This is really bad. I think that most people on HN will agree with that. The problem is that most normal people (HN is not normal - mostly for the better) don't even understand what sideloading is - let alone actually care . How can we fix this? (aside from making people care - apathy enables so many political problems in the current age, but it's such a huge problem that this definitely isn't going to be the impetus…
I agree that this is a horrible step in the wrong direction but in terms of the solution I have a different take. I don't think that making "normal" people "care" about sideloading is the answer, because a) it's impossible and b) political change doesn't happen through "normal" people anyway, all political and regulatory change is driven via smaller and motivated groups of people. The problem is fundamentally that th…
The most critical apps for me on mobile are banking, payments, transportation, and messaging. Banking I can’t do much about. Payments I can still handle with physical cards. Messaging is getting better thanks to people adapting proprietary services to Matrix, so with some effort you can use one open source client to reach them all.
Transportation is the area I’ve been working on. I’ve been getting MapLibre (an open source map rendering library) running on Compose Multiplatform, including Compose Desktop (so map apps built in Jetpack Compose could extend to Linux based phones like Librem) and also on Huawei’s HarmonyOS. If I can cover my everyday needs with open tools, then walking away from the Google/Apple duopoly stops being a thought experiment and starts being a real option for me.