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Enshittification spares no one.
Happens when you don’t have competition. (Except to steam seemingly)
The difference is that Valve is privately owned. They don’t have to please a board of shareholders who want to see the platform milked for the slightest increase in profit margins.
Bingo. Enshittification is mostly confined to companies that have gone public or whose sole aspiration is to do so quickly.
It shifts responsibility from satisfying customers/users to satisfying shareholders (who are never satisfied).
You can build the perfect product and ride a gravy train as a private company in relative perpetuity. As a corporation, you’re just going to strive for perpetually increasing profits on a quarterly basis with no real care or focus past that
We need more companies like that, then.
For that you need passionate people who are wealthy and not primarily driven to acquire more wealth. That seems to be very rare in large scale businesses.
It isn’t wealth that breaks or makes it. The system, and in this case the shareholding system makes it or breaks it. Valve owner Gabe is insanely rich (in the billions I assume) yet, because the system he put up, it is consumer friendly.
The system is the one, not the people.
Yes, the problem is when shareholders only want profit at any cost. These are the wealthy people I was talking about.
I’d have to think Newell has a lot more skin in the game or passion for his platform. He actually believes in the business and what they do, instead of just viewing it as a way to make money
I mean, the other thing that’s kind of stupid is - lets say a companies stock once issued goes to 0 and is delisted. So what? That’s not the company going bankrupt. The stock market valuation has no direct application to a company once the shares are issued and bought the first time. But ignoring shareholder demands that would destroy the company wouldn’t likely tank the stock of a otherwise good company - because there’s someone out there who just wants value to hold and preferably dividends vs infinite growth (that doesn’t exist). Now, you could buy enough stock to throw out the CEO and whatever, but that’s likely to be expensive and a PITA. So while there’s going to be some high profile examples, A) that gets close to taking a company private anyway, and doing a shitty job and B) generally limited numbers of companies will have people going to these lengths.
I think the bigger issue isn’t wanting companies to be profitable - that’s kind of the point of companies. The issue is shareholders trying to make capital gains on everything. This isn’t possible long term because infinite growth isn’t possible. I would argue what people and decent investors should want is the steady dividends and not worry about if the stock is up or down.
So you’re telling me that I can generate stable revenue if I work on my product and try to satisfy customers? Sounds kinda radical… who do we even screw over to get the money??
This isn’t entirely accurate. If Valve were a public company, the enshittification factor would increase significantly. The reason they’re great now is because the current board is the original founders who are passionate about their business, and actually care.
Private or not, once Gabe and the other old farts die, Valve will enshittificate. That’s almost guaranteed.
Private or not, once Gabe and the other old farts die, Valve will enshittificate. That’s almost guaranteed.
I think they will just live on as ghosts in steam itself. GabeAI here we come!
Steam has some competition, its just that said competition never took off because Steam is so much better.
(Except to steam seemingly)
For now. I’m curious what’ll happen when Gabe eventually retires.
We also can’t ignore the fact that the Steam Marketplace is a hellhole and the origin of a lot of today’s microtransaction hell.
If you buy all your games on one platform then you’re thoroughly fucked if it turns heel.
We all know the answer to this. There will be a hundred threads with thousands of comments with people saying it’s not bad, the company promised x and y and we should be cautiously optimistic, but in the end it always ends the same way.
Exactly the same thing happens with IBM buying Red Hat. No shortage of articles talking about how this will be good for Red Hat and the entire open source community but of course last month they started the enshitification process that will now March on relentlessly. Even now there are defenders of red hat, talking about how it’s not that bad and there are workarounds, but in the end they fail to see this is just the first step.
Once started on this path, the rule is always enshitification, any exceptions are exceedingly rare. If steam ever gets bought/sold it will follow the same path and it’s defenders will stay by its side until it looks like the screen shot above.
I agree. As much as I like what Valve is doing and currently trust them, I prioritize buying games on GOG and keeping archives of the installers.
The point still stands though, you can easily filter out anything you don’t want to see.
But I doubt the same would apply if it was owned by shareholders.
A future change in leadership could very easily lead to it going public and then all the regular bullshit follows. Don’t just assume it’ll always be great; always be ready to jump ship.
I get worried with the amount of gamers who want Steam to be a monopoly. The existence of competition seems to upset some people and it’s really odd.
A future change in leadership could very easily lead to it going public and then all the regular bullshit follows. Don’t just assume it’ll always be great; always be ready to jump ship.
Ok, but what has that anything to do with what I said?
Only really the first part of my comment. I ended up on a rambling tangent for most of it.
“the play store is shit now!”
The play store was always shit.
Sure it does, but only those who have a zero-tolerance policy against using proprietary software. In the long run, Free Software is the only kind that can be relied upon not to betray you.
I agree, free software is the only thing that’s sure to not get worse over time. I took way too long to realize, now I have a shitload of stuff to migrate. I already ditched microsoft, but that google account is a real bitch to replace.
A single row of ads would be ok, but having this many plus an ad showing up first, where the search results should be… Oof
No it wouldn’t. Phones aren’t cheap.
They can be. I bought a Galaxy s22 with a broken screen for $150, and my carrier just gave me an $1100 credit for it on a new iphone. I don’t need an iPhone, and I will be selling it to get yet another cheap phone and pocketing the money, but it goes to show just how much phones do not cost to the people producing them
Dam that’s a hilarious life hack lol.
I’m on a 12 Pro with no intentions of upgrading but when I go to I’m gonna try and find a new broken flagship to turn in too lmao.
The Android licence is free and the Play Store infrastructure has to support tens of millions of devices.
I’m not saying this is an acceptable level, but Samsung ain’t putting a dollar toward Google running the store, in fact, they’d much prefer to run and maintain their own.
That’s not true. Phone manufacturers need to pay if they want to include Google Play in their devices, it’s not free. It can cost as much as $40 per device.
Thanks for the correction, I was unaware
I guess hoovering up all your data ain’t enough.
I don’t even get why having the store on more devices is supposed to “cost” google anything.
It’s a store. They get a cut from every transaction. Why wouldn’t they want it to be on everything?
They shouldn’t rely on ads to make money back on a phone IMHO.
I don’t think ads showing something related to what I’m looking for are bad in and if themselves. I want to find related content, the problem is that these are often not in any way related to what I’m looking for. It’s just a list of who paid to be listed there.
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i dont even touch the galaxy store unless i absolutely have to, something about it just feels so… off?
There are a handful of customisation apps that are only available through the Galaxy store. The ones I use are all Samsung official apps, but the poorly written descriptions on the install pages definitely make me uncomfortable.
It’s like they only intended the apps for their Korean users, and ran the text through Google translate for the English versions.
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On the App Store, it’s also under the “essentials” section. The “Must-have iPhone apps”. Lmfao. I hate that state of technology in 2023. Burn it all down.
What would you expect the algorithm to be if not to recommend the apps installed and used the most on their platform?
I don’t use TikTok or FB, but it’s hard to blame them for suggesting apps that they have concrete usage data on saying they are the most used.
Just leaving this here: Aurora Store
Aside of the lack of ads, I now depend on Aurora Store for batch app updates because the cocksuckers at Google Play have allowed devs to force app version updates even when you have disabled automatic updates for that specific app.
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IDK… I root all of my devices ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Isn’t that one of the things the FTC says can’t void warranties? They’ve been going after companies for those lousy warranty void stickers lately.
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Agree, there’s a risk even if you don’t break anything.
Ok this is actually pretty cool. So I gave this a try and what I found in the first few mins of using it:
- you can login anonymously or with your own Google account (anonymous logs you into one of their shared Gmail accounts which personally I don’t like the idea of)
- it manages all existing apps too, so you can use it as a drop in replacement for the play store.
- Updates aren’t as well, there doesn’t appear to be a background update option as android requires you to confirm if you wish to install the update for each app.
Overall solid app. I don’t spend a lot of time in the PlayStore so the ads themselves don’t bother me. The moment though I begin getting pop up ads / notifications I’ll be jumping to this full time though
Just be careful when using your own google account on Aurora Store. There are reports of people getting their account banned by google. Do not use an important google account there.
Another cool feature is you can spoof your device’s name. This can allow you to install apps that daddy Google does not approve of for your device.
What is the difference with F-Droid?
F-Droid has special FOSS Apps only. Aurora Store delivers the same Apps like Play Store.
It’s an alternative client to the Play Store. It does not access F-Droid repos.
Others answered you, but aurora also has an F-Droid replacement called Aurora Droid.
Aurora store is basically anonymous access to the official Google Play store.
You can download any app because unlike the Google Play store Aurora doesn’t send your phones hardware ID, so if for example your phone is rooted you can get the Disney Plus app anyway.
Fdroid is an alternate app store. They have different things than the Google Play store. They respect your privacy and will let you download any app that is ever been uploaded to them, Even old versions of an app.
Um … can I sign in with my google account?It appears that I can, wonderful.
Thanks to Lemmy, my phone went full FOSS. Always go full FOSS.
It’s great that you can’t unlock the bootloader to install graphene on carrier bought devices 👍
In Canada, carriers are required to only sell unlocked phones for the past several years.
If I understand correctly, carrier locking is different from Bootloader locking. One implies freedom to use the device on any provider network, while the other is for installing a custom ROM. A Samsung flagship can be bought unlocked by paying full price, but you cannot unlock the bootloader and install Graphene, for instance.
The Exynos variants of Samsung devices can have their bootloader unlocked, it’s the snapdragon ones that can’t and even then there are some instances where it was possible to do it, but it’s still a hassle and the Exynos variants tend not to have good development support.
Samsung has been good about that in the past. Motorola on the other hand I remember there being a bounty for the keys so they could run alternate roms.
Luckily, in 'murica, corporations can freak you over however they like 😎
That’s the freedom!
Can unlock it on my machine 😎
Or samsung devices
Can’t on a pixel because this phone is carrier locked.
Right but Samsung devices once you unlock the bootloader you loose Knox (which is pretty awesome IMO) and the only way to get it back is to replace the motherboard on the device… at least on my S23 ultra. As for the carrier lock, we’ll once you finish paying for the phone you can unlock the phone right? Also, if you buy the phone from Google it’s not carrier locked and you get the same finance options as the carriers
One word: F-Droid! I’m literally only searching there for Apps first, often I find it. Send them some love, if you can afford it! Wouldn’t know how to watch YouTube anymore without New Pipe and stuff, listening to music via ViMusic, all ad-free. https://f-droid.org/en/
I run /e/OS with a custom app store, App Lounge. It combines F-Droid and the Play Store via Aurora. It even embeds Exodus Privacy Ratings and is simply awesome. You can even log in with your Google account and download paid apps that way. Pretty neat.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !e_os@lemmy.world
Hmm, seems your regex isn’t perfect mister bot. That’s ok
I’m probably not seeing the error…? Can you point it out to me so I can fix it?
Is there an easy way to see which of my installed apps are available through f-droid? Or do I need to search for each one manually.
yes; I use Foxy Droid to access f-droid and it detects Play Store-installed apps and displays them under Installed as long as the package name matches. This also works vice-versa
I’d also like to know that.
i just discover ViMusic thanks to your comment, i love it!! thank you for mentioning it!!!
I discovered ViMusic a while ago but Youtube music keeps cencoring the songs I like so I will probably seitch back to mp3’s soon, cool app tho!
If you do, check out plexamp.
You can self host a small Plex server on a raspberry pi and store all the music there. Play via plexamp and Plex does all the metadata for you
Use jellyfin instead, its FOSS and amazing.
The eternal debate, Jellyfin vs. Plex 😀
I tried both, i prefer Plex (also because my TV doesn’t have a Jellyfin App and i don’t want to have another mini-PC just to play Jellyfin on my TV)
To each their own of course, I just want other people to be aware of an alternative to Plex if they haven’t heard about it.
I hear great things about Jellyfin, but I’m in the Plex camp too. The availability of the Plex app is a big factor. I’m a bit biased in that I bought a lifetime membership years ago so I get all the premium features as well. I believe they still offer deals on plex lifetime membership from time to time. It is really worth it!
Yup, got the 20% off of lifetime a couple months ago.
Didn’t regret it.
That sounds awesome!
Saved this comment, thank you!
laughs in F-Droid
I am so glad F-Droid exists. For the apps I need that aren’t there (Steam and Blizzard authenticator for 2FA) Aurora has been a godsend
What’s up with Steam not untying 2FA from their own app though? That is the one thing I genuinely hate about Steam
Alright, help me out. I had fdroid before but changed phones. What do I need to do to get fdroid nowadays?
You can go to their official website and download it - https://f-droid.org/
Personally I prefer to use fdroid through Droid-ify.
Thanks, I will give that a whirl. I remember about having to change some kind of setting - third party apps?
(I could probably figure this out through some searching but I also want this for people who have no idea where to start.)
The system will prompt you to allow Fdroid to install apps as soon as you download something the first time. Can’t miss it
Otherwise, you’ll find it under
Settings > Apps > Fdroid > installation of unkown apps
(or something like that, my system isn’t in english)
Thanks!
You need to install it?
It won’t carry over because it’s not a local play app but you should be able to install it the same way you did on your old phone.
I’m trying to document this for others who have no idea where to start when installing things not in the play store.
To be fair, I’d wager the overlap between people that are on Lemmy, know what F-droid is, but wouldn’t think to just Google it is pretty low. Those people probably shouldn’t be messing around with sideloading and alternative app-stores anyways.
I dislike the “Why not just Google it?” argument because I’ve arrived at too many forum/reddit/stackoverflow posts that are the top Google result with comments on them saying: “This information is already on Google”
I would love it if Lemmy could start to curate information so that instances start showing up in search results more.
I agree up to a point. In an instance like this, what is there to document? The steps to install F-droid are to go to the website and get it.
For things where there’s actual discussion to be had, or answers that require some degree of critical thinking that can have value in the future, sure.
Luckily I only have F-Droid on mine.
What, no love for the Ad Store?
This ad has features you may not like
“Thanks for the F-Droid”
- Dirty Mike and the Boys
F-Droid for the main stuff, Aurora Store when I’m feeling dirty.
it got worse and worse over the last 1-2 years. this days you can’t even open an app description page on desktop anymore. you search for the name…and you can’t click on the app listing. it just gives you the option to install on your phone but not to read the store page. you only get to it by searching on Google for it. and the mobile app is like you said shit too. often you can’t even find an app and get random ads for other shitty apps.
It sounds like you’re browsing the web signed in to your Google account. Sign out and clear cookies, or go Incognito.
what has this to do with signed in our not? google does the same if you’re not logged in
Works well here. I just checked on desktop to be sure they have not broken it now - nope, I can browse apps normally.
maybe it depends on the region then. I’m in germany.
what has this to do with signed in our not? google does the same if you’re not logged in
I mean, it’s Google. What did you expect? Android is free because having it on a ton of cheap phones helps Google collect data and sell ads.
Side-rant:
Apple’s got plenty of problems and anti-consumer behavior, too, don’t get me wrong… but it’s incredible how far they’re able to enforce privacy, down to the hardware level, while still giving devs almost the same level of control over OS features as Android.
Like, look at how ARKit does point cloud sharing vs ARCore. iOS limits sharing scanned AR environments to peer-to-peer local connections, and it’s a totally opaque object. Android meanwhile uploads your scanned room to a Google server, and the privacy terms for that data are the same as the ones for Youtube, search, maps, etc.
It drives me crazy how many FOSS nerds will rail against Facebook’s data collection and chokepoint capitalism, but then go on to praise Android for standing up to that no-good Apple. They hear “I can sideload apps” and they drop all of their recent cynicism about why they’re getting nifty stuff at a hefty discount.
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Google has much better software and they charge for it in data/ads instead of money, but there’s a much better reason to choose android over IOS: It’s open-source, so people have created free software variants of it that retain compatibility with existing apps while respecting your privacy and freedom.
In case you care about that, give grapheneOS or calyxOS a shot on your pixel.
If you install a custom build, doesn’t that break OS verification (or whatever the name of it was)? Meaning things like Google wallet, but more importantly some banking apps, will fail to work?
I mean, FOSS nerds run android de-googled (or more specifically never install google services on a custom ROM).
That’s not an Android problem, that’s a Google Play Services problem. You can run Android without all the Google bullshit.
Not to mention that you can at least install third party app stores like f-droid. For me Apple is the epitome of evil giant corporation that is consistently abusing it’s market power and getting a pass from regulatory bodies.
Don’t get me wrong, Google aren’t great either, but if I have to choose between them I would pick Google any day.
I’ll give apple this one thing.
They are really, really good at backup.
I recently had to wipe my dad’s iPhone, I manually backed up his pictures just to make absolutely certain they were all saved but everything else I didn’t even bother.
I logged him back into his apple account and everything immediately started downloading again.
With Google, you’ll get your text messages. Your contacts, your pictures, your videos. Maybe your YouTube history and subscriptions but any random app probably uses Google backup services but it might not.
I’ll give Apple another thing
I was on Android for years. Galaxies and Pixels. Around the 2 year mark they were always barely working and with a battery that needed to be topped off several times a day. Slow, hot, poor battery, glitchy. Always
I got a 12 pro at release and it’s rock solid as the day I got it and I have no intentions of upgrading it. I’ve used it since launch with no case and yeah it’s for a few scratches here and there but despite all the drops etc it has no cracks either. It’s a tank. A tank that just keeps fucking working as it should.
but it’s incredible how far they’re able to enforce privacy, down to the hardware level, while still giving devs almost the same level of control over OS features as Android.
I don’t give a shit about devs. I want that control for users. Until they allow users to do what they want, they can get fucked.
Privacy through the use of user restrictions is not acceptable either. It’s my god damn phone, don’t you dare tell me what I can’t do on it “for my protection”.
It’s like saying a security firm is the best in the world at keeping clients safe, because they lock those clients in a vault and don’t let them leave.
Privacy for freedom is not a good trade for those enthusiasts your frustrated with. They will accept Google’s shit because the alternative is getting in a fucking cage.
I can’t scrobble my music to last.fm on iOS without some janky workaround. The “almost same level of control” part of what you said relies on an assumption that only the set of use cases explicitly determined by Apple as ones that “matter” are worth supporting. That it’s more important to prevent the user from explicitly allowing a scrobbling app permission to read the music player app’s now playing notification than for the device to be able to perform this simple function.
This point of difference doesnt have any meaningful impact on collection of my data. It just stops the device from being able to do the function I want. So that what, I can sleep easier knowing that Apple designed a slick interface to point out data vectors which were already implied to be collected? It used to feel like a smartphone with training wheels, now they’ve just locked up the handlebars so that it’s easier to go straight.
Apple does objectively suck for many reasons though.
Also, important to note that what you’re describing as their privacy focus is a deliberate rebranding exercise after a huge ,global failure with icloud and things like police access to their systems/data and public backlash.
They are only here now, in this brief moment, because of necessity and like any of this, it’s typically a pendulum. As soon as they don’t have to do this (which probably sounds a lot like users like you defending their security bonafides publicly on their behalf), they will start to creep away and de-prioritize privacy and security.
I’m with you on this, I used to avoid using apple products at all costs due to the way they are so anti consumer and lock you in heavily to their ecosystem.
But in terms of security and privacy they aren’t even playing on the same level. Android will never be as privacy or security focused as apple due to the way google runs its business so long term a Linux mobile operating system would be the dream.
Until then I stick with what I can use which is the apple products for now.
Apple makes money by selling expensive devices.
Google makes money by selling ads.
You can figure out the rest of the equation.
Wait, what? A shitty Google product? Plagued by ads and spyware? No way!
As others have pointed out here, use Aurora Store or F-Droid.
I’ve lost all of my faith in mobile gaming ecosystem ever since I saw that talk of the two guys that created a bot for generating and uploading as many slot machine games to the playstore as possible, just generic pull a lever, see an ad and that’s it, based on a random keyword like “owl slot machine” or “bathtub sloth machine” with pictures pulled from google images, that let the bot run for a few months and then found out that they made literally thousands of dollars of ad money.
I see Google’s review process for apps on the Play Store is as bad as their review process for extensions on the Chrome Web Store. Every couple of months ago, a new batch of malware is found on CWS, and you almost never see that with Firefox’s add-on marketplace, even when accounting for Firefox-based browsers having a much smaller userbase. And I’ve noticed that when it does happen, Mozilla is much quicker in laying down the banhammer than Google. Hell, Mozilla banned a browser hijacker named FVD Speed Dial, whilw Google has it featured on CWS to this day. ~Cherri
When I was looking for a good ad-blocker a few years back, I remember stumbling upon something like… Nano Defender? I’m not sure what was the name, but it was one of the few succesful anti-adblocks that managed to get past most of adblock killers, and was generally recommended on Reddit.
After a few years, the guy sold the extension to some Indian company that promptly infected it with credential stealing malware, which compromised most of my and my GFs accounts. Ever since that, I just don’t use any extensions apart from ublock and Bitwarden, since it’s just a huge security risk.
But I’m slowly building up the willpower to finally switch to Mulvad Browser + VPN, I really like the approach they took to fingerprinting - just use Tor Browser, don’t need any extensions, and it’s bundled with a VPN - so every other user has exactly the same fingerprint and IP as you, thus making you untrackable even by the most soffisticated methods. (Well, apart from the ones that uses ML to fingerprint you based on your typing and mouse habits…). But I have already gotten used to Librewolf, and it would mean getting rid of Bitwarden extension, and that’s -effort- :(
I’m not exactly sure when it started, but Play Store now has “Limited time events” that further block what I’m actually looking for. I don’t give a damn about some gacha/loot box promotion some soulless pay2win app is advertising, I just want to browse for apps I might like.
I like how like 10 years ago everyone went crazy about the apps. It seemed like you could have an app for everything, and everyone was enthusiastic about it. Nowadays I only open Play Store when I am in the need of specific utility, or to buy some classic RPG/other game ported to Android.
Most of the stuff in the store is just unusable shit.
And we need a store with actual quality apps (with no micro transactions, and being reviewed by people who care about usability), because certainly Google Play is not a good source for them.
Agreed. Mostly everything in the store can also be easily done in a browser too.
And we need a store with actual quality apps (with no micro transactions, and being reviewed by people who care about usability), because certainly Google Play is not a good source for them.
Fdroid apps CAN have microtransactions I believe, and they’re not curated either, but overall, the quality is much better than Play Store and most apps are free and open source.
Alternatively, for games in particular, Apple Arcade is great, but it’s a subscription (cheap if combined with Music, TV and iCloud storage, otherwise several euros per month). The games aren’t allowed to have MTX or ads if they want to be on Arcade. But of course that requires moving to iOS (where the app store is much better than Play Store, BUT you don’t get alternatives like Fdroid on Android.)
I use a huge amount of open source f-droid apps, like my keyboard, my mail app, the one i’m typing on right now, SD maid 2, (Revanced). in my opinion these apps are just better. not only because i can trust them, also because they simply do what i downloaded them for, in the most efficient way possible.
Try out Aurora Store. Just started testing it. Looks and works similar to play store but without adds. You
can login withshould not use your main google account.https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/
/edit/
Pro tip - Avoid using your main account because it might get blocked permanently by Google.
Why?
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Do you know what part of the TOS that is violated? I looked through it and didn’t see anything that seemed to apply.
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Thanks for that, looks pretty nice. Though I’m concerned now trading Google might block your account for using it.
When I’m installing F-Droid I get a security alert about it being developed for a previous android version and that it doesn’t include latest privacy updates. How legit is that? I’m downloading the apk throught their official website https://f-droid.org/
It’s so the app still runs on ancient android versions. Use the Droid-ify client instead if you don’t want that
Not exactly. It’s possible to make an app run on older versions (select lower
minSdk) and yet take advantage of newer features (select highertargetSdk). This one can be easily be fixed by the F-Droid developers like almost all other developers have already.Droidify is amazing, I’d totally recommend that over the official F-Droid client any time. 👍
Does it have security vulnerabilities?
