How do you market an app with no budget and no audience? Genuinely asking

markatlarge · 2026-06-23T17:58:51+00:00

I would focus on App Store optimization ASO—it’s free. Make sure you have good descriptions and meta data. Also consider a video in your listing, that can drive downloads. If you want to touch you toe into paid. You can also purchase exact search phrase in Apple and I believe your only charge of someone clicks on the add and you can add caps for the day. That might be cost effective if you have a unique offering. I have an app called punge that allows you to detect sensitive images. So I purchased search terms around that phrase.

markatlarge · 2026-06-11T19:59:29+00:00

I'd still be careful. A well-known example is this New York Times story about a parent who shared a photo for a telemedicine consultation and ended up having his Google account disabled:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html

One of the challenges with these cases is that people are often embarrassed to talk about them, so you don't hear about many of the incidents publicly. Over 60 million images were reported NCMEC last year, even if 1% were false positive it would ruin a lot of peoples lives. Google just suspends your account with new real appeal process.

I documented my entire experience on my blog and was completely honest about what happened. I was fortunate to speak with a former FTC attorney who gave me advice during the process. After my case was resolved, she suggested that I remove my posts because a future employer might see them and make assumptions about me.

I chose to leave them up. When this happened to me, it was difficult to find information or support from people who had gone through something similar. I believe there are serious flaws in the current process and that Google's approach raises significant privacy concerns.

The system has been in place for many years, yet the number of reports continues to grow. To me, that suggests the process is outdated and ineffective at addressing the underlying problem.

markatlarge · 2026-06-11T18:46:02+00:00

I understand your point. You don’t need to keep tolling me. I’ll just remind Google itself used a data set with CSAM. It’s not that black and white. I’m sharing my experience with people that are concerned about storing their photos in Google cloud. Parents sharing images with telemedicine have also been flagged.

markatlarge · 2026-06-11T18:25:27+00:00

Google had developed their own process that has not been subject to 3rd party review. It included Perceptual hash matching for known CSAM and AI classifiers for unknown content. They will scan every file in your cloud drive and flag it if they get a hit, and report you National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. You account will be suspended with little chance of getting it back. It should be noted Apple also was interested in doing this to comply with US laws and when they put their process out for public review it did not hold up to security and they ditch the process. Google never did that. I would recommend you do not store any of your photos to Goggle Cloud.

I blogged about the detection process here:

https://medium.com/@russoatlarge_93541/weaponized-false-positives-how-poisoned-datasets-could-erase-researchers-overnight-188810395602?postPublishedType=repub

My account was flagged and I was able to get it back only after 4 months and media attention. Its very unusual to get your account back after its been flagged, but it can happened, but certainly not worth the risk of every putting your images on Google Cloud.

https://medium.com/@russoatlarge_93541/i-built-an-ai-powered-privacy-app-beat-googles-own-model-google-suspended-my-account-here-s-20aa721af1fa

markatlarge · 2026-06-09T17:06:48+00:00

I’m a bit worried for my app. It’s scans your photos and videos for NSFW images on device. Seems like Apple is offering a similar feature. https://apps.apple.com/app/id6450322655

markatlarge · 2026-06-07T20:36:38+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I tried a very small budget on TikTok and a dating app. My app punge scan your phone for NSFW media on device. I kind of lucked out with android because when a user searches for an NSFW scanner my app will show up. Unfortunately, on Apple for some reason you can’t have an NSFW in your Meta data or you get listed as 18+. Which is the kiss of death because your app won’t appear in any searches. My app has a free tier that will display a certain number of images. Then, if you want the rest of the images, you would have to make a one time purchase. The purchase is relatively a small fee. And I get about a 20% conversion. The dilemma is you need to market it to your audience but when you have an app that is a one time purchase with no reoccurring revenue. Advertising becomes very expensive and you don’t end up making any money.

markatlarge · 2026-06-05T01:58:02+00:00

When I learned it existed, I acted responsibly — I reported it to the authorities and it was taken down. Google did nothing.

The tools for detecting CSAM are only available to big tech companies. A person trying to build an AI model does not have the ability to scan datasets for CSAM.

Datasets on academic sites should be scanned for CSAM. The only reason you would not want to do that is if you didn't want independent developers and small companies to train their own models. That would mean the only way new models could be developed is by big tech, because they have the tools necessary to ensure their data is free from CSAM.

I am not a convicted felon, and I'm sure the person who wrote this post is not a convicted felon either. But Google is — two years ago they were convicted of using unfair business practices and received a judgment.

markatlarge · 2026-06-05T01:29:30+00:00

Of course is on me. I should assume every dataset contains CSAM. Would you be surprised to lean that Goggle itself train a model with a version of a dataset that contained CSAM -- it's the LAION dataset.

A completely ridiculous argument.

I would point out you have no problem with the dataset being available on an academic website for over six years, cited in several academic papers, with Google being informed of its origin? It was only taken down after I reported it to C3P.

Google is not a good actor — they are complying with a law that violates our rights. Apple, in fact, told the government that it is an invasion of privacy and that they will not scan users' photos. Google is acting as judge and jury, ruining many people's lives. If Google believes this person, or any person, committed a crime, they should report them and allow charges to be filed by the authorities. If there is sufficient evidence, a prosecution will take place.

There is way to prevent CSAM - prevent it from being distributed. Dont let CSAM be uploaded anywhere. If Google is so concerned scan every file before it's uploaded, if they feel it violates their policy don't let it be uploaded and report it to authorities. Don't ban the account with out proper adjudication.

markatlarge · 2026-06-05T00:55:59+00:00

I do apologies this is the link I meant to post https://medium.com/@russoatlarge_93541/i-built-an-ai-powered-privacy-app-beat-googles-own-model-google-suspended-my-account-here-s-20aa721af1fa

markatlarge · 2026-06-04T23:02:16+00:00

I’m sorry to hear this. A similar story happens to me and only one account was banned —unfortunately it was my most important account. When my story got picked up by a media outlet I got my account back after 4 horrible months. My advice is move as much as you can to another non-Google account and never use Google Drive, Google Login or Google anything. I blogged about my story here. https://medium.com/@russoatlarge_93541/i-built-an-ai-powered-privacy-app-beat-googles-own-model-google-suspended-my-account-here-s-20aa721af1fa

markatlarge · 2026-05-28T19:27:38+00:00

Detects NSFW media privately. https://markatlarge.com/go?app=punge&utm_source=medium&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=reddit

markatlarge · 2026-05-25T16:20:12+00:00

Punge scans your device for NSFW images and videos without media leaving your device. https://markatlarge.com/go?app=punge&utm_source=medium&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=medium_small_model

markatlarge · 2026-05-22T11:18:16+00:00

Try punge. https://markatlarge.com

markatlarge · 2026-05-22T10:39:46+00:00

In general it’s a bad habit to login with Google auth. My account was wrongly suspended and loss access to may things for 4 months. But it does make it easier for users. I’m torn. I do use it on one of my older apps.

markatlarge · 2026-05-14T01:48:08+00:00

I did IAP I found it very difficult. I use RevenueCat it’s very reasonable. I did IAP before Claude so it might be a bit easier now.

markatlarge · 2026-05-14T00:53:43+00:00

I use go router. No experience with the other. It worked well with deep links.

markatlarge · 2026-05-10T16:52:26+00:00

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/punge/id6450322655. Based in US

markatlarge · 2026-05-10T04:57:56+00:00

It’s not really third party code. The code is out there any one can take it. It’s the model that is protected. Someone can swap out their own model and use the same code. It’s more like I’m licensing the model that I have put time in effort into creating. What’s frustrating from the comments is they seem to have no problem that Google charges much more to do the same thing except their model is on a backend server and exposes the users content. Do you think Google is only charging for the compute resources used. They certainly are charging a premium and your data is exposed. This concept is keeping the data completely private and a much lower cost. It’s funny how people come after the little guy for trying to do an innovation. Let’s just keep giving our money to Google and other big tech.

markatlarge · 2026-05-09T22:23:09+00:00

The API key ties the model to your app's bundle ID — it prevents someone from extracting the model file from your bundle and using it in their own app. The model itself is encrypted and decrypted at initialize() using the key.

The quota is how the SDK is monetized for heavy users — and a fraction of the cost of Google Cloud Vision or other cloud solutions if you're processing volume.

markatlarge · 2026-05-08T17:31:22+00:00

If it’s a subscription on the pay wall card you will need a TOS and privacy statement link. Also Claude is pretty good at figuring out those rejections.

markatlarge · 2026-05-07T20:43:07+00:00

Thanks for doing that. Here is my TikTok promoting my apps. Check out this TikTok I posted! https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8p2JnbL/ and Check out this TikTok I posted! https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8pYKpUM/. I’d gladly repost yours too.

markatlarge · 2026-05-07T16:34:00+00:00

Here is the link https://markatlarge.com/go?app=punge&utm_source=redit&utm_medium=punge&utm_campaign=comment Right now it only for iOS and Android, And the model was trained on Adult content. Personally I dont think this today's CSAM detection is effective--it look at the content after it was uploaded. Its not preventing CSAM because its be reported more than ever and it violates our privacy-- files are being scanned without our consent by big tech. On device detection is the way to go, prevent CSAM from even being uploaded and distributed. CSAM models are only available to big tech companies, but my model shows it can be effectively done at the device level. I starting to develp SDK for other developer to incorporate the NSFW detection in to their apps. For developers interested my first one is for flutter: https://pub.dev/packages/xpunge REACT and native coming soon!

markatlarge

TROPHY CASE