"Currently, developers in the below countries may register as Google Checkout merchants and sell paid applications. We're working hard to add more countries, but we're unable to provide any guidance on timelines.
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Singapore
Spain
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States"
>The move appears to be related to new, restrictive regulations the Argentine government has imposed on currency exchanges, which The Telegraph[1] detailed this past September.
Note that [1] is titled "Damming dollar flood comes at a huge cost to Argentine economy". Seems like it's a reasonable possibility, though I can't say I understand Argentine economics.
This is really bad news for latin american developers, as far as I know, Argentina was one of the few latin american countries that were able to sell in the Play Store and now it's gone. It kind of kills my hope that they may eventually give support to my country.
I know I can establish an LLC in US to fix this, but it is something that we would rather not to do. It is kind of a bummer that Google makes it so difficult to do business in certain countries.
Its not a big issue since we (Argentines) can open a company in Uruguay which is pretty close, or even a LLC online (U$S 250 per year). And probably most people doesn't know, but then we can get U$S in a bank account in Uruguay, and instead of change them for Argentine pesos in the Argentine banks (AR$ 5 = U$S 1), we can sell it on the street (AR$ 9 = U$S 1), and earn a 80% revenue because of stupid laws, crazy, right?
The main problem we have now, is that the government spends a lot of money on social plans to get people to vote them (instead of creating real jobs, obama care?), and they steal too much money as well (google for "Lázaro Báez", "Raúl Copetti", "Rudy Olloa" among others) that they ended with an artificial inflation of 25% every year. So people started to buy U$S and other currencies to be able to save their money, and the government cut this right from the people (so they make you by law, to save your money in AR$, and your money will be devaluated 25% every year, you can invest if you have enough money, if you do well, the government takes 50% on your earnings, if you do bad, the government doesn't give you the 50% of the looses, and good luck having enough revenue from your investments in order to avoid loosing the annual 25% :P).
I also have to mention that even when we are in a capitalist economy, the politicians in Argentine says all the time that we have a big economic problem because of evil business people, who run the business and increase the prices and make all this inflation problem, so while most of the countries in Latin America got thousands of millions of dollars in investments (and like Uruguay, they are starting to create laws to avoid so much money getting into the country so quickly), we don't know what to do or how to get foreign investments into the country. Why would you invest in Argentine if they are going to tell you that the inflation is your fault, that you are evil and most important, they won't let you to get your revenue to other country if you want to? So they had a brilliant idea on the last week, they are creating a law where everyone can get U$S to Argentine, they are going to give you a "bond" in exchange, and if the money came from drug deals, terrorism or whatever, it doesn't mind, the government is going to do the laundry service that the mafia usually do, for free!!!
Anyway, Argentine is getting aligned to countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, and its following their politics, nothing good can came from that, but what can you expect from a government that used to put bombs on the street and kill innocent civilians? I would never ever understand how these people got into the government, or how these people ended giving "Ethic" classes in public universities, real story. Our last defense minister was an active member of "Montoneros", a terrorist organization in Argentine, they killed members of the military, they put bombs on the street where they killed civilians, tortured military members (google for "coronel Larrabure") and she ended being the defense minister? Can you imagine Al Qaeda member managing the USA Army?
Our president, who talks all the time about the last military government and human rights, made a lot of money with that government by using the "Martinez de Hoz" law, so she worked for the banks, she put pressure to the poor people that couldn't pay his house loans, and told them "You are going to loose your house, and you won't get any money, or you can sell me the money for pennies, and I'll take care of the debt", and then went to talk with his clients (the banks) and get a better deal for the current house loan, that's the way she got rich, after stealing money from the poors, she and her husband got into politics, being a governor of a State (Province, Santa Cruz) they sold by law a company that is call YPF to private holders, and took all the money under their name out of the country in U$S (and now she said that U$S is an evil currency), we never saw that money again, she got elected president, and now she said that Menem government was worng (another dumb ass who gave all the government companies away and did a lot of corruption things), and bough YPF back for a lot of money. Now the company is filled with a lot of persons that just support her government, they steal a lot of money and we import most of the petroleum we consume (being a petroleum producer, we have to import petroleum).
And most people in Argentine loves Kichner (54%) in the same way most people here loves Obama, so start paying a lot of attention to what's going on in Argentine, because you have the same kind of "Populist Government" that we had on many countries in Latin America for over the last years.
I also forgot to talk about security, it doesn't exist, a uncle of my girlfriend (crazy uncle) made her wife to starve to death, he tied her to bed and waited until she died. He got 14 years on jail, then he went out and formed a new family. People who does violent robberies or whatever, they got into the police station and get released to the next day, last day, one person went with a gun into a federal court, the police got him, and he spent on the police station a couple of hours, threating all the people saying that we belonged to "La Campora", an organization that supports Cristina Kincher and was founded by his son. If you get robbed in Argentine, you usually say "Thank you" to the robbers because they didn't take your life, and they do it a lot, all the time, common business in Argentine. At this point, we would love to have a "Second Amendment", the right to have a gun and defend ourselves, pretty bad we never had it. You have this right and you are going to give it away, smart move.
And by the way, if you start seeing a lot of smart Argentine developers in USA, don't get surprised, we are trying to get away from the country while we still have the right to do it (if we leave the country, then we loose all our money, no way to buy foreign currency even if you decide to leave the country).
Probably I did a big offtopic, I just wanted to share what's the current situation in Argentine, and what's going on in Latin America.
Perhaps the main reason for Google Play is the current laws restriction for getting foreign currencies and to get the money out of the country.
Google has other business in Argentine as well (as google ad sense), but on the last months we also have restrictions to buy things in dollars with our credit cards, to extract money from foreign ATM (most people were going to Uruguay to extract U$S from the ATM), and the government is trying to avoid by force to let people or companies to take the money out of Argentine.
> The main problem we have now, is that the government spends a lot of money on social plans to get people to vote them (instead of creating real jobs, obama care?)
So, even when it's not clear what caused this change in Google Play, you're blaming the government.
> what can you expect from a government that used to put bombs on the street and kill innocent civilians?
What?
> And most people in Argentine loves Kichner (54%) in the same way most people here loves Obama
It's called democracy. It works pretty well in most countries.
> At this point, we would love to have a "Second Amendment", the right to have a gun and defend ourselves, pretty bad we never had it
You can legally own a gun in Argentina.
Please, try to improve the quality of the information you bring here, so we can have a rational discussion about this news, which in essence is a change in Google Play that affects developers in Argentina. At this point, everything else is speculation.
So, now it seems that is Google who has to explain the reasons of this move. If I had to guess, I would say that those countries didn't represent a big market for them to support. But we won't know the reason behind this until Google reports one.
Looks like Cristina is following in the footsteps of Chavez. I hope Argentina can open its eyes before they get to the point Venezuela is. Right now we even have a shortage of toilet paper so you can imagine what it's like here rig
now.
We (Venezuela) are an oil producing country with constant power outages, food and basics shortage, 25+% inflation and 21k violent deaths last year only. Wake up Argentina.
(sorry about the multiple posts, something wrong with my browser)
My bullshit de tectector is twiddling. 1) Uruguay is only close to BsAs 2) passing everything on the Kirchners without talking of either the dictature or Menem and the mess he created seems a bit disonhest, because there is no simple way out 3) don't forget that Cuba and Venezuela are actively sabotaged by the most powerful country in the world, we have no independent mesure of their government actions without foreign interference.
There is no easy way out for Argentina, and fleeing the country being for Chile or the US is not helping anything.
Could you do us a favor and make this a bit easier to read by breaking it in to paragraphs by separating them with a blank line? It looks to be a valuable post, but the formatting makes it extra work to read, and some people may skip over it as a result. Thanks.
Getting the fuck out was a smart move. You did the right thing, don't worry about clueless sheeple bleating about how leaving "doesn't help". It does. It helps you, and possibly your family too.
You need a US bank account, social security number, a permanent address, etc. I'd be pleasantly surprised if you could do it without spending at least 10k.
[+] [-] fmariluis|13 years ago|reply
That leaves out Chile and Uruguay as well, so this change appears to be unrelated to the current situation in Argentina.
[+] [-] molmalo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seppo0010|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Groxx|13 years ago|reply
Note that [1] is titled "Damming dollar flood comes at a huge cost to Argentine economy". Seems like it's a reasonable possibility, though I can't say I understand Argentine economics.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/9565126/Damming-d...
[+] [-] braco_alva|13 years ago|reply
I know I can establish an LLC in US to fix this, but it is something that we would rather not to do. It is kind of a bummer that Google makes it so difficult to do business in certain countries.
[+] [-] jstalin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpgmaker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorra|13 years ago|reply
The main problem we have now, is that the government spends a lot of money on social plans to get people to vote them (instead of creating real jobs, obama care?), and they steal too much money as well (google for "Lázaro Báez", "Raúl Copetti", "Rudy Olloa" among others) that they ended with an artificial inflation of 25% every year. So people started to buy U$S and other currencies to be able to save their money, and the government cut this right from the people (so they make you by law, to save your money in AR$, and your money will be devaluated 25% every year, you can invest if you have enough money, if you do well, the government takes 50% on your earnings, if you do bad, the government doesn't give you the 50% of the looses, and good luck having enough revenue from your investments in order to avoid loosing the annual 25% :P).
I also have to mention that even when we are in a capitalist economy, the politicians in Argentine says all the time that we have a big economic problem because of evil business people, who run the business and increase the prices and make all this inflation problem, so while most of the countries in Latin America got thousands of millions of dollars in investments (and like Uruguay, they are starting to create laws to avoid so much money getting into the country so quickly), we don't know what to do or how to get foreign investments into the country. Why would you invest in Argentine if they are going to tell you that the inflation is your fault, that you are evil and most important, they won't let you to get your revenue to other country if you want to? So they had a brilliant idea on the last week, they are creating a law where everyone can get U$S to Argentine, they are going to give you a "bond" in exchange, and if the money came from drug deals, terrorism or whatever, it doesn't mind, the government is going to do the laundry service that the mafia usually do, for free!!!
Anyway, Argentine is getting aligned to countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, and its following their politics, nothing good can came from that, but what can you expect from a government that used to put bombs on the street and kill innocent civilians? I would never ever understand how these people got into the government, or how these people ended giving "Ethic" classes in public universities, real story. Our last defense minister was an active member of "Montoneros", a terrorist organization in Argentine, they killed members of the military, they put bombs on the street where they killed civilians, tortured military members (google for "coronel Larrabure") and she ended being the defense minister? Can you imagine Al Qaeda member managing the USA Army?
Our president, who talks all the time about the last military government and human rights, made a lot of money with that government by using the "Martinez de Hoz" law, so she worked for the banks, she put pressure to the poor people that couldn't pay his house loans, and told them "You are going to loose your house, and you won't get any money, or you can sell me the money for pennies, and I'll take care of the debt", and then went to talk with his clients (the banks) and get a better deal for the current house loan, that's the way she got rich, after stealing money from the poors, she and her husband got into politics, being a governor of a State (Province, Santa Cruz) they sold by law a company that is call YPF to private holders, and took all the money under their name out of the country in U$S (and now she said that U$S is an evil currency), we never saw that money again, she got elected president, and now she said that Menem government was worng (another dumb ass who gave all the government companies away and did a lot of corruption things), and bough YPF back for a lot of money. Now the company is filled with a lot of persons that just support her government, they steal a lot of money and we import most of the petroleum we consume (being a petroleum producer, we have to import petroleum).
And most people in Argentine loves Kichner (54%) in the same way most people here loves Obama, so start paying a lot of attention to what's going on in Argentine, because you have the same kind of "Populist Government" that we had on many countries in Latin America for over the last years. I also forgot to talk about security, it doesn't exist, a uncle of my girlfriend (crazy uncle) made her wife to starve to death, he tied her to bed and waited until she died. He got 14 years on jail, then he went out and formed a new family. People who does violent robberies or whatever, they got into the police station and get released to the next day, last day, one person went with a gun into a federal court, the police got him, and he spent on the police station a couple of hours, threating all the people saying that we belonged to "La Campora", an organization that supports Cristina Kincher and was founded by his son. If you get robbed in Argentine, you usually say "Thank you" to the robbers because they didn't take your life, and they do it a lot, all the time, common business in Argentine. At this point, we would love to have a "Second Amendment", the right to have a gun and defend ourselves, pretty bad we never had it. You have this right and you are going to give it away, smart move.
And by the way, if you start seeing a lot of smart Argentine developers in USA, don't get surprised, we are trying to get away from the country while we still have the right to do it (if we leave the country, then we loose all our money, no way to buy foreign currency even if you decide to leave the country).
[+] [-] rorra|13 years ago|reply
Perhaps the main reason for Google Play is the current laws restriction for getting foreign currencies and to get the money out of the country.
Google has other business in Argentine as well (as google ad sense), but on the last months we also have restrictions to buy things in dollars with our credit cards, to extract money from foreign ATM (most people were going to Uruguay to extract U$S from the ATM), and the government is trying to avoid by force to let people or companies to take the money out of Argentine.
So it may be related to our laws.
[+] [-] fmariluis|13 years ago|reply
So, even when it's not clear what caused this change in Google Play, you're blaming the government.
> what can you expect from a government that used to put bombs on the street and kill innocent civilians?
What?
> And most people in Argentine loves Kichner (54%) in the same way most people here loves Obama
It's called democracy. It works pretty well in most countries.
> At this point, we would love to have a "Second Amendment", the right to have a gun and defend ourselves, pretty bad we never had it
You can legally own a gun in Argentina.
Please, try to improve the quality of the information you bring here, so we can have a rational discussion about this news, which in essence is a change in Google Play that affects developers in Argentina. At this point, everything else is speculation.
[+] [-] molmalo|13 years ago|reply
(Spanish) http://faqsandroid.com/google-retira-a-chile-y-mas-paises-de...
(English) http://translate.google.com.ar/translate?sl=es&tl=en&...
So, now it seems that is Google who has to explain the reasons of this move. If I had to guess, I would say that those countries didn't represent a big market for them to support. But we won't know the reason behind this until Google reports one.
[+] [-] rafaelm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nraynaud|13 years ago|reply
There is no easy way out for Argentina, and fleeing the country being for Chile or the US is not helping anything.
[+] [-] onemorepassword|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zak|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cachuzo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] white_devil|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] seppo0010|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] demian|13 years ago|reply
"Educated" latin americans are expected to be able to, at least, read english. More so in tech fields.
[+] [-] jarjoura|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcosdumay|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wslh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markdown|13 years ago|reply
You need a US bank account, social security number, a permanent address, etc. I'd be pleasantly surprised if you could do it without spending at least 10k.
[+] [-] seppo0010|13 years ago|reply
But it's a huge turn off for indie developers.
[+] [-] coopdam|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdfaf|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] coopdam|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]