Can I Buy Dispatch Outside of Google Play?
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Peter Rabbit
Hello, I'm really excited about this project, and I want to give the developers money. I was wondering if it's possible to buy it outside of Google Play, so they don't take 30% or whatever? I think this was sued into existence, wasn't it?
Tangentially related: Can I buy a license per device? It seems like usually you buy an app and you can install it on multiple devices. I'm going to install Dispatch on 2 Chromecasts, but I wanted to be fair about it.
I did some Googling/Stack Overflowing, it seems like it might be possible, but might be difficult to develop and probably annoying for consumers.
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Similar to this request, I would also love to be able to make the purchase from a standard android device on the same account as I don't allow any payments from my android tv.
Paul Dhaliwal
Hello! Thanks for the generous sentiment.
For now, though, no it cannot be bought outside of Google Play. I'm fairly certain, but not 100% certain (because the legal language is confusing, and I keep procrastinating on thoroughly analyzing it), that Google would / could take action against accounts that sell something that has no function when not used on Android, without using Google Play as a payment processor. I believe Apple has a similar system in place.
Basically, if the app is not exclusively available on Android, I cannot circumvent the 15% cut (down from 30% previously.)
I do have tentative plans to go multiplatform at some point, if everything goes well. 95% of the time while developing, I'm running Dispatch natively on my mac (then I move over to Android for testing.)
Anyway, at that point, if I start making Dispatch available to buy on other platforms, I think I'm allowed to use a third party payment processor.
If anyone knows more about this than me and wants to correct me, please do! Anyway, I'm hyper focused on fixing issues for users etc... so this won't be something I change anytime soon.
Thanks again for the generosity, though!
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Peter Rabbit
Oh good, it's down to 15%. This app in particular would probably draw attention because you're replacing valuable ad space anyway. Keep up the good work, it's really appreciated.
TexasYeti
Paul Dhaliwal
I know niagara launcher allows for payment off platform. I assume because its Free with an in app upgrade.
I'd love to see this as the main UI for a linux distribution/GrapheneOS . That can kind of be accomplished using Android via Waydroid in VSO out of the box in Vanilla OS 2 Orchid.
HTPCs just dont have many options.