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For me this change is a problem not just because of the ID upload to Google but mainly because it's another nail in the coffin of native software solutions. It
by jonathanstrange 8mo ago
For me this change is a problem not just because of the ID upload to Google but mainly because it's another nail in the coffin of native software solutions. It increases friction and anything that increases friction is bad.
Concretely, my original plan was to provide an .apk for manual installation first and tackle all this app store madness later. I already have enough on my plate dealing with macOS, Windows, and Linux distribution. With the change, delaying this is no longer viable, so Android is not only one among five platforms with their own requirements, signing, uploading, rules, reviews, and what not, it is one more platform I need to deal with right from the start because users expect software to be multiplatform nowadays.
Quite frankly, it appears to me as if dealing with app stores and arbitrary and ever changing corporate requirements takes away more time than developing the actual software, to the detriment of the end users.
It's sad to watch the decline of personal computing.
- verdverm 8mo agoI personally see an unmoderated app store as more detrimental to the end users. The harm happens at scale.
- jonathanstrange 8mo agoWhen there were many different app stores to choose from, nobody would be forced to use an unmoderated app store. What happened to individual freedom and responsibility?
- verdverm 8mo agoI would need to see a widely used and trusted 3rd party store before leaving Google Play became a consideration. I'm interested, but not an early adopter. It's also unclear if any store that reaches this point doesn't institute similar moderation techniques. Scale incentivizes bad actors, which in turn requires good moderation.
- InsideOutSanta 8mo agoThat's the status quo, though. Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store are essentially unmoderated. The sheer scale of them and both platforms' technical architectures prohibits either company from properly validating their stores' contents - they can't even catch the easy cases, like all the apps that impersonate ChatGPT. The main thing they manage to do is inconvenience innocent indie devs once in a while. The result is unwarranted trust from users in stores that are full of scams. Apple and Google effectively built malware pipelines under the guise of security.
- verdverm 8mo agoWhy do you expect another app store to be different? At what scales do the dynamics of what you have described change?
- pona-a 8mo agoF-Droid does not contain malware. There were cases of maintainers going rogue, such as Simple apps being bought by an adware firm, which resulted in a timely takedown, directing users to a maintained fork Fossify. Like a distro repository, the user safety comes not from reactive moderation but active curation. Meanwhile my parents are getting hammered by inescapable malvertisements from Google, a TTS voice ordering them to install a "cleaner" app or have their phone die, no matter how many you report or what knobs you touch under ad personalization. Facebook knew 20% of their yearly revenue was scams and intentionally deferred moderator action to keep that business. All this "trust" is so overwhelming, the only way to make our computing more trusted is if OEM auto-installed the malware themselves. Oh wait, Samsung does that!
- jhasse 8mo agoDid your users really consider your app if it wasn't in the Play Store?