Google Play has delivered a festive announcement: starting December 26, 2024, all developers with bank accounts in Russia will be switched to the "no money, no service" mode. Final payouts will be made by January 15, 2025, and after that, their apps will stop generating revenue, no matter how many downloads they rack up. Even the "pay" button won’t help users anymore since transactions will simply be blocked.
If your bank account is in Russia, Google Play is effectively turning into "Google Stop." A perfect New Year’s motivation for Russian developers to explore new horizons—perhaps as snow removal specialists or pioneers of "birch-code" programming.
The instructions are simple: want money? Open accounts outside the country. As they say, problems with rubles? Solve them in rubles—or better yet, avoid them entirely.
