I haven't tried the specific flow for private individuals (seems to just be a radio button), but I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees.
A bit silly to require for private individuals, and a bit annoying to have to go back and do, but not itself a big deal.
> I do recall getting DUNS numbers as just filling in an online form with name and location and getting the number by mail, without any hoops for fees
Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero hoops is too many. I got nothing out of having my apps on Google Play except the joy of sharing in what was at the time a new and exciting medium.
See Windows Phone for a great example of how it would have played out if Google hadn't successfully courted small-time devs like me and countless others. Corporate publishers would have never colonized Google Play in the first place if an audience wasn't already there. The way they addressed me makes it very clear that solo devs are no longer needed, so I will never submit to it on principle no matter how easy it's claimed to be.
Having to do it at all is the hoop, and more than zero hoops is too many.
For sure, but it's a KYC for companies. How else would you expect B2B dealings and compliance to go through? They could do tax ids per country, but with DUNS, compared to local tax id, they get global ultimate beneficial owner as well as other insights. Getting a DUNS is free and relatively fast, unless you're in a hurry then there's a faster route that costs some relatively cheap amount. It's a common ID for global companies, especially those with international supply chains to rely on as "the id number" for companies.
Doing business is orthogonal to being a company, and depending on your country, some "company" forms are just VAT filing registrations for an individual itself with no independent legal status. What you normally call a company is something that behaves as an independent legal person.
However, it may be legally required to register a proper company if your yearly business volume exceed a certain value - check local rules - but it may also be perfectly fine to do business as an individual below that volume, in which case the legal entity is just you.
(The alternative to being a business in a transaction is being a consumer)
No, you didn't read that wrong. It does seem like intention is that individuals cannot publish (publish, not write) software for playstore if they cannot operate as a business; Individuals actually can operate as a business as a sole proprietorship aka soleprop which can and do have a DUNS number and is a legit way of doing business. Individuals without any sort of business entity attached to them do not get a DUNS number attached to them.
Doing business and registering a company (a separate legal person) are orthogonal concepts that are specific to local legislation. You can do business as a private individual, and various "company" forms in various countries are not actually companies but just VAT/financial registrations for the individual itself and have no legal status of its own. Whether you need to register a company form depends on local rules and may be subject to e.g. volume limits (e.g., okay below 10k USD annual).
The alternative to being s business in s transaction is being a consumer (as in B2C), and you're obviously not a consumer when publishing an app.
Going through hoops usually refer to an excessive effort.
Having to go through between zero (it you have needed the number before) and one free forms from a standard entity to get a widely recognized identifier used for many things is objectively not an excessive effort.
Sharing apps on app stores is a continuous commitment with various responsibilities like, such as ensuring safety of users through regular maintenance. If the idea if submitting one number is too much of a burden given the joy/finances you get out of it, then the rest of the maintenance responsibilities likely are too and maybe it's better to skip the publishing part.
Not sure what you're on about with corporate colonization. Colonizing implies forcefully taking what was rightfully someone elses. Also, in many places, making a company is just a form and standard practice even if you're just going to sell a single bogus app for 0.99 USD or whatever, so even individuals will be "corporations".
While I believe some of the (App|Play Store) requirements with DUN numbers and such are overkill and unnecessary, I also agree that there’s maybe a bit too much of a tendency for devs (commercial and indie alike) to take advantage of less restrictive means of distribution to “dump and run”, where they toss a binary over the wall and forget the project even exists for long stretches of time, even as bugs and vulnerabilities accumulate.
This worked alright in the 90s and to a more limited extent in the 2000s, but from the 2010s onward it’s become more and more untenable except for the most simplistic of software, especially when it comes to anything dealing with the internet or externally sourced files. Regular maintenance and updates are an unavoidable fact of life for devs.
So I’m kind of two minds here. Lower resistance/barrier to entry can be good in terms of encouraging participation, but it also inevitably means a lot more neglected projects sitting around rusting. If there’s no effort to control that, platforms can easily become filled with rusty half-functional apps. The way that Apple/Google are attempting to do this is not great however because it’s too oriented towards companies.
No they were set out in the contract you agreed to when publishing which has commitments and grants entirely orthogonal to your source license. Plus certain moral obligations to society.
Your license text is only capable of adding supplementary rights, and you're responsible for ensuring that your source license is fully compatible with the contract at time of publishing.
If you just want to dump stuff, leave it on GitHub.
A bit silly to require for private individuals, and a bit annoying to have to go back and do, but not itself a big deal.