"Local brand, rebadged hardware, ethernet port on the back, internet features in the menu"

"Keeping the download tiny was a decision, not a side effect."

God I hate the AI slop that I can instantly call out. If you MUST have your blog written by AI, please please please please implement a skill or something that does a second pass using this https://tropes.fyi/tropes-md so at least we remove all the USUAL tells. I cannot stand to read articles like this any longer.

As it will be for most software, imho. There's a limited suite of extremely popular software, and some locale-specific ones. Everything else is buried in a mountain of "the rest", where it's near-impossible to discover what's worth one's time (read: so >99.99% of potential users won't bother, and stick to well-known apps).

Logical consequence is that most of "the rest" turns into abandonware.

Big Tech's algorithms behind what's promoted on app stores, commercial interests, use of AI: all just make this worse. I don't see easy solutions to this problem. But if/when found, I suspect it'll be through community-run / grassroots efforts. "Monetization" otoh just turns everything to shit...