November 1st 2020 / 'Account Hold' : is it mandatory to display an explanatory message to 'Account Hold' users? [closed]

Question

It is mentioned here that a proper management of the 'Account Hold' status is required by November 1st, 2020.

The doc says here : "When a user enters into account hold, you should leverage Real-time developer notifications to inform your user why access to the subscription was suspended. Within your app, you should provide a message with instructions on how to fix their payment method and regain access to the subscription. Your message should include a link to the Google Play subscription settings so that they can fix their payment method. "

The problem is that the doc also says here that it is not possible to differentiate the 3 statutes 'On Hold' 'Paused' 'Expired' if we use no backend server (+ RTDN and PubSub)

As we would really prefer not using backend server and RTDN, we wonder:

1. is it is really required to display a message to the user informing him/her that the subscription is Account Hold ?
2. if answer to 1) is 'yes', do we have to display a specific message for the 'Account Hold' status or can we display a message that covers the 3 statutes 'On Hold' 'Paused' 'Expired' ? (so that we can avoid the use of a backend server+RTDN)
3. do we have to display the message to the user only if he/she launches the app, or do we have to push a notification ?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Sarpedon

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it concerns the policies and procedures of app distribution services, rather than programming. Please refer to: Are developer-centric questions about application stores on topic?‍, Why can't I ask customer service-related questions? – Congelation

This is a useful question. Why closed? – Cranston

Answer 1

Good question!

No, it's not required to display a message in-app about the user being in the 'account hold' state. If your app doesn't have a backend server that utilizes RTDN, BillingClient.queryPurchases() will still return all the active subscriptions for the user. So if an user's subscription was in the 'account hold' state, the subscription would not return as part of BillingClient.queryPurchases()

We recommend utilizing RTDN because it could allow your app to inform users why their subscription is in the 'account hold' state, but we also understand that not all developers have the bandwidth to also build out their own backend server just for this purpose.

Adrea

So can I continue without using RTDN even with the mandatory changes to the subscription break? I am not able to maintain a back end just for that at the moment, but I will integrate soon when I get the minimum profitability to maintain. – Maller