The first real money I ever made from game development was on Android. It was in 2013, when Android was still the underdog compared to the iPhone, and was being touted as a great platform for developers.
Disclaimer:
Even though the title says “my”, this is not my blogpost.
That said, it is not really beneficial for most companies to compete with Google Play since they know the user base will be smaller, user experience will be worse (install warnings, no auto-update), and people may get affected by malware if they don’t pay attention to where they are downloading things from (may download a scam app directly instead of the legit app store).
There are plenty of repositories for F-Droid, and from what I’ve heard, also for Aptoide.
That said, it is not really beneficial for most companies to compete with Google Play since they know the user base will be smaller, user experience will be worse (install warnings, no auto-update), and people may get affected by malware if they don’t pay attention to where they are downloading things from (may download a scam app directly instead of the legit app store).
I said paid.
Of course it is. The reasons are detailed in the OP.
This is a thing of the past at this point.
The same can happen on any other store.