| This comment, and the truth within it, causes me to think of Stallman. Aside discoverability, usability and the messaging problem of selling libre software to Mom, proprietary software and walled gardens will just do this to people. At this time in history there is not really a viable option to access the huge market of app stores with de facto monopolies of the app ecosystem aside from hoping some multinational corporation won't capriciously squash your vulnerable sapling beneath its crocs or birkenstock on its way to exercise some stock options. The app developers are barely a blip on corporate radars, they don't see 10k users of an app as valuable at all--but this person sure does! Javier probably feels this as much as google, apple, etc would an antitrust suit. Probably more, as unlike them, he has not prepared a multi-million dollar legal defense. Even though F-Droid is available and those apps are usable and often very good, individuals are basically beholden to this garbage! Of course he doesn't expect to be treated fairly, this blog concludes that it is unreasonable to yank his side project app and that he has no recourse because of the way that the app ecosystem is. I don't know how these state of affairs can be improved, quickly, but I hope it is possible. |
Overall, I am optimistic about the future. I don't expect developing solo will make financial sense anytime soon, but I imagine the scales have to start turning at some point
The current treatment we get from Apple and Google is beyond belief. We add value to their respective platforms almost for free, and what little we make they take a fee from it. To top it off, Apple even charges us to be able to work for them. And then we get shown "our place" when they do things like what they just did to me
But as a collective, developers have a lot to gain if we get organized