15% is a lot. I'm not trying to say it isn't.

And they're annoying and often screw up the review process.

Google is always going to make money off any work they do. That's just business. They're not going to put more money towards better reviews without taking more money. And without the reviews, even as crappy as they are, a lot of really crappy software would be on the store. And a lot more would be actively malicious

And you were making like 7x as much as they were taking. Without them, you would even get noticed and you'd have made nothing.

We know this because almost nobody installs FDroid, and the other stores like Samsung make basically nothing for developers, even though they're preinstalled on so many devices.

Customer support has gotten so terrible. Now that all big companies have terrible support, none of them are punished for it. You can still occasionally find people who give a shit in small business, but that is it. Google is probably one of the worst offenders of all. I don't know what the solution is, it seems like the only way to get any satisfaction on an issue at a big corp anymore is a social medial call-out like this one.

If you are here, thank you for Conversations, Daniel, it has been my go-to for years for communicating with friends and family.

Receiving 1000 euros without having any real work or accountability is the epitome of free profit. No wonder these platform gatekeepers are fighting so hard to maintain it (at the cost of you, the consumer).

And yet people (in general) just dont care, because they don't truly feel the pain until it's too late - issues like privacy and such are like that.

It makes sense to leave, but it also seems like the overall sentiment would be more positive given the “it paid my rent for many years” part.

"Fortunately, I’m no longer economically dependent on Google Play Store revenue. Google doesn’t deserve me and my money anymore. I’m done. Fuck the gatekeepers."

+1.

Yeah that "there is no way to talk to a human at Google" is one of the reasons I never recommend a Google solution at current workplace... Or to family.

Our app has 17,000+ users and has never paid a cent to Google :) With a little out of box thinking, you can avoid Google tax.

I recommend the book “sacred economics” regarding this play.

Free to read online - https://charleseisenstein.org/books/sacred-economics/

I think it bothers OP less that they take a 15% tax than the fact that google provides terrible support for their own play store. If they would take that tax and provide good feedback and speedy version reviews, nobody would ever complain - it is expected to pay something since the play store doesn't run on good thoughts and prayers. But because they're a monopoly (or a duopoly if you count apple, which is a different platform altogether) they can afford to act this way.