I understand that 90% of people get their apps exclusively from the Play Store but that is not because Google is evil. Its because people prefer one store were they can find everything: the supermarket model.
By choice, I do not have a Play Store account and wherever possible install apps only from F-Droid. However, there are (rare) times where I want to install a free (as in beer) closed source app. However, the publisher only chooses to make the app available via the Play Store. I would really, really like a direct apk download. I appreciate this approach is not for every end user and some people are scared of the "warning" messages Android displays when installing apps directly. Nonetheless, it would be really nice to have the choice and I don't see it as so much extra effort on the publisher's side.
So even though it’s technically possible, it’s not always a going to happen.
There’s also side loading as a malware vector. If you do side load, you need to remember to turn off non-AppStore access immediately after.
If you develop apps to make money as a business this is not realistic. If the user can only side load your apps you probably have shrunken your potential customer base by 95%.
Because the grandparent comment was about the search engine.
- Develop mobile apps for a company rather than sell your own on Play/App store. - Develop non-mobile apps. - Not-app programming (business automation, infra, embedded, etc). - Get out of programming entirely.
This is basically the same message for all the other displaced/disrupted jobs (coal miners, bank clerks, lift operators, cashiers). Nobody owes anybody a livelihood for a fairly narrow/specific field. Especially not in "mobile app development" which 10 years ago was close to non-existent as as job title.
