F-Droid exploring to include paid apps, in-apps, subscription, and ads in app

Paid apps: no problem. If it's good, I'll pay.

Subscription: maybe, if it's worth it.

Ads: F-Droid can fuck right off. If they do that, they'd be a miserable bunch of sellouts.

pretty sure the venn diagram of f-droid users and adblocking users is such a huge overlap that this may not pay off too well.

No thank you. This is a slippery slope.

What the fuck? Did F-Droid change ownership (sell out to a hedge fund or something)? Or did I somehow time-travel to April 1, or what?

If it is a pay what you want model I am all for it. This would be similar to how elementary OS st

The problem with a fixed price is you have to always calibrate it according to the economy of the user's geolocation. What is cheap for a person from a developed world may be unaffordable for a third world county.

Targeted advertising is a huge no. No more of that.

Static advertising I can accept, but then who's responsible for vetting ads? I don't want scams displayed everywhere.

Devs definitely need ways to support themselves and sustain development. I've shared this screenshot from the app Secure Tether before:

I like to chip in a few bucks to my most used apps/services that are donationware, but after all the middlemen take their cut, the devs are left with peanuts. This IMO is the biggest hurdle when it comes to online monetization. A less expensive way to donate will certainly help.

Additionally, there are people who cannot or will not pay for apps, and I don't want to exclude them from being able to use an app/service they need.

Monetization like how Reddit Gold was and how Discord Nitro is are some of my favorites. Few extra perks and cosmetic features for paying users. Free users are still able to use the main product at no cost and you can gift them Gold/Nitro if they aren't able to purchase it themselves. I don't know how that would translate into an app store model though.

Ads, no, are not ok. F-droid can fuck right off if an ad appears, I'll just get apks from github

I guess most won't bother to read the full post and will instead react negatively to the title. Having read the entire thing I am fine with it and would be happy to see more direct competition for the Play Store. The ad thing is only a problem if the store doesn't include a filter to easily hide ad-supported apps.

I never expected this. What a shame.

Edit: the ads part are not an acceptable add-on for me, as someone who respects privacy and foss. I don't know of a single foss payment processor (lmk if one exists). A lot of people here are saying "pay what you want", but it's that way now, with GitHub donation links; we don't need this in the fdroid app.

Damn, never thought I'd live to see the enshittification of F-Droid. I definitely won't be using it anymore if this happens.

That'll be a big nope, thanks.

Edit: 20 years from now, FDroid will be worse than the Play store and we'll have a "new" store that functions like FDroid does currently.

But in order to create a solution that will be mainstream enough to make in-roads into the hold Big Tech has on the market

Firstly, I doubt their users asked them to be "mainstream", only their want for a piece of the app store profit pie is asking for that.

Secondly, if the only way to make in-roads on big techs hold on the market is to become just like them, then maybe they should be trying to find a better way.

F-droid is not going to beat the Play store at its own game. And it shows how naive the maintainers of F-droid are if they really believe that.

If they become the Play store, why wouldn't I just use the Play store?

Apparently they don't understand that the F in F-Droid is for FOSS.

I'm 100% all for adding a repository with paid apps, but it's not and shouldn't be marketed as F-Droid.

After reading that post, this sounds mostly like a whole lot of tracking. At that point I think I'll just use the Play Store lol, it has more selection if I'm going to have the same level of privacy anyway

I'm a bit of a fence sitter on the actual issue, I love F-Droid as is and fear change, but I'll say as someone who thinks they'll release on Google Play in the general future, the thing that pisses me off most about Google Play is they have a "repetitive content policy" which disincentivizes you from releasing a full paid app and a demo app. The main issue is, I don't want my app to categorize as "in-app purchases" if the only purchase is the "unlock full version", because that doesn't distinguish my app from any unethical whale-hunting casino-for-children microtransaction apps, and I don't want my app to claim to be free if it's just a demo.

At least, from a pro-user, communicate everything clearly, perspective, I feel that Google is compelling devs to dark-pattern-by-default on this subject.

LMK if I'm wrong about any of that.

It's always about Ads...

Oh, they start off as unobtrusive; maybe a little banner that shows when the app is opening, or a written mention with a link.

But, this doesn't generate much revenue. Next the banner persists, and suddenly a video plays. Just one, just once.

Eventually you open the app to pop up banners and autoplay videos, and wonder where the app is. Every line you cross with adverts makes the next line easier to cross.

Everyone here is bummed out, but fails to see the upside.

To rival the Play Store, there needs to be an alternative package manager on Android which hosts proprietary apps.

The outcome is a decrease in Googles revenue and eases the hold they have on Android as a Play Store dependant operating system.

If F-Droid didn't step up, Epic would be the only contender to the Play Store. At least this way we know there will be some degree of democracy.

Haven't used F-Droid since I started using GrapheneOS on my Pixel lol. Just use Obtainium.

If anything this would just give me suggestions on apks of paid apps to sideload for free

I'm not sure I can be as pliant as others here. Being less of an activist and more of a user of convenience, if I am making PayPal payments somebody better give me a reason why I'm not just using the same store that came in by default with my phone.

This is f*** up. I have no issues donating to my favorite apps. However what they are talking about it pure enshitification plus proprietary software

Also donations can absolutely work

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving-our-2022-financial-report/

i am good with the subscription and pay once approaches they mentioned.

the iffy portion is the in-app payment sdk. i hope f-droid will be the one providing those to have it standardized.

in-app ads are kinda okay. i won't use said app, but if f-droid labels apps like those as how it labels apps with non-foss/features-you-may-not-like, it should be okay.

We need a way to support foundational open source projects like browsers, a open source subscription platform might be the way.

Start off with apps that are already subscription like vpns.

I see many issues with that / for them.

But I'm not against experimenting and finding out. We maybe need some free and open monetizing options, maybe also ad platforms. That would give people some more options, instead of relying on Google and Apple all the time.

Please just make it respect user privacy, be FLOSS and categorize the Apps, so it's clear to me what is and what isn't licensed Free Software.

i'm fine with it as long as the privacy labels remain front and centre when downloading; especially if they clearly mark which apps are ad supported, subscription based, etc and don't prioritize them over foss/ad free

otoh, i use neo store so it probably won't matter

I can't see this go well for them.

I get the idea. I also get not wanting to restrict devs and hence offering all kinds of payment options. But I cannot see this be visible for them given their target audience.

Wow, there is approximately 2 people in these comments that actually read the article.