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In what ways do the existing alternatives fall short of compelling?
Can only answer for myself but F-Droid is limited, Aurora is still the Play Store, and Amazon is... depending on your view.. worse than the Play Store itself. A shame the Play Store is the default.
Can you elaborate on "limited"? Surely that is what we want. One of the problems with the Play store is certainly not that it does not have a wide enough selection, but rather that it is full of harmful, hostile, dangerous, exploitive software. Any solution to that problem is necessarily going to limit (or one might prefer to say curate) its contents. That is exactly why I use F-Droid. It is limited to software that is not trying to hurt me.
I guess F-Droid is limited in the sense of low user awareness? Similar to lemmy in the sense that its just not that popular atm, but maybe its gaining popularity?
Sure, but that's not going to be helped by making something new that's "compelling" -- which is the topic at hand
Limited as in, lacks a fair number of apps that many people (myself included) need to be able to function as professionals. I'm not sure how much safer F-Droid is in theory, as the vetting process for apps seems to be pretty nonexistent. For each app, I have to either research or trust. That's fine for me, but trying to explain how to handle that to tech-unsavvy people is a bridge too far.
"Just research the publisher or programmer and review the code, mom!" Yeah, not going to work.
Those products that you "need" to function as professionals are never going to be available in a way that does not exploit you and put you at risk. You're always going to be trapped with the incumbent marketplace's shitty practices until you take steps to meet those needs in some other way.
You do not have to personally audit every application you use. After all, you DON'T audit closed applications, and neither does anyone else. At least with an application with code available under a public license, other people have the ability to review it and raise concerns. I can't see how you can cast that as a disadvantage, just because you don't personally want to audit the software yourself.
Personally, I'm not comfortable predicating my very livelihood on closed, commercial software that somebody else owns and leverages with the specific intention of exploiting me. That sounds like fucking madness to me.
That fine; now tell the companies you work with that to work with you that they have to retrain their tens of thousands of employees to use those other applications, apps that lack critical functionality they rely on. Whether you like it or not, there are business critical applications that the apps on F-Droid cannot currently replace. Pretending that F-Droid offers everything everyone needs is not helpful to moving toward a better way; it's akin to those guys who scream "USE LINUX" every time someone has an issue with a Windows application. Me, I love Linux... but I also realize that for the businesses I work with, Linux as a desktop solution isn't going to sell.
My apps are around 5% Google Play (paid apps from indie developers unavailable on other platforms, using a throwaway account) 25% F-Droid, 25% direct APK, and 45% Aurora. As apps I need join F-Droid, I switch... but many just don't see the value.
Can I get my banking app on F-Droid? How about my home security system app? How about a dozen other apps that I want or need, and can't be replaced by loading a website in Firefox?
This is entirely on the companies. There's no technical reason or requirement for this happening.
Fdroid works great and is the most likely thing to be adopted, in my opinion. It's easy enough for anyone to spin up their own fdroid server and distribute their own app.
If you're wanting to use a new store, you're going to have to wade through the growing pains of adoption. It's just a fact of life.
I'm still waiting for Linux on desktop to be a big thing like I thought back in 2004. I suspect the third party app stores will be just as quick.
Wait, I assume if you install a banking app through Aurora it still works? Totally fair if that doesn't work for your needs (you kinda need a google account, even if a blank one, to have it work right now) but I assume installing apps through it doesn't limit them or make them less functional for having been installed through Aurora?
Works on Calyx! My banks didn't work on Lineage through aurora. I think it only checks for a locked bootloader?
Sort of. On GrapheneOS a fair number of banking apps fail because GrapheneOS sandboxes Aurora, but on a regular Android install I think they work? That is, assuming that you can get Aurora to load in the first place.
There are in fact banking apps and home security apps on F-Droid.
Here's the ones I looked for:
Not one of them was available on F-Droid. Care to share the ones that you know of?
There are. But are the banking apps people use to manage their money on F-Droid? Can I download PayPal on F-Droid? Are there any cash transfer apps that have enough users and enough support to be useful?
I have keys on my keyring, but if those keys don't open the doors you need to open... how useful are they to you?
Cool! I'll just call my bank and tell them that.