The messaging app Conversations, which began life in a dorm room on Android, is no longer charging for its app. The developer describes the change as an end to a ten-year bond with Google Play, citing mounting frustration with the platform’s review system as the reason behind it.
Today marks exactly twelve and a half years since the app’s first release on March 24, 2014. The developer originally created it as an open-source project meant to address his personal needs, and before long he had made it his primary means of communicating with friends.
The Business Built on Play Store Revenue
The developer did not create the business model of sharing source code publicly while charging for a compiled binary. That approach was uncommon in 2014, yet he embraced it for Conversations.
Throughout its history, money has arrived from many places. During the app’s earliest period, paid development jobs for firms that wanted to use Conversations were a large share of the income. A few companies paid for additions that found their way into the main release; other firms wanted custom additions so particular to their own processes that it would never have worked to fold them back into the main codebase.
Sometimes the work drew in server setup and consulting on instant messaging and security matters. Grants and funding chances grew into a larger part of the picture later, with backing arriving from NLnet234 and the European Commission5.
The revenue from the Play Store came steadily but surprisingly. The developer used to say it paid his rent. Freelancers understand the sense of uncertainty that follows sending invoices only every few months or getting paid at the close of funding periods. A steady income, particularly when there’s nothing saved up yet, counts as a real blessing.
A Toxic Relationship With Google
Google and the developer never got along well. Updates to his app have been denied again and again, for reasons that remained unclear to him. The app Conversations has been pulled from the Play Store on two separate occasions, including one removal that followed an accusation that he uploaded users’ contacts without a specific update serving as the trigger for the complaint.
An actual human conversation lasting five minutes would have resolved so much confusion quickly, he says. Instead, he found himself dealing with AIs and click workers.
When this was written, he had been waiting for a full 14 days for Google to review an app update. Review times have never been good or close to acceptable, and they have grown steadily worse over the last year or so. One likely cause is an avalanche of AI-generated slop apps, something Google helped create in the first place. Google ought to prioritize long-standing, non-AI-generated apps with infrequent updates. Delaying security updates by days or weeks is outright dangerous, since Google makes no distinction between feature updates and security updates.
Why Google’s Fees Were Too Much to Bear
Some context would be helpful here: Google takes a 15% share of app sales. This works out to him paying Google more than 1000 Euro annually for its services.
- 1000 Euro per year is 1.5x what he is paying for internet access.
- It is roughly what he is paying for his notebook per year if you assume he uses it for three to four years.
- When his internet breaks, someone drives to his house and fixes it.
- When his notebook breaks, someone drives to his house and fixes it.
- When Google fucks up, there is absolutely nothing he can do.
That sum of money, he claims, does not grant him the right to speak with a person for five minutes once per year.
He has long felt trapped in a poisonous partnership with Google, held together by economic dependence. Gradually, that reliance changed shape. His means of support drifted increasingly toward grants, from NLnet234 and the European Commission5, with stable financing through various grants until the end of 2029, and certainty that additional funding chances will appear later on.
F-Droid Became the Primary Route
The F-Droid version of Conversations has long existed, yet at first the developer kept quiet about the choice to download it for nothing. The package maintainers there first sought his consent, aware that Conversations carried a fee on Google Play.
Instead of refusing, he chose not to add a link to F-Droid on the official website, directing users toward the paid version instead. Later, as his feelings about Google worsened, he began linking to F-Droid. Today, F-Droid serves as the main way the app gets passed around, with the APK built reproducibly and signed with his own personal signing key.
The person who built Conversations continues to take care of it. They no longer rely on income from the Google Play Store. They say Google no longer deserves their support or their money, and they are finished with it. They have also made a statement against those who control access, calling them gatekeepers.
What Changed
The developer’s story is one of gradual liberation. He turned a dorm-room project into a business, then freed the app from Google’s fees after years of frustration with its review system. The shift to F-Droid as the primary distribution channel means the app is no longer tied to the Play Store.
F-Droid now hosts the app, and users may obtain it at no cost there. The developer reports that the APK is presently constructed in a manner that allows for verification of its construction process, and that it carries his personal signing key.
The developer made his position plain: he discovered a means to spread Conversations without leaning upon a platform that kept letting him down.
Source material: “Breaking Up with Google Play: Why Conversations Is Now Free,” gultsch.de.
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