Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last year

Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by ragnese on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @04:42PM (#43850453)

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?

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by braiamp on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @05:36PM (#43850971)

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.

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by LPisGood on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @05:36PM (#43850969)

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

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by whimsicalism on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @05:48PM (#43851068)

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

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by iAMkenough on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @05:53PM (#43851115)

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

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by o11c on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @07:05PM (#43851685)

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

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by iAMkenough on Thursday May 01, 2025 @08:47AM (#43856987)

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.

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by whimsicalism on Thursday May 01, 2025 @12:21PM (#43859816)

The DSA applies to

> all online intermediaries and platforms operating within the EU

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Re:Google Play sees 47% decline in apps since start of last ... by phatfish on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @06:10PM (#43851272)

Yawn.

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