> Google Ads and Apple's Developer Program. If you want to acquire users and distribute a mobile app, you're paying the toll to Mountain View and Cupertino.

If you said Play Store, then sure, though at least distribution on there is free. But you said Google Ads, which you really do not need to acquire users. Returns on Google Ads were already low, and have only continued getting worse and worse. I'm sure someone here claims to be a magician at it and believes they can get a fantastic RoI out of it, and I'm sure some can. But the huge majority doesn't. It's very much like day trading stocks.

There's a huge number of other, better avenues for paid marketing if you want to do it.

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apublicfrog 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Different industries have different customers with different needs and funnels.

None of my businesses use a "sign in with..." option and I highly doubt it would increase conversions, however the article and many commenters here are adament (based on their experience) that it is integral.

I'm not sure it's day trading per se, I think it's just a lot more relevant to some industries/products than others.

	▲	deaux 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		OP is talking about apps distributed through App/Play Store though. After a certain size in B2B services, sure, you can do Google Ads. But even for B2B it makes no sense to start out with it unless you're a hot startup raising big rounds. The RoI isn't there in 2026, the juice has been squeezed.

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willy__ 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Google Ads does "kind of" work in the niche I am in, usually with low competition key words.... but I did stop throwing money at it. I am never going to return the investment per conversion... but if you want a search engine to throw your money at.. it is still pretty much without alternative to me.

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deaux 8 hours ago | parent [-]

If you want to throw your money into a pit, there's a lot of alternative pits available out there. Happy to share my bank account, then at least one of us gets use out of it.

> You can add email/password and passkeys, but removing social logins entirely is a conversion killer. Every one of those auth flows hits American servers. The silver lining: Hanko, a German identity provider, handles the auth layer itself, so at least your user management and session handling stay in Europe, even if the OAuth flow touches Google or Apple.

You can at least put "Sign in with Spotify" first before Apple/Google - they have social login. I've even seen apps that have nothing to do with music offer it as an option.

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zelphirkalt an hour ago | parent | next [-]

In what way is Spotify better than a Google / FB login? Isn't it the same kind of shitty?

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willy__ 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interesting! I will think about the Spotify thing. I will pass on your bank account for now, thank you.

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imp0cat 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There must be some alternative European social logins, I know Seznam (of mapy.cz/mapy.com fame) has one: https://vyvojari.seznam.cz/oauth/doc?lang=en

	▲	deaux 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Problem is that there's no point in adding it unless a sizeable number of people using it, and Spotify is the only European one I can think of where that's the case. Seznam clearly isn't unless potentially a cz-only service - no idea how popular it is there. Delivery Hero is really big and EU but too fragmented. Maybe Wise should add social login, I think Paypal has it.

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plufz 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Which platforms/avenues do you recommend?

	▲	deaux 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		As I said, anything that's not search ads. Youtubers, influencers of any size, UCG, podcasts, newsletters, you name it. LinkedIn content. There's thousands of options. Or if you do want to throw money at US/Chinese big tech, then TikTok, or Apple, or Reddit ads. Industry fairs. It entirely depends on where your niche is. Of course if you're the next YC B2B SaaS raising big series then sure go burn your VC cash on Google Ads, but that's clearly not what OP is doing, or really most of us.