My open letter, to the European Commission digital markets act team:

Hello,

I am joining other developers, concerned about Googles new plan, to approve every app and effectively destroy most of the competing 3rd party stores this way. The biggest one of these alternative stores, most known for their focus on user and developer privacy, already states, this would make it impossible for them to operate: https://f-droid.org/cs/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html
Even communities like the XDA forum, where new developers are often introduced to the world of Android development, would likely be strongly impacted, as making, publishing and installing Android apps is made less accessible.

I am not just writing on their behalf, I run a small website myself (https://thecanine.ueuo.com/), that both provides legal modifications, for some android apps - for example adding an amoled dark theme, to the most popular XMPP chat client for Android, or increasing one of Androids keyboard apps height. This all comes after Googles previous changes to the Android operating system, that prevent users from installing old apps (old to Google, can mean only a couple of months, without an update - https://developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/target-sdk and the target version gets increased every year). I rely on apps developed by a single developer, even for things like making the pixel art presented on my website and sideloading as a way to make these apps work, before developers can catch up to Google’s new requirements - if Google is allowed to slowly kill these options, us digital artists will soon lose the tools we need to create digital art.

@thecanine@twtxt.net Got any responses from any politicians? 🤔 (Assuming you send this letter directly to them, of course.)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I am betting he will not. The letter was not focused, nor used, politician’s “lingo”. If it was sent via email then it will be even easier to dismiss. I wish I was not such a cynic! 😩

@thecanine@twtxt.net alright, a canned reply. Better than nothing! (or equal to nothing, LOL).

@thecanine@twtxt.net I am not arguing you didn’t do the right thing™, and even if the impact is minimal, or nothing, you did what you thought was right (and I agree). I don’t agree with certain rules the EU wants to impose, not in this particular case. There are rotten potatoes everywhere, and I don’t get fooled by the EU often sacrosanct behaviour.

But who am I to say anything, right? Look at the grotesque clown utterly shit show we live with on this side!