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Comment by z3t4 | Hacker News Reader

I hear a lot of people complain they got falsely banned by some automated process. But automatic processes are easy to game, so just do what the spammers likely do, slightly edit the app, re-upload using another account and IP, etc, repeat. I'm sad every time I install an Android app, thinking how much crap/spyware it will install on my device ...

Android should allow other "app stores", just like you can have different browsers, you should also be able to have different "app stores". Just like there is not just one "store" in the physical world. Then there could be niche stores that focus on some category, or quality.

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The niche store focusing on open-source software is https://f-droid.org/ . The only apps I get from Google are various proprietary messaging apps where network effects prevent me from deleting them.

There are also OEM-specific stores (Amazon, Chinese manufacturers) and some focusing on countries where Google Play is unavailable like https://cafebazaar.ir/?l=en for Iran or, again, various Chinese stores.

Edit: the situation is a lot like that of browsers, actually. There are many alternatives, but most people are only aware of the one they're using.

This comment also illustrates a big problem with Google's automated processes: The people willing to put in the work to comply with them / get around them are more often the spammers. You see it in search too. Who researches and does tests on page ranking and SEO? The spammers.

There is nothing stopping you from using other app stores on android. Amazon has their own (amazon underground) and samsung have their own (galaxy store). There are others out there, too!

There is F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/) especially. Horribly broken UI, but still a great app to get other (free!) apps.

try G-Droid for better UI

Google is de-facto monopolist if you want to make money off your apps/games. Company was publishing same game on basically all android stores, and returns were less than one hundredth comparing to the Play Store; even if it was featured in other stores.

Its sad so few people can acknowledge strong network effects is all it needs to create a de-facto monopolist.

Can you say what resources company invested to get listed on other stores? I'd expect it to be rather simple and would hope the tiny earnings would still pay for itself. But even for strategical reasons, I don't understand why even Google-competitors like Microsoft Office don't offer an optional PlayStore free download. At least for those not integrating Google services... and most of the apk's i got from "other" source did indeed work fine. But maybe there is just no way to avoid a tragedy of the commons without regulation.

>Android should allow other "app stores", just like you can have different browsers, you should also be able to have different "app stores". Just like there is not just one "store" in the physical world. Then there could be niche stores that focus on some category, or quality.

IIRC there was some issue where they would disallow usage of their app store if you used any other app store on any of your devices, for which they got fined in the EU (eg. you can't sell a device with Google AppStore and a device with f-droid or something).

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