Adjacently: are third-party app stores actually a thing people use, or is a forced meme? Android has never forbidden them, and they’ve never taken off and have been seen as jokes (i.e . Amazon’s or OEM ones like Samsung’s). It seems like a pain in the ass to think about, and most of them seem like they’re for pulling grift worse than what app stores will let them get away with (i.e. sell V-Bucks to kids without Google or Apple’s parental controls getting in the way). The only exception to this is F-Droid, but only technical users know and care, and it’s a small minority (It’s basically one of the only things I miss from Android using iOS nowadays). I suspect an app store is a natural monopoly on a platform, and competition between platforms made sense… when that still existed.
Adjacently: are third-party app stores actually a thing people use, or is a forced meme? Android has never forbidden them, and they’ve never taken off and have been seen as jokes (i.e . Amazon’s or OEM ones like Samsung’s). It seems like a pain in the ass to think about, and most of them seem like they’re for pulling grift worse than what app stores will let them get away with (i.e. sell V-Bucks to kids without Google or Apple’s parental controls getting in the way). The only exception to this is F-Droid, but only technical users know and care, and it’s a small minority (It’s basically one of the only things I miss from Android using iOS nowadays). I suspect an app store is a natural monopoly on a platform, and competition between platforms made sense… when that still existed.
My opinion is that they’re mostly forced meme. Epic is trying to do everything to make them a thing, even sponsoring third party iOS app stores in EU.
As you pointed out, it’s grifters trying to wrestle as much profit as possible.
Since you added your opinion, why is Epic a grifter for trying to profit and Apple/Google/Samsung not?