[Gorbzel]

Google is basically acknowledging they don’t want and or care about portfolio/small utility/first time project apps on their store. This obviously isn’t a great look, especially when both companies nominally support educational and vocational efforts around app development. IMO, onus is on these companies to resolve the inherent contradiction here.

That said, it might be the right move. Despite some FUD in the comments that this will hinder indie devs or prevent the next Flappy Bird, such claims seem a bit exaggerated. Also, overcoming obstacles is part of the challenge of app development so if somehow this relatively low bar is the line too far…good riddance. Anecdotally, I’ve interviewed quite a few mobile developers with clear resume projects who then claim they’ve “published multiple apps to the [Play/App] store”; almost universally these candidates acknowledge without much pressing that said apps are unmaintained bitrot or even delisted due to some other unmet requirement anyhow.

I suppose the best argument is the same mentality that leads to spam on the store could be used to get around the 20 tester limit. Sure, but I’d expect that Google expects at least meaningful improvement even with malevolent actors, as that’s the new normal with such mitigations in any online marketplace these days.