Why not both? ;)
Some FOSS apps are only available for a fee in the play store and I think that’s great. They’re able to access a bigger market for funding purposes, and we both know the vast majority of play store users won’t make the effort to figure out how to make donations otherwise.
You can’t download paid apps through the Aurora store.
Update: They’ve released a roadmap.
They have a fixed plan for the next 3 months, mostly back-end improvements for app developers.
Longer term plans are listed in order of priority but without a time line, it depends on how much of their funding goal they reach.
Current funding on Github shown at 10% of goal.
I don’t think they’re aiming to replace F-Droid. Rather think of this as a tool to wean the masses off the play store. It’s also an alternative for those people currently using microg and Aurora Store.
Personally I have some proprietary apps that I don’t want to be without. If Accrescent could provide them, I could finally delete my google account. I literally just have an account to download apps.
F-Droid is great for the FOSS market but not everyone only wants FOSS apps, Microg and the Aurora Store exist for a reason. Accrescent could theoretically (eventually) make it possible to wean more people completely off the play store.
If F-Droid meets your needs, then that’s great, and this post is not for you :)
They released their roadmap a few days ago.
Precisely, that’s what I meant. Different market segments need different approaches.