[lupusreal]

You can use apps from F-Droid without flashing your phone. The only apps I have from the playstore are apps for a few financial institutions, otherwise it's all F-Droid.

And you don't need to be hackerman to do this, I told my retired parents "you should check out F-Droid" and they did. Now they recommend F-Droid apps to me.

[toastercat]

But you and I (and perhaps your retired parents) are the exception. Most people want to have their bank app on their phone. They can't get that on F-Droid, so they go to Google Play Store.

[pdonis]

Last I checked a bank is a financial institution, which the GP said they still get from Google Play. But that doesn't mean you have to get all your apps from Google Play, which was the GP's point.