> If you can't get 12 people to test your app, how do you expect to get actual users?

Just like Google did with its Clock and Messages apps. They have billions of people to test their app. If it compiles, ship it.

No, this invites slop rather than stopping it. 12 testers is trivial to buy online or swap for on Reddit and Discord, so only hobbyists get blocked. Note that this requirement also affects PWAs which is quite funny to be honest. To this the fact that some people register businesses and provide paid "publishing services" to 3rd party devs over their accounts. Is this really the best Google can do? Laughable.

Look, not everyone is chasing subscriptions, ads and thousands of users, and with Google constantly squeezing side-loading, the Play store is becoming the only distribution channel left on mainline Android.

But yeah, I guess it's not a big loss, most people install 0 apps per month anyway.