F-Droid’s market share is a rounding error compared to Google’s. Just because another app store exists doesn’t mean there is significant competition between app stores.
That’s not what you said though. You said there is no successful second app store and that’s demonstrably untrue. Just because it isn’t widely used doesn’t mean it can’t be.
For a company like Valve, they are going to need greater adoption than what F-Droid has to be viable.
And I didn’t say that a successful app store was impossible, just improbable enough that it doesn’t justify investing in Android and that previous failures show how hard this is. Valve is still a for profit company and will make decisions to make money.
That’s also not what they said. They said there’s no successful second app store that isn’t tied to hardware, which is true. F-Droid exists, but by no metric would it be considered seriously by anyone as a successful competitor to Google. And if there is somebody who thinks that, then you should give me their number, I have this investment idea that is guaranteed to give double or even triple returns, all I need is a seed investment of, say, $20k.
So, it’s not successful, but it could be. So they were in fact correct that it’s not successful.
I use fdroid, so I know exactly how badly administered it is compared to Play. There are apps that haven’t gotten updated in months or years, despite the app on Play or Github being much newer. There are typo-squatting apps, and apps uploaded by people who do not own or manage those programs. It’s a wild west experience, and the average android phone user isn’t going to know enough to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Valve would be better off doing their own android offshoot OS.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 weeks ago
F-Droid’s market share is a rounding error compared to Google’s. Just because another app store exists doesn’t mean there is significant competition between app stores.
Earflap@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
That’s not what you said though. You said there is no successful second app store and that’s demonstrably untrue. Just because it isn’t widely used doesn’t mean it can’t be.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 weeks ago
For a company like Valve, they are going to need greater adoption than what F-Droid has to be viable.
And I didn’t say that a successful app store was impossible, just improbable enough that it doesn’t justify investing in Android and that previous failures show how hard this is. Valve is still a for profit company and will make decisions to make money.
mtlvmpr@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
They really don’t. Valve is a private company and doesn’t need all of the money. Just 30%
_cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
That’s also not what they said. They said there’s no successful second app store that isn’t tied to hardware, which is true. F-Droid exists, but by no metric would it be considered seriously by anyone as a successful competitor to Google. And if there is somebody who thinks that, then you should give me their number, I have this investment idea that is guaranteed to give double or even triple returns, all I need is a seed investment of, say, $20k.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 4 weeks ago
So, it’s not successful, but it could be. So they were in fact correct that it’s not successful.
I use fdroid, so I know exactly how badly administered it is compared to Play. There are apps that haven’t gotten updated in months or years, despite the app on Play or Github being much newer. There are typo-squatting apps, and apps uploaded by people who do not own or manage those programs. It’s a wild west experience, and the average android phone user isn’t going to know enough to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Valve would be better off doing their own android offshoot OS.