So, your app has been banned by Big Tech — now what?

I had an app that was making around $5000 USD a month suddenly get removed from Google Play. After weeks of discussions with Google I found out what happened. They believed my App was a copy of an iOS App.

The thing is... I created that iOS app. Those idiots accused me of copying my own app. On Android I submitted the app under the name "Dragon King Creation". On iOS I submitted the app under the name "Angus Cheng".

Very silly of them.

When I finally got my Android app back onto Google Play it had lost a lot of traction. The MRR went from $5000 to $500.

This event, and other events made me less interested in building apps.

Never rely on a single channel, and be extra careful with marketplaces. This is why I prefer web apps over mobile apps. Very difficult to shutdown a web app overnight considering it is easily accessible with nothing but a browser.

And it's becoming even more compelling as web apps integrate better and better with mobile devices (PWAs, etc).

If I built a native mobile app it would always be secondary to my web app as a matter of insurance. Too many horror stories.

I'm conflicted about this.

If you build on top of a big tech platform, you'll prob get traction faster. But your chances of getting banned are higher as well.

On the other hand, if you build something that's standalone, marketing etc. becomes a whole lot harder.

I've heard a bunch of these horror stories and they all came from B2C marketplaces (Apple/Google App Stores, etc.) Haven't heard much negative experiences from B2B app stores (Shopify/Hubspot/etc.) So that's a thing to consider as well. If you build, consider B2B app stores, they have more incentives to keep you on (as businesses expand, they usually need more features so it's a win-win situation for both the platform like Shopify and you).

Unless your app requires features only available to native apps, you should probably no longer bother uploading your app to Google Play and the App Store:

1. Google Play/App Store won't get you installs if you don't pay for advertising anyway.
2. A PWA works on both iOS and Android (+ desktop).
3. Nobody needs to approve your updates.
4. No one can ban your PWA. It lives on the free web.

I've been building software that emulates the app store experience but without the usual app store hassles (example). So far, my customers have had amazing success with it. It's not free though (but call it the price of freedom🙃!).

Now there are so many regulations and policy in app stores that they don't even need legitimate reason to kick out your apps.

No one is immune...be careful:

One major example shows that Apple will drop the ban-hammer on anyone – even Fortnite creator Epic Games. Fortnite, with roughly 350 million players, is not currently available on the App Store because Epic devised a way for its users to skirt Apple’s in-app payment systems, cutting Apple out of transactions.

APPL and GOOG have essentially a monopoly on the market and can do whatever they want..

Joshua Browder, the CEO of Do Not Pay, a company that bills itself as “the world’s first robot lawyer,” is no stranger to this scenario. His app has been kicked off multiple platforms.

And how he'd get his app reinstated? 1) having a large social presence 2) publicly expressing his disappointment.

The OP of the article also mentioned 1M+ apps are being denied onto their platform and hundreds of thousands of devs are having their account suspended without any explanation.

Anyone else running into this here?