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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • I think any unknown phrase and method to install an app will be scary to a person who is that unknowledgeable about it. At that point there isn’t any phrase that you could use that wouldn’t sound sketchy to them, it isn’t the phrase that is the problem, it’s the fact that it’s unknown and the process is scary.

    The people you are describing would still be skeptical even if you explained it to them (and they should be, since they likely don’t have the knowledge or resources to properly vet an application from an unknown source)


  • Sideloading is a term that’s been around for decades, it’s not some made up word by tech giants to make people scared of installing apps.

    The term originates from a designation for transferring data between physical devices and was slowly adopted (because language is fluid) to its current definition (by people on forums like xda).

    This isn’t some conspiracy and Google and apple don’t need to use coded language to prevent you from side loading, apple for example just outwardly and bluntly forbids it.


  • The reality is that there is a difference now, and it needs to be clarified. How would you, talking to another regular human being communicate to install an app that isn’t in the official app store succinctly? If you just tell someone to ‘install the app’ then you are doing a bad job communicating. Economy of language means that new words are going to form to distill common concepts.

    Package managers have existed for a long time, so the concept of app stores isn’t new and is actually generally the accepted solution by the open source community. It’s typically regarded as the safest way to install software as it comes with auditing and active management.

    Side loading does a great job at communicating what is being done, and it helps consolidate the various ways you actually install applications into a nice generic term.

    A store being locked down doesn’t really have much to do with the concept of side loading anyway, since a locked down device doesn’t support it in the first place.




  • People generally don’t want to make games free because often 99% of what makes a game good is not the software aspect. People like games for interesting mechanics, story, art, and music. Those aren’t things that generally haven’t worked well being free and open

    FOSS generally works because people use foss to create end products, and have an incentive to contribute because it benefits them financially (and the side effects is that it benefits others too).

    Making a game FOSS rarely benefits the creators since it is the end product, even if it benefits the game or community.

    There are cases where it works though, such as rhythm games, where the end product requires immense collaboration, but those often exist on the borderline of acceptability (due to copyrighted music use) and they end up with a need to be foss since licensing 10,000 songs is basically impossible.

    (Shout out Quaver)