[echelon]

There is no alternative to mobile computing. Both vendors have draconian rules.

These are devices so essential to modern functioning that the regulators need to come and tell both Apple and Google that unlimited web installs are user rights.

Epic is right. Apple and Google are monopolies over an entire class of computing, and it's a 100% artificial racket.

[SllX]

> These are devices so essential to modern functioning that the regulators need to come and tell both Apple and Google that unlimited web installs are user rights.

This might be what you want but without new legislation, because the DMA ain’t saying what you want, regulators are not within their rights to impose this requirement.

[elevatedastalt]

You can sideload apks on Android and have alternate app stores too. I don't think the situations are in anyway similar or comparable.

[ethbr1]

Agreed. Google's lock-in is much more through bundling and must-default agreements.

[echelon]

> You can sideload apks

Just because you can ask your users to build a nuclear fission reactor, doesn't mean that they can or will.

F-droid gets ~3M MAU, with a 70% bounce rate. It's pitiful.

This is a pathetic case for mobile rights and freedom. Practically nobody knows how to make use of this model.

Installing software should be first class, not buried in the settings. It shouldn't have scare walls, either.

Google knows exactly what they're doing with the "freedom" they're letting end users have. 0.1% of users even know about or can leverage it.

[elevatedastalt]

I am sorry to push back on this, but this is just incorrect.

The truth is the vast majority of users do not care about sideloading apks. Apple knows this. Google knows this.

However, it is important that it is allowed without any major hurdle (a warning dialog that you need to click OK on is not a major hurdle for me once you consider that many malicious actors will use this sideloading for nefarious purposes).

Google allows it and you are free to use it without major hurdles. Yes, most users don't care to, and that's fine.

[echelon]

> The truth is the vast majority of users do not care about sideloading apks.

You can't really say that since it isn't a common deployment strategy. If web installs of APKs were normal and had no road blocks, then the practice would be commonplace.

The users care about software. There is only one blessed path to get it.

[alisonatwork]

F-Droid is not a good comparison here because the primary motivator for people to use it is ideological, not because it has a wider selection or cheaper prices. The many different app stores in China is a better example of how a somewhat competitive app store landscape could look to the average user.

[pohuing]

The largest android manufacturer ships their own alternative galaxy store...