Dear app developers,I have never had the desire to review an app.

[fisherpeter@mas.to]

@malwarejake Just give it one star and say you're doing it because the prompt to review is intrusive.

[sablebadger@dice.camp]

@malwarejake I've worked in mobile gaming for years. The reason they push so hard is because app store ranking has a DIRECT correlation to number of users coming into the app, and thus engagement and money.

The PM will push the prompt when they fix any issues that were dragging down metrics. New features can do that, but very often fixing a bug will do it too.

There is so much competition in app stores now-a-days, it's hard to break through.

As a user, I totally agree with you though. 100%

[pomegranate_stew@kind.social]

@malwarejake
The only app I ever reviewed was the one that declared that it needed to take my contacts with its next update. I read that, did not do the update, left a review saying why I was deleting it, and then did so.

[atomicbird@mastodon.social]

@malwarejake @robpike I agree, from a phone user’s perspective. But having been on the dev side, this happens because people pay attention to ratings and reviews. People optimize for the thing they’re judged by, so app developers need to get people doing this as long as people keep judging them by the result.

[yugthebug@mastodon.social]

@malwarejake
Hmm, they usually dont ask again if you go into the reviews area and then click cancel, orrrr just give a 1 star review due to their review begging

[argentum@mas.to]

@Kishi @mattblaze @jernej__s @malwarejake that is if your review even stands! I’ve had a couple of reviews taken down for “Violation of Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions”. I think devs report bad reviews to avoid their rating from going down.

[ohir@social.vivaldi.net]

@malwarejake
> I have never had the desire to review an app. Prompting me to leave a review doe not make me want to do it any more.

So you are helping the big corpos suffocate small independent app makers. Because reviews are the only way to have a few other people being given a chance to see this app name on their screen. The other way is to shell-out around a half a million dollars for ads and "promotions". App makers beg for reviews, because they are now are unable to outbid scammers.

[quantillion@mstdn.io]

@yugthebug @malwarejake
THAT would surely be the biggest risk to any incessant app-review reminders. Counter-productive.
I don't use many apps but I did give #MagicEarth 5*.

[enno@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@malwarejake "ask me later"

[chetman@hachyderm.io]

@malwarejake @robpike I absolutely ALWAYS do a review when asked in this fashion.

It is always a complete excoriation coupled with the lowest star rating available.

[gneilyo@mastodon.online]

@malwarejake Nag me for a review or a survey if you want some negative feedback

[barsk@infosec.exchange]

@kajer not showing any new user hints would require the app to save some data about you and remember that you have used the app before even if you uninstall the app. Would you be fine with this?

[kajer@infosec.exchange]

@barsk one would think a simple "are you new here? y/n" prompt wold be just fine.

OoBE should ALWAYS be optional. Always

[merovius@chaos.social]

@malwarejake @robpike Every time this annoys me, I leave a 1* review – they insisted, after all…

[yrrsinn@chaos.social]

@argentum @Kishi @mattblaze @jernej__s @malwarejake don't make the review to bad or hard. Give the app half the stars or points or whatever and note the review function brought you here. After that mention the usual problems of, e.g. package pickup boxes with bluetooth and their apps ...

[0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange]

@mattblaze @malwarejake someone observed to me recently that, even though the money to pay for the delivery ultimately came from you, delivery services don’t consider you, the recipient, their paying customer. It really stuck with me how it is a bit of a perverse incentive structure…

[simonzerafa@infosec.exchange]

@0xabad1dea @mattblaze @malwarejake

Ditto for Amazon reviews, or delivery reviews and ratings.

The package arrived. They already know this. Why ask me if it was good, bad or indifferent?! ‍️

[jon@activitypub.blankpad.net]

@mattblaze @malwarejake a little inside baseball: they prompt that way because that popup isn’t the review request. That’s the pre-review request, if you say no it’s all you’ll see, if you say yes they’ll then pop the OS review request dialogue having pre-filtered anyone who was going to leave a bad review. Yes, that’s as shady as it sounds.

[sldrant@mastodon.social]

@malwarejake @OpinionatedGeek I'm getting to the point of leaving 1 star reviews of "keeps insisting on a review"

[opinionatedgeek@mastodon.social]

@sldrant @malwarejake Funnily enough TrustPilot took down my review of a service where I said much the same thing you said. I gave up trusting TrustPilot after that.