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by donclark 1545 days ago
Have you considered a side-load option (not through Google Play)?

Why is that not an option?

Has someone documented the process and all the options in hosting your own app independent of Google Play?

What are the drawbacks?

4 comments

Most users are too inept to install a downloaded APK.

Furthermore, even if they somehow understand how to do it, Google chrome and Android OS work together to make it extremely scary sounding for end users.

The combined messaging is akin to:

"you're about to infect your own baby with HIV, press [ok] to cancel or [cancel] to abort operation and report as malware to goggle."

This isn't anticompetitive, is it? Gargoygle is only trying to keep you safe by preventing you from running what you want on your own device. There are no other possible solutions to protect people from malware, dummy! /s

Capitalism seems pretty effective compared to tested alternatives, but it sure does encourage a lot of counterproductive and nasty stomp-and-screw-the-little-people behaviors.

The problem is, at least a half of the audience is not tech-savvy, plus Google Play is a part of monopoly: it brings extra traffic. If the app is not on google play, it can't compete with others
OP is being denied access to Google Pay payments processing, not to the Play Store.
I was under the impression that one of the conditions to being listed in the Play Store was that all in-app payments had to go through Google. Am I wrong about that?
This. It would be against the rules to use any other payment methods.
Point taken. But if he hosts it himself, could he not use whichever payment processor (except Google Play)?
> Why is that not an option?

Because the vast majority of android users only download apps through the play store.