Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Also teach people to use and prefer F-Droid over Google Play when possible, and make your open source app available on it:

- no obscure ban for application vendors

- no mandatory account for installing apps and from which you can be banned

- no user tracking

If you don't like vendor lock-ins and its consequences, push for the alternatives.



Is it feasible for anyone attempting to make an app paid in some form? Would they accept any form of ads or requiring login into a paid account?

Note that F-Droid often has build issues, with app version on F-Droid lagging months behind actually released version.


Requiring a paid login is certainly fine as long as the client application is entirely free software.

Ads are probably fine if they are shown using free software but will be marked as an anti-feature. Same for tracking.

In app payment is probably fine too, and will not be subject to a 30% fee or something.


Maybe. How many users are on F-Droid though?

I think the alternative is a simple web app. For many many apps it would work just fine. If it works in a browser on a PC, it really should work on a browser on a phone.


> How many users are on F-Droid though?

Few, but this might be a chicken-and-egg problem, if we want to have more power and get rid of the Play Store governance, this might be worth a try.


Would F-Droid have accepted them with an ad bundle included? I seem to remember that as an anti-feature for them.


It is an anti-feature, and they seem to only be allowing apps with ads implemented using free software: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Anti-Features/#Ads




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: