Keep in mind that rif has been around since 2010, and the official app launched in 2016. I think the opposite is true, anecdotally I’ve noticed discussion of 3PA has gone down in the past 5 years. People used to talk about it all the time, I didn’t hear much until this controversy. Most redditors are not power-users, I don’t think many of them would know what F-Droid is let alone use it. I’d personally guess that 3PA usage is under 10%.
I think this change was mainly sparked by cracking down on AI scraping bots, and killing 3PA was a two-birds-one-stone side effect to prepare for their IPO.
Keep in mind that rif has been around since 2010, and the official app launched in 2016. I think the opposite is true, anecdotally I’ve noticed discussion of 3PA has gone down in the past 5 years. People used to talk about it all the time, I didn’t hear much until this controversy. Most redditors are not power-users, I don’t think many of them would know what F-Droid is let alone use it. I’d personally guess that 3PA usage is under 10%.
I think this change was mainly sparked by cracking down on AI scraping bots, and killing 3PA was a two-birds-one-stone side effect to prepare for their IPO.