I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. At the same time piracy in this case feels short sighted to me.

If the community supported the dev, then both might get what they want, i.e. a maintained app and some income. With negative reviews a cheaper competitor might appear due to demand. But with piracy the app is even more likely to get abandoned and no alternative will show up either.

Then again if the ecosystem is indeed that bad, perhaps this is the way to torch it even more. Still, google plans to block sideloading and then I guess we’re at their mercy.