Nightmares of an Indie App Developer
The sun doesn't shine everyday
Most people think being an indie app developer is easy. You just have to make app and upload it. That’s it, or is it?
There are certain horrors associated to every job. Here are some that I and other people in this community has faced.
AdMob account getting disabled
Suppose a situation where your app makes majority of the money from AdMob. One day out of nowhere when you wake up and you see an email that says your AdMob account is disabled due to Invalid Activity. This is when you are in a serious problem.
When your AdMob account is disabled you cannot withdraw money from your account nor you are able to talk to any person at Google to resolve this issue. You have nothing but one option, which is sending an appeal to Google. Also note that your account is disabled because some stupid AI at Google thinks so. Your fate is sealed by a stupid AI.
Believe me on this, Google is the most irresponsible company I have ever seen for getting replies. You can’t talk to any damn person ever. All you have is hope, that one day your account will be reinstated.
Domain Name Registrar / Hosting Company going out of business
Sometimes many developers use cheap hosting services or cheap registrars. These companies may go out of business. And the developer is left with nothing but a hell lot of headache.
Keep yourself in such situation. You can be loosing shit lot of customers because your app isn’t able to communicate with the servers. Loads of bad reviews about your app on the app store. In short you are loosing all you ever earned in one night.
Data Breach
Suppose a hacker has hacked into your database and leaked lots of private data of your apps users openly on the web.
Frankly speaking, you are going to go bankrupt. Maybe face courtroom trials. You are in serious trouble. All you have ever earned will end up in your lawyers pocket, also your users pocket. You will be liable to pay compensation back to your users.
Other problems include
- Tax Issues
- Law issues (GDPR, .. etc.)
- Deactivation of App Store account
- Poor paperwork
All the problems above are problems that are more that just a bug in your code. And these are things you probably don’t know how to handle. I as an indie developer take help from the community. There’s a huge community of indie developers on Instagram. I recommend you to be an active member of such communities, because such relations are the ones that are ultimately going to help you out.
Now all you have to do is Grab A Coffee and review if you have made any mistakes above.
