Ads upon ads upon ads
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.
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.
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.
Since mobile gaming has died for me anyway, i have no reason to browse the store. For what I use it for, it’s fine. It has the apps i need and updates them.
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.
Just be glad you’re on Android and have alternatives to this. Poor Apple users are stuck with whatever Apple decided to do with the app store.
Yes, Poor Apple Users are stuck with no ads at all! What a Shame
Yeah Apple doesn’t do this to the users whatsoever.
Poor Apple users kinda don’t have to deal with this shit
Can confirm on my own device. Only ad in sight is for two dots itself at the top … I kept scrolling looking for one and didn’t see any.
Google is just a colorful façade. The insides of this bloated monstrosity is filled with ads and sellable user data. It needs to be put out of its misery.
It is an advertisement company after all :/
Yes, but the product they sell is You. They’re more like a pimp version of ad companies. But not the racist Hollywood type, you know: funny dressed black guy with a cylinder hat and a cane. No, this one wears wife beaters, takes showers once or twice a month and takes advantage of you every day, and still sells you to the lowest bidder…
The Play Store peaked back when it was still called Android Market (which I still reckon is a better name). DAE remember ?
Play store sounds like a game marketplace. Also Play has nothing to do with anything in googles brand so its really confusing why its still called that.
They tried having a Play ecosystem with Google Play Video, Music, Games, etc. Music was actually pretty good, so of course Google killed it in favor of YouTube Music, which is terrible and plays YouTube video versions of songs instead of actual album stuff.
Ytm definitely does have album content, wtf are you on about. Yes you can play videos there too, but it’s by no means the default.
It’s actually pretty good, just wish they did a lossless tier like tidal
It’s mixed. The worst is playlists, which are mostly just YouTube playlists without video. Was trying to play a Disney song playlist for a friend’s kid, and it was definitely from the videos, with all the sound effects from the scenes in the movies instead of just the song.