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Why is Google allowed to remove purchases from our Play Store accounts without telling us?
(www.androidpolice.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
As far as im concerned, the equivalent here, should be a raw downloadable file. Much like how music purchases work.
Anything other than that simply isn't "buying"
I recall purchasing Photoshop for Android, before it became Lightroom for Android.
It was as close to the desktop Photoshop as you could get, and it wasn't cheap.
Google (or adobe) took it out of the play store, effectively cutting customers off and preventing them from installing it on new devices.
Fortunately, I was rooted at the time and backed up the APK, which allowed me to use it for years longer and on newer devices. But the experience really had be second guessing whether I should keep "buying" apps on the play store.
There are quite a few other instances where games and apps I purchased simply disappeared. Such an unethical business model.
You don't need root to extract apks.
True, but as I recall it was more than just the APK that I needed to backup/restore to get it to work.
It was so many years ago, so I really don't remember the details, but the point was without a backup, I'd have lost access to the app I paid for.