I agree that it is a little disappointing that there is no better protection scheme, and that the losses hurt.
A quick story: our app, PhoneMyPC, a PC remoting app is a combination application and hosted service. The phone and PC use our servers to cooperatively get connected for each remote control session. This makes PhoneMyPC ideal for people inside corporate firewalls, or who just don't want to bother configuring for RDP or VNC. We are nearing the end of a [protracted] Beta program. In the beginning, we were hosting on port 443. Several weeks ago we switched to a different port (temporarily), and kept both services running while users downloaded the new release. Most people moved to the new server within a week, but a large body (half of all connections using our service) never moved at all. After more than two weeks, we discontinued service on the old port, and there has not yet been a single support contact as a result. We made the decision to disconnect the old service even though it was still being well used because we discovered our app being sold illegally on one of the websites talked about in this group. So, our "retention for pay" rate is also about 70%, yet we believe as many as half of the people using our application (or at least possessing it) have acquired it outside of the Android Market (and hence are not automatically getting updates). For our purposes, Google could trivially enable us to protect our resources by adding any phone identifier into the Google Checkout records, such as phone number or IMEI, so that we could tie phones running our app back to thei purchase records. Scott, SoftwareForMe.com On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 8:12 AM, [email protected] < [email protected]> wrote: > > Regarding stats its very hard to get accurate numbers. > > You are right in that the app retention stat on the dev console can > help show loss of sales through point 2 below. > > On point 3, I can see on my order book that this results in the loss > of 15 - 20% of orders as I am in the UK - I believe this figure is > closer to 5% for US publishers. > > Loss of sales from points 1 and 4 is almost impossible to calculate - > thats why I guessed a total loss of 70% on sales from all these > factors combined ... > > 1. copy protection doesn't work - apps get hacked and redistributed > within 24 hours > 2. users backup apps to sdcard, refund and reinstall = no payment to > dev > 3. payments fail on international orders > 4. most countries still excluded from paid apps > > > And sadly if the hackers want your new features enough, e.g. a major > update, they will get it out to their minions within 24 hours. > > > -- Warm regards, The PhoneMyPC Team --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
