Google set to purge the Play Store of low-quality apps

F-Droid exists, fortunately. That's where I go if I want simple apps without any BS. Vinyl for music playback, AntennaPod for podcasts, Tusky for Mastodon, etc

Also, almost all of F-Droid is no-nonsense, so I don't have to spend time trying to choose the least sleazly looking app like I would have on other stores.

As someone who just wrote an app so my users can use my service (https://www.deadmansswitch.net) more easily, though, I'm a bit miffed at the fact that it might be removed.

Ha, yeah, I'd rather look in F-Droid first, because I know I'd have to sift through a fuckton of garbage of maybe-malware or for-sure-adware (full 10 second video ads whenever you click on anything) if I look in the Play Store.

Sure maybe I'm exaggerating, and the truth is the Play Store experience is not that bad, but it's my perception.

Google might not be gatekeepers, but there’s no practical way to opt out of having them poking around in your phone.

That does not appear to be what this article is about - this is about apps that don't do anything/crash/only have text or a single wallpaper

I could not be more disgusted by this change. This attitude rules so much of what happens now. Web specs are like, oh, only 0.1% of websites use this feature after 2 years: we can ignore it. That's a huge number, and the timeframe, the expectation that either tech is adopted & loved within months or its not worthwhile is horrendous, so greatly demeans human effort & the nature of how meaning builds.

We have to get back to expecting sometimes the larger changes being slow & tectonic.

Like (likely open source, hobby produced) no-nonsense (cost) free apps which provide some basic functionality and nothing more but also nothing unwanted (no tracking ads etc.).

Or in general apps without ads (google is known to already discriminated against such ads in various ways).

They won't be though, they make Google money from the IAP.

> Apps that are static without app-specific functionalities, for example, text only or PDF file apps

Apps where the user can interact with text in some way (like IF games or terminals) don't seem like they'd be affected.

[1]: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

They _barely_ seem to enforce them. The App Store could probably get a 50% culling with little impact.

There’s TONS of broken garbage, scam apps, least effort apps, blatant ripoffs of blatant ripoffs.

I really liked the idea of a curated App Store when Apple first announced it. In my mind I’ve never lived up to it. Not fully open, not well maintained. The worst of both worlds.

Example: Google is not any more of a true believer in RCS than anyone else, they literally won’t even bother implementing it in google voice, and their proprietary encryption extensions render it worthless as an interop thing. The point of RCS is to get the EU to mandate RCS support, and sit back and enjoy being the new google-themed iMessage. Embrace, extend, extinguish.

It’s funny to me that people don’t see the rug-pull coming, or that they publish these articles volunteering their own self-identification as a useful idiot who didn’t see it coming.

Your link would, in a sane world, be read as an epitaph or cautionary tale, rather than a slightly puzzled curiosity. Imagine your own reaction if someone had published such an article about apple and not google - how could you have made such a comical error in judgement to trust a giant that would crush you for a nickel, without a second thought?

We’re in this Orwellian place in our discourse though where the language itself is redefined to only apply the harms to the things android don’t like. I had someone tell me yesterday that I was wrong and there was nothing user-hostile about Sony Xperia android phones self-destructing their camera firmware if you unlocked the bootloader, and in fact that I had it diametrically opposite and apple was the apex of user hostility.

I don’t think he’s wrong either. I think that’s how android users think now. Google’s carefully focus-grouped manipulation of the language has legitimately convinced people that user-hostility is some kind of uniquely apple phenomenon, and that “right to repair” means only the right to implement this one exact business model for repair, as opposed to the general goals of long service life and keeping phones out of landfills, etc.

We let google redefine the language in the ways that best accomplish Google’s means and it’s just going to take you all another 15 years to realize you’re still being useful idiots. And even 15 more years still won’t get most of them to admit there’s some pluses to the other side too.

Sad to see fanboyism overtake reason, always. And people don’t tend to consider that fanboyism can be just as much about hatred of the alternatives as support for the thing itself.

See also: every HN thread around nvidia. User-hostility and Linux functionality is solely defined as the things AMD does better at, the fact amd still can’t get working hdmi 2.1 drivers after 5 years or their driver crashing under supported configs running the opencl demo projects doesn’t count. Or when AMD tried to buy their way to FSR exclusivity and lock the competition out of the market, because “FSR works everywhere so it’s better for you in the long run”.

I don’t know how we got to “embrace extend extinguish is good when it’s google, and anti-user when it’s apple” or these other brands but here we are. People are very, very, very susceptible to this “second mover” thing where a competitor gets outlapped, promises they’ll have a free open alternative with hookers and blow, it sucks but all the complaints are dismissed with “it’s free/it’s getting better”, and the solution that works is dismissed as being overly expensive and user-hostile. And it’s all really just embrace-extend-extinguish with libre-themed window dressing. These things are not user-hostile, and they’re good business, and as soon as there’s enough traction the “libre” rug gets pulled and we go back to rcs-with-google-encryption or whatever.

I’m being harsh and blunt but it keeps happening. Stallman-baiting is a thing and you guys just keep falling for it. Is having a commercial relationship with well-defined bounds really that offensive? Is installing altstore to sideload really that offensive?