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Comment by cosmotic | Hacker News Reader

Rounded to the nearest percent, I'd guess power users make up 0% of android user base.

That is true but they are also some of the most vocal advocates of certain systems. It is a king of trust errotion that doesnt show up for a very long time but by the time it does it is too late to reverse.

Tge flipside of that is that Google and Apple have no viable alternatives. It would take years to build what they have.

It took Huawei about 5 years with Harmony OS to do it but odds if that making it far out side of China is limited.

Is it because people genuinely don't care, or because the barrier to become a power user is becoming taller and taller every passing year?

Is it because Android literally has billions of users across the world.

Especially once you start counting car entertainment systems, POTS terminals, digital signage, and hundreds of other classes of devices that are not genera-purpose toys.

A large portion of which are using it in a feature phone capacity. Many only use smartphones because it’s what their carrier gave them after their old candybar dumbphone either broke or became unable to connect to cell towers.

The other groups are those who use it identically to how they would iOS (and don’t root or sideload), those that use it as computer replacement, and those who just like to tinker. Those last two groups are a tiny, tiny sliver relative to the others.

And what is your view on the percentage of power users among iphone user base? Also zero? One hundred? So interesting.

The share of power users on iOS might be larger than expected because a lot of people working in tech fight computers for a living and prefer their phones to be simple appliances assigned to a relatively focused set of tasks.

You are talking not about Apple's walled garden. Don't confuse a skilled power user with a pesky celebrity who always prefers one button over two buttons because of complexity issue.

I am, though. Someone who uses their phone for mail, chat, music, and calls with everything else being done on a proper computer has little to gain from sideloading, and plenty of computer power users use their phones that way.

I know because I’m one of them and something like 70% of my SWE colleagues I’ve known — including Android users — fit that description too. Most have never sideloaded anything and maybe 20% have flashed their phone with an alternative ROM or rooted at some point.

An individual being good with computers or even being capable of programming has little bearing on if they’re also a phone power user.

> Most have never sideloaded anything

I have never told anyone what I, ahem, install.

Why installing software for power users should be in a sideloading form?

Maybe the sideloader is a power user in comparison to the celebrities, but who is a real power user is those who can to sideload without the sideloading. Power users of your smartphone are: top-management of the vendor, the Government and 0-day scene. Sideloading actor IMO is just a poser to the idea of a power user.

Snoop-phone useds are powerless.

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