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Comment by BatteryMountain | Hacker News Reader

If the make sideloading high-friction, either via account-bound or apk upload or permissions from MNO/ISP, I will leave android. I have a bunch of my own apps that only I use, not released to the public, if I cannot use them, I have zero reason to stay on android.

I think one of the reasons they want to lockdown the system is to prevent guys like me from locking THEM out of my home/ecosystems, as and example, I build my own launchers, specifically for TCL TV's, which runs Android TV and has Developer Mode + adb. Which means I remove all the bloat & ad garbage, which they want to prevent.

We will get to the point where google will remove your ability to set custom dns servers and only use theirs.. just wait & see friends.

Anywhoo, when this side loading fence materializes, I will jump ship to apple.

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Why jump to another abuser when you could seriously start looking into alternatives? Ubuntu Touch has a really active community and it's very stable, you can even emulate android apps which you might absolutely need.

I don't see Apple as the obvious next step; the obvious step, when one is pissed off with abuse of power is open source, not Apple.

Can I install my banking apps? Is there a Google pay equivalent?

As much as I want open source, I really don't think it's there yet for most people.

> Can I install my banking apps?

Choose a bank with viable web banking.

> Is there a Google pay equivalent?

It's called a debit/credit card.

> Choose a bank with viable web banking.

There are five options in my country, 3 of which require app push based 2FA to log into the web interface and 2 of which only have an app interfere.

Maybe I could get a EU bank from another EU country but my employer will not accept an out of country account for salary deposits because it makes their tax life difficult and my mortgage provider doesn't trust foreign accounts either.

> It's called a debit/credit card

Since about two years ago, activating a card requires the app.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_the_Republic_...

so Eire has 5 significant banks, and 15 'less significant'. There are also 276 Credit Unions, I don't know if they are useful. (I had a Credit Union account in the past, could send/receive online but no payment card)

(I don't know their suitability, but there are more than 5 options in your country)

Of the "significant banks" listed, only AIB and Bank of Ireland do consumer bank accounts. I suspect the presence of the others is more to do with wanting an EU entity for targeting larger EU markets than the Irish domestic market. For example, Citibank only expanded from "large tech multinationals" to also "mid sized businesses that are planning to scale internationally" in 2023 [1]

Also on that Wikipedia page are Dell's private bank, Danske Bank (closed their Irish retail business in 2013), Klarna (sort of banking-adjacent, but they're not giving you a current account), etc.

The 5 banks offering retail consumer accounts nationwide are AIB, permanent TSB, Bank of Ireland, Revolut and N26. The first 3 are the surviving brick and mortar banks and the latter 2 are recent-ish neobank entries.

Credit unions are limited to serving customers in their local area. The one credit union who's catchment area I'm in also requires app based 2FA.

[1]: https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0925/1407279-citi-to-g...

(Side note: The name of the country in English is Ireland, the name in Irish is Éire - using the accent-less Irish name in English was promoted by the UK government and BBC because they didn't want to recognise the name of the country prior to the GFA in 1998. Most people will also accept Republic of Ireland if you need to distinguish from Northern Ireland, even though that's technically not the name)

> Maybe I could get a EU bank from another EU country but my employer will not accept an out of country account for salary deposits because it makes their tax life difficult and my mortgage provider doesn't trust foreign accounts either.

I do not doubt this is happening, but it is forbidden under SEPA. All IBANs, no matter from which member country, must be treated equally. Unfortunately, "IBAN discrimination" happens quite frequently still. The European commission recommends filing a complaint with your national governing body.

Your employer's tax obligations should depend on where you live and where they live and where the work happens, not where your bank account is.

It's not just tax obligations, no? Employers in many countries have an obligation to ensure that your salary reflects on the X day of the month (or whatever frequency you're paid). Banks in my country have a payroll payment system for this reason, where funds will clear on the day they're made despite the destination bank (in the same country).

If my employer has to use SWIFT to pay me, on whom does this obligation to ensure I'm paid on time fall? I've had a salary payment from a foreign employer fail to be delivered for 2 weeks a few times. We'd have to go back and forth with my bank, their bank, their payroll vendor. That's an exception because they hired me as a foreign employee. Despite paying their local employees on time, I always received my salary at least 4 days 'late', as long as their payroll system reflected that I was paid on the X day, it wasn't their problem.

If you are a normal human being who doesn't enjoy suffering, you'll give up the idea of doing web bank on a mobile phone.

Saying 'don't use those things' is not a viable solution. It's like when I was trying to move to linux a couple years ago I asked for help getting HiDPI/scaling to work and there were many responses saying 'who needs that?'

Most people don’t want to rearrange their life around what their phone can’t do.

they will have to when Android closes down

Yeah, as an iOS dev, the grass is not greener on this side of the fence…

It's not, but at least it will be equally ungreen.

From that I can see from the early leaks, it may actually be if you live inside of the EU where alternative app stores are now a requirement.

iOS doesn't have the F-Droid ecosystem equivalent, but she F-Droid dies because of Google, there's a chance AltStore will be able to take its place.

The point isn't that things are better on this axis on iOS, but that things are better on numerous other axes, to the point where many people are only using Android at all because it feels slightly more open and free than iOS... if Google wants to play Apple's game, then the only reasons to bother with the mess that is Android are gone, and so you'll see people switch to iOS.

Eventually the only reason people will use Android is the same reason people are using Windows now -- mandated by their employer or by being forced into the bottom cost-tier of products.

And the experience will be just as user-hostile with no end in sight.

Sideloading is already worse on iOS

Why to apple?

Seems like you'll still be able to use your own apps just fine under this scheme.

It also seems pretty obvious that the ignorant phone-users of the world who get scammed are the reason for this change. The revenue lost from people like you is really not worth any amount of engineering effort.

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