Hi, I like Flowx and would like to make a subscription on my Murena Fairphone 4 (murena.com), but Murena is based on /e/ OS which is a degoogled Android - which means that I do not have access to the Play Store. Is there any alternative to place a subscription even without play store?
Thanks and regards
Sorry, subscriptions are only supported on Google Play and the App Store at the moment.
Ok, certainly you can imagine that this was not the answer I was looking for… - but you say “at the moment”. Is there any payment alternative in your roadmap?
One day I plan to got to desktop and/or the web which doesn’t use either of these store so I’ll have to consider an alternative payment system but neither the desktop or web has a timeline - just the future.
I’ve used Linux for 20+ years and have played with custom-ROMs through time so I understand the want to de-google. But developing and managing my own payment option is not an easy task and is difficult to justify at this stage.
Complying with App Store/Google Play policies if also a mine field. I heard I cannot charge more on the stores compared to an alternative platform otherwise they will kick you off.
Incidentally, I’ve looked into Amazon and Huawei app stores too, and although they are much easier to implement than my own payment system, it is still hard to justify the time.
I do understand that the implementation of another payment systems would take a lot of time but would (maybe) not bring the same effort. Nevertheless, a subscription possibility via Amazon appstore would make me happy ;-).
Can you install Amazon app store on de-googled phones?
Cool. That gives me an extra reason to setup on the Amazon Store.
The only disadvantage of the Amazon Appstore are the very long distances between app updates in comparison to the updates in the Play Store 
That I suspect is due to the developer. Developing/maintaining releases across multiple stores is not easy. My recent Apple release was just rejected an hour ago.
I’m developing Flowx using Kotlin Multiplatform so I can target multiple platforms with one code base. It seems to work. But I still have to manage different stores with more and more policies. I wish there were many options of cross-platform app stores. This app store platform lock-out needs to be broken. This will open the market for others to come in with competitive offerings. Currently, when there is only one Goggle Play store and one App Store on their respective platforms, they can easily discard the developer and the user. In 1012 when I released Flowx, it was so much easier.
I can’t wait to release a desktop/web version to see the contrast between an open platform vs a big-tech closed platform.
On my de-googled phone I got some apps which I paid outside Play Store. For example MLO (MyLifeOrganized) from Ukraine.
The free version can be downloaded from the Play Store, the Pro version can be bought on the website.
If you want to buy the Pro version, you have to do this on their website.
You cannot imagine how happy I was when I mentioned that these 2 apps were still working after my change to /e/ OS as both apps are very imortant for me since a couple of years. Those apps I bought in the play store I only can use in the free version now. That hurts.
Hi Duane, I just want to inform you about the changements inside /e/OS concerning apps bought in the play store. It is possible now to use these apps in their full version (if you allow Google to have access to your device, of course…) EXCEPT subscriptions.
So I am still not able to make use of the Gold subscription I booked half a year ago - I have cancelled the subscription yesterday… although I saw it as a way to support your work which I do like very much.
Sorry for this.
Sorry I can’t support subscriptions outside of the Google Play. It’s such a mine field to do stuff outside of Google Play where I don’t break any Google Play rules. There was a ruling recently in the Epic v Google case, but even then, it’s still a bit of work supporting multiple payment methods. There is a lot of work meeting all their requirements and policies. As a sole developer, I simply can’t at this stage.
I have just ported to Apple and now the number of policies and requirements I have to meet have doubled.
I would love if they unbundled payment platforms from the platform so third party services can come into play. Now Apple and Google dominate, they have no incentive to make life easier for us developers.
I would love to see a ubiquitous cross-platform store. It would more than halve my work load.
BTW, I’m happy to refund your money.
