[ragnese]

I have the same mentality as you. But, rather than form an opinion on whatever EU regulation is being interpreted as "requiring" these steps from Google et al, I think I'm going to assert that it's a red herring.

The real issue, IMO, is that it's still too hard to distribute and install applications on my general-purpose computing devices! You can't be on Google's app store if you aren't a "real business" with a physical address and everything? Fine. Let's just distribute our apps on F-Droid, or by just releasing APKs in our GitHub pages, etc.

At least that's still possible with Android. But who knows how much longer they'll even allow that?

[braiamp]

Yeah, if you have a market that can be installed by the user without passing through a marketplace. The EU regulation gets blamed, but that's not the actual issue.

[LPisGood]

I think the issue may be thinking of your phone, running a non-open OS, as a general-purpose computing device.

[whimsicalism]

Presumably F-Droid is subject to the same regulatory requirements, so in this case it is directly the regulation to blame.

[iAMkenough]

F-Droid isn’t in the same business, and doesn’t sell apps, so it’s not subject to the same regulatory requirements.

[o11c]

F-Droid has apps with the "ads" anti-feature, so this probably applies to them.

[iAMkenough]

I think it’d apply to the app owner. F-Droid isn’t in the advertising business either, doesn’t get any revenue.

That feature flag just changes what is allowed to appear in search results.

[whimsicalism]

The DSA applies to

> all online intermediaries and platforms operating within the EU