> More generally, will [sideloading] lead to a resurgence of "unofficial" third-party apps for popular platforms like Instagram and Snapchat? It will lead to p

> More generally, will [sideloading] lead to a resurgence of "unofficial" third-party apps for popular platforms like Instagram and Snapchat? It will lead to piracy in general. But whom will it affect? Big companies like Meta won’t be worried about unofficial clients much, since the core is at the server anyway. There are many means of ensuring client authenticity, including by constantly changing the APIs, rotating secrets and updating the client. Even social media aside, almost no big company today releases “buy and own forever” apps that don’t tie to servers or use some sort of subscription model. (Affinity is the one exception that comes to mind.) So what sucks is that sideloading is going to eliminate the small indie dev who could make an honest living through the simple model of 1) make software, 2) let the user buy it once and own. Note who lobbied for sideloading (spoiler alert: very big companies).