beside OEM store like galaxy store or Huawei) but if there is a need it's absolutely possible to do.
Apple side on the other hand, good luck with that. Even in Europe they made the rules so strict the third party app store are basically dead.
kshri24
Technology was supposed to get rid of most of bureaucracy and move the World towards automation. These FAANG companies have instead successfully integrated bureaucracy with technology and have made bureaucracy permanent. Instead of automating away bureaucracy these companies have automated away customer service.
SupremumLimit
It is a serious mistake to think that technology can remove bureaucracy. Indeed, technology by its nature makes bureaucracy a lot more rigid. Bureaucracy is about homogenising processes and erasing individual differences, and software reinforces these properties because it allows even less human input or deviation from the process. (That isn't true of all software, just software that is intended to somehow deal with large numbers of people uniformly.)
dmix
The lazy response to any new risk or problem is to just layer on new rules and processes. Large organizations always end up with those things defining their workplace culture (risk aversion, checkbox culture) and that worldview filters down to the decisions which impact customers.
whimsicalism
they do these things in response to governmental pressure.
staplers
"Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth." - Lucy Parsons
GeekyBear
Another factor:
> Google also just increased the target API level requirement for apps on the Google Play Store
https://tech.yahoo.com/phones/articles/google-plays-rules-ki...
We also saw established apps like iA Writer decide to get off the treadmill.
> In order to allow our users to access their Google Drive on their phones we had to rewrite privacy statements, update documents, and pass a series of security checks, all while facing a barrage of new, ever-shifting requirements.
https://ia.net/topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite...
mrj
Yup, this caused me months of work. Many people chose not to bother.
mullingitover
> Instead of only banning broken apps that crashed, wouldn’t install, or run properly, the company said it would begin banning apps that demonstrated “limited functionality and content.” That included static apps without app-specific features, such as text-only apps or PDF-file apps. It also included apps that provided little content, like those that only offered a single wallpaper. Additionally, Google banned apps that were designed to do nothing or have no function, which may have been tests or other abandoned developer efforts.
Sounds like it was a purge of zero value apps. Why was Google allowing these legions of unusable and/or garbage apps in their store in the first place? Someone padding their numbers?
ozim
Because we want people to be able to create trash apps and publish them.
Just like we want people to create trash blogs and trash websites so they can learn or just express themselves.
Having 3rd world devs making more todo apps is not optimal but they should be able to do that and publish them.
Preventing all of that also prevents good small time community apps because suddenly you have to pay money and can’t just do nice app for local communities.
mullingitover
> Because we want people to be able to create trash apps and publish them.
That's a moot point, though, since you don't need Google's app store to publish apps. You can just send whatever random APK you throw together to your friend, post them on your web site, etc. There's no reason to turn the Play Store into a dumpster.
If anything the fact that you can sideload on Android and install alternative stores means the Play Store should be at least as selective as Apple's store, if not more so, since failure to meet that store's standards doesn't mean the app can't be distributed elsewhere.
arielcostas
You need to if you want people to be able to discover your application or receive updates automatically (or with a single click) instead of having to reimplement the wheel with an update checker in your application, as well as logic to limit what countries/markets and devices you serve.
Especially when you consider the hassle for the average user of going into Chrome, downloading your APK, accepting the big scary messages that "the application comes from an untrusted source" and "sideloading applications can be dangerous" and then installing it. People barely even like going into Google Play to download stuff.
bongodongobob
Well PlayStation, Nintendo, etc don't just let anyone publish anything. I see no reason to force them to lower their standards for trash shovelware. As long as you can still sideload apps, it's their store and they can set their own standards.
brulard
Where do you set the bar for "good enough" app? It makes sense to allow shitty apps and let the reputation grow somehow.
mvieira38
Good, I hope it dies off and we get to a state of decentralized app distribution just like PCs have. App stores suck, I don't need Google of all companies knowing every single one of the apps I have on my phone
This is because they removed any app from any individual-human developer who didn't care to jump through the hoops of getting and submitting a DUNS number: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/07/boosting-t...
“On August 31, we’ll start rolling out these requirements for anyone creating new Play Console developer accounts. In October, we’ll share more information with existing developers about how to update and verify existing accounts.”
Source: happened to me and all of my apps despite them being Free Software and offline-only. Here's one of the emails they sent me about it: https://i.imgur.com/dVzQj2p.jpeg
Notice how they open with “Hi Developers at [my first and last name]” – developers, plural, and “at” like they only expect me to be a company and not a single person.