A year or so ago I created an Google Play Console Developer Account (what a mouthfull of words), primarily to get aquainted with the interface and learn something about how App publishing works in the google Ecosystem. I hadn't one singular Idea for starting with it (it was rather an whole truckload of them!), but I still learned a lot about what requirements Google has, what options you have and much more.
Sadly, one thing lead to another and I wasn't able to fully publish any App in said year, due to a variety of factors, including some private ones. (I also blame my brain for just having to many damn interresting ideas to pursue!), and you might think thats not big of a deal right? After all, I already paid google 25 bucks to even get access to the interface, so there shouldn't be any problems right? We're talking here about google after all, they cant just "run out of space" to store a tiny profile with only a small demo App-Entry (which I only created to see what options are inside, which was the whole goal of even starting this early with this after all). But nope, my Account just got deleted (or "closed" if you want to use google's terms) today.
Thats something I've never experienced before; be it Ko-fi, Patreon or Opencollective (or really any other platform); they usually let you keep your account dormant as long as you want, and they didn't even get paid for it in the first place. But no - the all-mighty google, which processes exabytes of data per week, has a damn problem with "inactive accounts". (Maybe not exabytes but you get the point)
Even after reading the help article about it (and also the one to "help" you not let it get this far), I dont even know how I (or anyone really) could prevent such shit happening with their account. You might say that I maybe havn't logged into said Account in a while, but I just used it today so that coudln't be it. No, its far simpler (and dummer): They expect you to have atleast over 1000 Downloads on an App, and to Update your Apps on a "regular basis" (whatever that means). Yes there is also a rule about not login in in 180 days, but we know that can't prevent this bc I just used the Account today and even installed their android app to "proof" I have an Android device (which is new, they didn't asked me for it in the past). Still, my Account got closed (or suspended or whatever you wanna call this).
This is such a arbitray ruleing which dosn't benefit anyone; like I said, google has space for days, and I even proofed some legibility since I paid them and havn't charged back anything. And the best part: When I opened the dashboard of my demo-app entry I created in the past, it even noted I couln't update or get it started publishing since I had "problems with my Account". No shit sherlock! But how am I gonna fix these problems if you dont let me do the things that would fix them!?!?
I'm just tired of this. No other company does this bs (although I can't speak for Apple really since I don't own Apple devices and aparently you need one to even get started with publishing for their Store, but thats another can of worms). And I dont even know if I'm willing to open an support ticket at google to get my Account back. What I get from this is that google dosn't want you. I'm rather considering to exclusively publish on F-Droid (which I originally intended to do parallel to Google), since the majority of my software is opensource anyway.
At the end I'm just angry, sad and tired of this hostile behaviour of platforms against the creators that litterally hold up them, and is the reason why they make money in the first place.
