Saying Goodbye To Android Development
TLDR: Google account verification now puts developer personal details (full name, email, address, and phone number) on the play store for the public. I think this is ridiculous and unsafe so as of writing (9/8/2024) I've decided to let go off my Android development hobby.
Ok let's back up a bit so I can maybe explain. I've always known there were things Google made public on the play store. If you are collecting money I always expected that they showed the developer account name, email to reach out, state, and country. That from a safety perspective makes sense. I can rock with it.
Recently I've hit my time to do the Play Store Account Verification. I was almost ok with it until the end when it shows how your information will be presented on the play store. Seeing my name, email (thankfully I have a development email), physical address, and phone number online made me so uncomfortable that I shut my computer.
If you know me/have talked to me since college I've always been about security and personal security at that. I think people should own their data and not put too much online. That's not a bad stance seeing as how people get got online everyday for a number of things. Seeing what would come out of this account verification would make it so I can't sleep at night. What if some hateful person is mad you don't update your app enough? They can just show up to your house and do who knows what.
Honestly I don't like this option for businesses either. What if your business address is still your home. What if the same situation mentioned above happens and they show up to your place of work to confront your people? At this point in time I just can't say Google cares about the safety of people and that is just super uncomfortable for me.
After a few hours of sitting in my feelings I've decided to let go of this thing that has always been fun for me. I started publishing apps I make in my free time to share something I thought was cool with the rest of the world. I'm not going to risk possible physical safety to keep enjoying that hobby, so today I've decided to just let my android development hobby go. I'd consider still doing android work for others but I'm going to let my account lapse and if Google changes their policy in the future maybe I'll pay the $25 again.
This choice wasn't easy as I really enjoy Android development in my free time. I could continue making apps for fun and just sell them, but I really enjoyed knowing X amount of people were using an app that I made to solve what I thought was a personal problem.
What about your published apps?
All of my apps were free so I guess they will be kicked off the play store. I also made all of them local to the device. I'm no longer interested in sending out updates so I'm not sure if I should make a way to export things or not.
The only app I will probably keep going as a website will be Medical Notes. It has an online backend that I was considering porting over to something better anyway. This allows me to keep building out at least one of my projects.
I'm also considering just moving all apps to container things that people can self-host (it will help me with my container study), but I don't know. Just...I'll let you know how this goes over time, but I'm definitely wondering what programming thing will catch my attention next.