How can you not rely on these platforms if you are building an app? You cannot expect anyone to go download .apk's manually. Users are too coddled to do anything different when downloading/installing the app. The real moral of the story is that we are just peasants on these platforms and can be washed away with a flick of a finger. In the end, become Zuck or get zucked.
How can you not rely on these platforms if you are building an app? You cannot expect anyone to go download .apk's manually. Users are too coddled to do anything different when downloading/installing the app.
Then maybe we should start educating users in the other direction. There wasn't this problem before app stores and walled gardens became common.
Educating users? Users follow the path of least resistance. Make anything more complicated, and they will switch to something more convenient. Do you expect users to really be sensitive to the plight of devs?
The moral of the story is, don't allow monopolies. Break them down, and be aggressive about it. Don't fall for the "but it's in the best interest of the users" BS.
I use a PC. Amazingly it can host software from many sources. Some of those sources include boxed software I ordered from various retailers, software aggregation and distribution services like Steam, the operating system vendors own proprietary software distribution system and a large number of unaffiliated software vendors that operate their own web sites.
It seems that we had long since solved the 'problem' of software distribution before Apple and Google decided to correct it.
And no, my roughly used and crazily effective PC system is not riddled with malware and viruses despite the claims of walled garden purveyors that insist this is inevitable.
