This is obviously Google trying to grab a piece of advertising budgets of apps and impact of this on "discoverability* will remain to be seen as emergent property later on. Definitely not the primary driver behind this feature.
However, before we start booing Google...
Facebook already holds unarguably the biggest part of this already, and Google heading closer to the center of that particular arena will likely result in a net positive for publishers.
My guess for would be that this will push Facebook little by little to specialize in iOS ad-mongering.
Responsible countries handle this through a simple legislated idea - personal bankruptcy; this is a political populist move not inspired by any actual reasoning into effects of this on economy. Not that I think effect is of any serious impact, for anyone.
This move is exactly of the category that is crippling Croatia. We (yes, a Croat here) are in a bit of a pickle, and let me explain the core of the it...
Even excluding astonishing amount of pensioners (many from previous regime) and war-inflicted disabled persons (whose actual condition is matter to be looked upon suspiciously) and other non-working class of people, work-force segments into two distinct categories - directly or indirectly dependant on the goverment as source of income, and the good "old" private sector. The trouble here is that former is riddled with catastrophic inefficiency, corruption and evades competitive market, and the latter carries the burden of former. The issue is - in democratic elections, majority wins, and the former here is the majority.
So we keep up with this cancerous tumor of goverment-dependants who won't ever vote for someone who'll put a stop to it (hey, they're not crazy, why would they vote against their immediate interests), and violently cut it out of the system.
Maybe, and just maybe (haven't crunched the numbers), within a generation, when few factors align (war-disabled die off, unemployed numbers increase even more), the actual critical mass of value-adding work-force outweighs the tumor, brighter days await us. And even that is under assumption there will be an election choice that'll be catalyst for those changes at that point.
I personally don't hold an optimist view. Hell, even our geographical geometric shape looks unstable and unnatural. War ended by higher powers putting a stop to it, not resolution. And as far as EU membership goes - meh, we're again at the age-old role of a border country as a proxy for keeping the region stable and keeping the muslims out. Important role, but hardly grateful.
Not to end on a completely sour note - I did notice a sentiment of unity last few years. Particulary noted during holiday sales (or the lack of excessive spending), people seem to coalesce in misery, slowly perceiving that we're in this shit together, unlike during last two decades, where they would aspire beyond means, due to many factors including prominence of war-profiteers. Like my grandma said: "It was never worse here during my lifetime. After WWII at least everyone was poor."
Yes, my statement might be a slight straw man, albeit an honest one - I just think that "being better enterpreneur", "being disruptive", being anything or having any goal implies making optimal actions to reach it, and I've projected that onto OP's statements.
In my book, it's simple - if I have a maxim "do not be an asshole", then I won't be. If I do not, but instead "unseat a corrupt taxi monopoly", then I'm bound to be an asshole in some of my actions. If I have both, they're bound to clash in some subset - there's no synergy of limitations.
And, like my thread sibling stated, paraphrased, you're bound to be marked an asshole by some anyways, whether you're Gandhi or Zuckerberg.
There's N options for optimal action, some more in category of "asshole", some more in "non-asshole".
Blanket statement all "asshole" actions are non-optimal is a pretty huge leap of faith.
The real question you should be asking yourself is optimal for what? Your statement (or sentiment at the very least) says you're optimizing for not being an "asshole", in which case, you're correct. That's also the only case where you're fully correct.
You're wrong about categories of analogy, but I don't blame you - analogies are a pretty slippery slopes. In particular, you're most likely conflating these because of the implementation detail - you write HTML, so writing music is an analogy. Not really - writing HTML is closer to performing music.
You can teach almost everyone to perform "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on piano or "Smoke on the Water" on guitar within 15 minutes, both of which are de facto "Hello world!" equivalents to many aspiring musicians.
EDIT: Removed attempt at drawing a HTML/music analogy which could be closer to truth. It is really fruitless endeavour, makes no sense.
1. Determine how much time are you willing to allocate for work.
2. Set whatever the price that will fill up that time with client work.
3. Once you have more clients than allocated time, increase your price.
(bonus) 4. Client pool and time permitting, target projects that will further evolution/creation of skills you want to improve/develop, not the ones that you've already good enough at.
To be able to do that, you should have some form of rudimentary tracking of your time/price/value performance. No need for overkill here, a simple regulary updated spreadsheet or even just a text file will do. The accent is on "regulary updated".
Find an understanding partner. Since you obviously don't have a clue about anything besides programming (sorry, harsh words, but I don't have the time to type out a list of mistakes you did here), it'll have to be business dude that handles stress and load well.
Have him insulate you from the support, monetization, PR, and so on, and let him assemble Terms of Use to be very generous towards you as a programmer in a way that you don't have to respond to reported bugs (especially concerning monetization) immediately but leisurely.
Agree with him on the priority of types of fixes/improvements and have him deliver lists of tasks to you on a weekly/monthly basis.
Have that business partner on a probation period first, to see is he supportive of your persona and then split profits with him 50/50. It'll be a great opportunity to learn from him strategems of handling stuff you cannot.
Aim long-term. These types of games are something people stick around for quite some time. Adjust monetization model accordingly. These numbers you have or project right now are meaningless from that context.
Do the right thing and good luck.
As a side note, an analogy to first-time parents is an appropriate one here. A lot of them panic a lot when they find out baby is on its way. But I'm not ready! I'll make mistakes during parenthood! Will I be able to support it!?
I see that many people handle many responsibilities while the rest of the team is completely oblivious of the extent of their contribution.
But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about risk. That's being picked up by only me and is _the_ determinating variable in the end game from my moral viewpoint. Risk can be in form of financial risk, time, legal... But I'm here taking all that while they're being paid market rate to, what, do regular JavaScript, Photoshop and ability to pack their suitcase and leave with no consequences at any point they feel like?
Nah, I don't think so.
My personal work experience has led me to believe that world is filled with self-entitled people without much to support it in either responsibility/risk handling/actual productive value. Mind you, we're from different cultures (Balkan).
However, before we start booing Google...
Facebook already holds unarguably the biggest part of this already, and Google heading closer to the center of that particular arena will likely result in a net positive for publishers.
My guess for would be that this will push Facebook little by little to specialize in iOS ad-mongering.