If you want to sell Android apps, you are. Yes, I know Android allows installs from sources other than Play Store, but if you want to be popular, you have to be in Play Store.
I'm actually surprised/impressed with how successful that strategy has been for Google. I've always considered sideloading and alternate app stores to be an advantage for Android, but Google's store is effectively a monopoly anyway.
Statements like this are technically correct, but not very useful to discussion of the problem of Google and other large corporations being in control of such large pieces of widely-used infrastructure that they effectively decide what kinds of things others will create.
The parent's comment is so infuriating: yes, you can chose something else instead of Google, but it hardly matters because all of them are more or less equally terrible. Which, I guess, only makes sense in the competitive market: way too terrible or way too pleasant entities go bust (for slightly different reasons), what's left are entities that are just "good enough", and there is not much reason for them to try and improve the quality.
I'm actually surprised/impressed with how successful that strategy has been for Google. I've always considered sideloading and alternate app stores to be an advantage for Android, but Google's store is effectively a monopoly anyway.