This is an excellent blog post and the conclusion makes me feel sad. Because there are so many apps that I feel that way about. Where I just wish there was a version that was crap free. The amount of work that went into this is awe inspiring.
I launched a much simpler iOS app, and eventually got up to around 1000 DAU organically, but ultimately closed it down because I had 1 IAP to remove ads for like $1.99 or $2.99. I was making maybe $70 a month or something, and dealing with bug reports. SwiftUI was not mature enough yet to use, so I was still using UIKit and I would constantly run into really hard to fix edge cases.
The thing that made me throw in the towel was when Google claimed I was clicking my own ads and stopped serving them, effectively cutting off all revenue. It made me realize I'd worked so hard to build this thing, and it was all at the whims of these tech giants. Apple gets a 30% cut (this was before they dropped it to 15% if you are doing under x amount per year "because COVID") of every IAP, I make peanuts from ads and Google can turn those off for no reason with no way to appeal.
I also wasn't trying to make a bunch of money off the app, but I needed to justify spending my time and energy on it and I just couldn't.
>>Google claimed I was clicking my own ads and stopped serving them, effectively cutting off all revenue.
This draconian buyllshirt is baffling
Why can Google simply allow developers to register a list of $Revenue_Excluded devices and/or IP ranges and/or locations? You will inevitably use your own app and many ads are almost impossible to NOT click accidentally when scrolling. Moreover, testing in real life is important. There's also the (small) chance an advert might actually be interesting and you legit click-thru as a potential customer.
Instead, you basically cannot use your own app.
What good does this do for anyone, except for the Google devs/mgrs who insist on this kind of fundamentally stupid policy? Is it really that hard to do it even a little bit right?
I mean, I had a development flag where it wasn't serving real ads when I was in development mode and the copy I had installed on my own phone had the IAP active to remove ads. There is no chance I was clicking my own ads. The revenue from ads was literally peanuts anyways, I don't even think I ever saw a cent of ad revenue (you have to hit a certain amount before they will even send you a check) the ads were basically only there to get people to pay the small one time fee to remove them.
If I did get an ad payout, it was likely < $100. I honestly don't remember, I've put so much of this out of my mind.
I launched a much simpler iOS app, and eventually got up to around 1000 DAU organically, but ultimately closed it down because I had 1 IAP to remove ads for like $1.99 or $2.99. I was making maybe $70 a month or something, and dealing with bug reports. SwiftUI was not mature enough yet to use, so I was still using UIKit and I would constantly run into really hard to fix edge cases.
The thing that made me throw in the towel was when Google claimed I was clicking my own ads and stopped serving them, effectively cutting off all revenue. It made me realize I'd worked so hard to build this thing, and it was all at the whims of these tech giants. Apple gets a 30% cut (this was before they dropped it to 15% if you are doing under x amount per year "because COVID") of every IAP, I make peanuts from ads and Google can turn those off for no reason with no way to appeal.
I also wasn't trying to make a bunch of money off the app, but I needed to justify spending my time and energy on it and I just couldn't.