While we are at it, please also reject the framing of "sideloaded" apps. This framing pushes the use of legitimately installed, often high-quality, software to the periphery. This framing is an essential step in extinguishing our computing freedoms, as "sideloaded" apps are easily cast aside.

Recently I wanted to find a good app to manage my shopping lists as well as keep an ordering of this list so that I could run through the supermarket more efficiently. I really hate backtracking the supermarket to get some item on my list that I forgot was in a spot I'd already been. Of course, it had to work offline-first and I didn't mind a bit of configuration.

Everything on Google Play Store was some cloud-integrated garbage app. The only app that came even close was an app on F-droid called Aisleron, which lets you manage both your home stock and supermarkets in terms of "aisles" of products, flipping easily between what is in stock and what is needed and then managing an aisle-based sorting of these products per supermarket that I frequent.

Great App! However, I worry that this app would never have been released had Google considered actively blocking the author from creating legitimate and highly useful pieces of software like Aisleron.

Tying app distribution to a verified identity definitely raises the cost for scammers. But the devil's in the implementation. If "verification" ends up being too bureaucratic or expensive, it risks pushing legit indie devs and hobbyists away from the ecosystem entirely

No thanks. When my apps stop working, I stop carrying your phone.

We need Linux phones stat.

This monopolist dictates its demands. It's pretty outrageous behaviour from a company that has grown by parasitizing Internet infrastructure built with taxpayer money. That's how far you get by bribing every US politician. It's a banana republic, a fucking shit show.

The Tyranny of the Marginal User strikes again.

Over the long run this might help Android a lot

> his will allow you to distribute your creations to a limited number of devices without going through the full verification requirements.

Sorry, *allow*? ALLOW?

I'm sorry. My device. My software. My customer or friend. You don't have the right to insert yourself into the process. Very kind of you to ALLOW me to do something you have no involvement in whatsoever.

Like everything google do the real reason for the plan is to let google insert themselves unwanted into someone elses business so they can extract money from other people's work.

I would bin my android phone now if the alternatives weren't even worse,

I have been an Android fan-boy since 2010 (hello HTC Evo!). Blackberry until that. Never owned an iPhone until a month ago. There really is not a benefit to owning an Android smartphone anymore if they are going to knee-cap F-Droid.

Glad to see them being less evil.