-=> Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

 AT> But Rubbermaid still thrives outside of Walmart.

Only as a name.  The original company is long gone.

What happened was that Rubbermaid depended too much on Walmart.  Walmart
demanded a price cut at the same time that the price for their raw materials
went up.  So they said "No" to Walmart, who then proceeded to punish Rubbermaid
by placing their products in non-obvious areas of the store.  The end result
was a major sales drop for Rubbermaid leading to its bankruptcy.

All that's left is good lesson to not be dependent on any distrubutor/retailer
to get your product out.

 AT> If I made an online
 AT> marketplace app called "Junglezon," it wouldn't thrive without a
 AT> presence on The Google Play Store.

Maybe.  Maybe not.  It depends on your app and your market.

For Android, many people know how to "side-load" the APK via the web.  Then you
have apps like F-Prot which offer a non-Google app store.

So if your market is the more tech savvy, you can exist without the Google Play
Store.  If your market is the less tech savvy, then, ya, you need Google.
But those are business decisions.

I'm remembering back to MS-DOS and Lotus 1-2-3 days.  Lotus sold for hundreds
of dollars so people pirated it.  Lotus was, of course, mad.  But it
illustrates how business decisions **should** be made.  If it costs you $100 to
make a product, but the market will only pay $75 for it, you simply don't make
the product.  That's what Lotus' problem was: They charged far more than the
market wanted and there was rampant piracy.  And when a single programmer came
out with a clone called AsEasyAs (like "As easy as 1-2-3") and charged $30 for
it (and it worked better), it took the wind out of Lotus' sails (sales?) to
justify the multi-hundred dollar charge for Lotus 1-2-3.

So if you are an app developer and you don't like Google's Play Store, you can
always do something else.  If no apps are sold through the Play Store, Google
doesn't make money.

 AT> Computer-saavy people know about f-Android, the APK Pure, etc, but no
 AT> business with an app on those platforms can seriously compete with
 AT> competitors on The Google Play Store.

Then, as a business, you decide whether it worth your time/effort to put up
with it.  I know businesses who decided to not have an app because of the
Google and Apple policies in their app stores.

 AT> I've never had a problem with compromised passwords. Even if a hacker
 AT> obtained my password to something, there's not much damage that can be
 AT> done with it. 2 factor authentication is fine, but the 2nd factor ought
 AT> to include an option for a secondary email address. (That way people
 AT> can leave their phone at home and check their email from a friend's
 AT> device.)

But, to the dismay of us with more tech knowledge, companies are compelled to
build systems for the far less tech savvy.

I share your frustration with the 2 factor stuff.  I ran into the same problem
when setting up my new phone.  But the sad thing is that most people who use
tech do not understand it.


... If you want the last word with a woman, apologize.
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