UPDATE 11Aug2023: Due to the public outcry over the stupid way they tried to implement their new pricing policy, Google announced today that they are delaying the implementation until October 1, 2023, and have reverted to their previous rules. Therefore, we quickly opened up access to SmartPitch until October 1 to all the countries that we previously serviced.
ORIGINAL BLOG POST 4Aug2023
Google suddenly imposed extortionist pricing on August 1 that has forced SmartPitch to no longer offer our revolutionary sports speed gun app to new users in many countries effective immediately. The pricing Google imposed on August 1 would raise our Google cloud costs by 1000 times if we took no action.
No one who currently has SmartPitch installed on their phones is affected. These highway robbery phone charges from Google only affect new, prospective users.
We are a very small startup, and the pricing Google imposed on August 1 would raise our Google cloud costs by 1000 times if we took no action. Google suddenly forced a policy on us that charges SmartPitch a completely exploitative, ridiculously expensive fee every time a user activates SmartPitch from the app stores using their mobile phone number. Poor babies; I guess NASDAQ:GOOGL just doesn't already rake in enough money.
The costs vary tremendously by country, with charges for some countries 33x the cost imposed for the United States and Canada. We had no choice but to no longer offer SmartPitch in those countries where Google charges these extortionist rates. If we didn't, we would suddenly lose a great deal of money on every new activation from those countries.
This change will affect prospective new SmartPitch users in a list of countries that currently account for between 10% to 20% of our global new SmartPitch users.
We are sorry if you can no longer download and use SmartPitch simply because you are in the countries where Google has decided to rip us and you off.
We are working on adding an alternative version of SmartPitch: one that only uses email for activation. Google hasn't decided to rip us off for emails, yet, so that will bypass their new money grab. But that will take some time and will not be available immediately.
Meanwhile, anyone who currently has SmartPitch installed on their phones is not affected. These highway robbery phone charges only affect new users.
We look forward to welcoming the whole world back to SmartPitch shortly!!!