What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

>Debian has had a "first party store" since the early 90s, and the truth is the diametrical opposite of "they're sufficiently unpopular that people don't think of them as the primary source to get apps".

Aren't those all considered first party apps? Sure, debian aren't the authors of nginx or whatever, but they're the people building, packaging it, and adding patches for it. It's a stretch to compare them to the play store or app store.

Is this seeking Google’s approval for the app? Or is the condition app be signed by a verified user? The latter means side loading is still viable for apps from known developers. This way anyone who is known who may create malware and will not be free from prosecution

hah, thanks. It's a bit more nuanced than that. Let me try again.

I completely support Apple's right to publish software that makes it difficult for unapproved software to run on it.

Similarly, I support your right to try running something else on it.

Just like my neighbor has the right to publish a browser that makes it difficult to run extensions in it, and I have the right to use a different browser.

Some people would like the phone OS to be regulated like a public utility. I do not support that, and if we _had_ to have it that way, it would be important to have the same standards for everyone and regulate _all_ phone OSes equally. I don't like the thought of what that would do to the chances of any "open" offering.

> it seems like a pretty obvious solution is to just have a pop up that has a install at your own risk warning whenever you install something outside of the official app store

That's close enough to how Android already works. Google wants to additionally prohibit installation of apps unless they're signed by a developer registered with (and presumably bannable by) Google.

Correct.

What I am saying is:

There is still a few points of course like being able to modify the base system. Just being able to say, kill the built in facebook is a quality of life improvement.

But it just feels like the benefits of a self owned phone os are going away even when you have it, because everything else changes around it and out from under it, so you don't get the functional benefit from it any more even when you have it.

You give up the use of things like tap to pay (would have been nice a couple times when I forgot my wallet) and drm content, hell, I can't use the stupid LG app that controls an air conditioner, and (increasingly) don't get something else important in return.

Today, there is still some benefit, because this latest change is only just now happening. I can use say, open source password manager and totp apps instead of google authenticator, and can use a pandora client that Pandora absolutely does not approve of, because the author doesn't need anyone's approval to produce the app and there is no choke point that Pandora can petition to block it. Hell why am I even talking about Pandora instead of Youtube and Newpipe? In what universe does Google EVER ratify the developer of Newpipe? (Wait, for that matter, what developer? what if there's an ever-changing fuzzy cloud of 20?) Or full-fat ublock origin...or countless other things whos sole purpose and value is to thwart some will of Googles? Or like the game emulator apps that Nintendo shuts down so aggressively, etc. Those ICE tracking or merely documenting apps. Countless...

Will those various authors still bother putting in the time and effort it takes to make these apps so good when only about 18 people will be able to use them?

I imported a Sony phone to the US because they don't sell it here, and no one else sells a current flagship with a headphone jack and removable sd card and high end cameras.

I successfully found and imported the phone, and got it working on a US carrier. Yay me. It's even rootable! Yay me. Yet I still can't run Lineage on it, because there is probably not a dozen other people like me to be an audience for Lineage on this hardware, and it's too much work to do for no audience.

The fact that today most phones are unrootable means that even if you somehow get around that, you still don't get the benefit because you're such a small audience that no one is producing say LineageOS for example for you.

My individual success bucking the system still did not result in me getting what I want.