I would like to see a high friction flow for installing all the crap from the Play Store to "protect and educate users". "Are you sure you want to install this app? It's only got a score of 2.8 and only 7 reviews, and will ask for all of these permissions?"

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Sytten 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I want even worse restrictions on my parent phone so they dont install spyware. I want "install ONLY from fdroid". I trust their one server in a basement more than Google at this point.

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Culonavirus 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Even if it has 4.8 and 7000 reviews it's often fake 4.8 because the reviews are botted / paid / dark patterned (e.g. when you pop up star rating on your users and beg them "rate the app plz" and when the users tap anything but 5 stars you say "k, ty" and keep those "bad" reviews for yourself)

	▲	necovek 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That was just an example to communicate my idea: a better way to validate authenticity of the app could and should be used. But to your point specifically, Play store and App Store have APIs to rate from within the app: when the pop up shows, app author does not have an option to avoid getting a 1-star rating (they are also time-restricted, eg. at most once every 180 days for Apple IIRC). What devs do though, is to preempt it with "Are you enjoying our app?", and only giving you a formal rating pop-up if you answer "Yes".

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_ink_ 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And I want to see transparent price structures. Hey, this app is free. Installed. Only works with subscription. I hate it.

Edit: to clarify, I don't hate subscription, I hate that I cannot search for free apps in the store.

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kotaKat 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The hilarious part in all of this is watching Epic Games sue Google over how bad the "high friction" flow was for them to sideload their hefty bundle of Google Play violations and win the rights to be back in the Play Store.

It's OK now that Epic can have a one-click download for Fortnite to shove all the friction back into the sideloading experience.