The easier and more effective solution is to simply force them to allow alternative app stores (without suppressing competition, like Google currently does). A free market tends to correct itself in the long term, so that should solve the majority of problems plaguing the mobile software industry today.
Anything has to be better than what we have today…
Sunlight (and competition) is the best disinfectant!
I don't think it's hard or unrealistic to force companies to provide realistic support. Entire industries have had this established for decades.
Imagine you're renting office space and the landlord decides you've done something wrong, clears your things out and changes the locks -- refusing to tell you what you've done or allow your business to continue to operate. This sounds extremely unrealistic because it is, in the real world you'd take them to court and sue them for losses. And there is plenty of legislation behind it to support you.
Similarly, having companies like Google become accountable like this isn't actually that hard. There just isn't any will to do so at the moment and livelihoods will continue to be destroyed in the interim.
But how do you design a law that corrects the bad behavior of 2 monopolists, while at the same time not adding a burden to any potential competitors (and thereby strengthening the existing monopolies)?
Forcing competition makes more sense to me. No need to get into endless debates about the risks to innovation, or government being too big, etc. Just open the gates to competition and call it a day.
If the mobile app store market goes to shit in the future, then we can start getting into the weeds of it. But for now, there’s no need for that; the answer is obvious.
Expecting some level of support being provided, especially in a paid B2B engagement, doesn't stifle competition. If a competitor can't provide basic support, especially when they're just starting up, then it's best that that business fails.
They're essentially modelling their business plan based on Google's worst attributes. That's not competition I'd like to see develop a foothold, or the type of competition we should be encouraging, let alone structure our laws to support.
Only if enough consumers are affected.
Situations like the OP happen, but they're exceptionally rare. They just make a lot of noise.
A noisy post like OPs would actually make Google shit themselves if they didn’t have an app store monopoly. Even if it’s a single dev out of millions, the bad press would be much more costly than making things right.
* developers continue to develop apps for the respective app store (they could often create a web app, but they don't)
* there is no outcry among users for competition (instead of monopoly) in the provides app store(s)
nothing will change.
NewPipe does this for F-Droid in order to deploy the updates faster. Otherwise, F-Droid needs to very, compile and deploy themselves and it usually takes a few days.
F-Droid's rules exist specifically to ensure that an app's source code corresponds with it's binaries. This reduces the risk of using F-Droid because all source code is available and auditable. There is no guarantee that said source code has been audited, and FOSS malware does exist[0], but it makes it harder to hide such code.
I would personally prefer if Google Play had similar requirements, but the entire industry would be up in arms if Google started mandating source code escrow.
[0] Notably, the ironically-named `peacenotwar` package on npm, which is a cyberwarfare tool that attempts to wipe files on Russian and Belarusian machines.