Honestly this is a bad look: Chumming - Wikipedia
Chumming - throwing fish parts into water to lure various animals, usually fish such as sharks.
Sailfish needs a good app store an elderly person could browse without getting confused.
Then you have already excluded yourself, since you said you prefer F-Droid and actually care about privacy and similar things. 
Sailfish is and will remain a niche OS for the foreseeable future. There is no point in trying to make everyone’s experience miserable just to dumb everything down to the level of a perceived standard Android user who is not going to switch anyway.
I am totally with you that Jolla’s web presence, communication, and app store could be improved, though.
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It’s less harmful in French: chum — Wiktionnaire, le dictionnaire libre
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Is also not really harmful in English: CHUM Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
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This is true but why can’t they attempt to bridge the gap like Bazzite or Linux Mint? MacOS is based on BSD and SteamOS is Arch. Nobody complains about those operating systems and they still have power users. Sailfish is sold as a complete solution. The terminal is disabled by default.
The market is desperate for alternatives to Android and Windows.
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Jolla has limited ressources but good ambitions. You could probably help solving this by researching viable open source app store front-ends and providing links here.
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6,486 preorders is not bad for a niche market, but it does not look like real desperation to me.
There are tons of things that could be improved, I’m not disputing that.
Jolla does not have the funding or manpower to make extensive changes to the Sailfish OS ecosystem anyway.
This becomes more and more evident. I’m not blaming a manufacturer for the monopolistic practices of their competitors but this isn’t a selling point either. Framework are in the same position. They don’t have adequate economies of scale to keep the price down.
Also can’t even subsidize it by selling our data 
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All I can offer is money in exchange for product. I know nothing about the app store experience, which is my point of consternation.
A simple website explaining the official preinstalled apps with screenshots would be a good place to start. Name of program, version number, authors, location of source code, licenses, and a forum or feedback portal to discuss changes.
In three taps I went from home page to app store:
Then found a third party repository:
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KDE only requires one tap or click to go from homepage to available apps.
What I basically want to get at with this discussion is the following point, broken down to its simplest form:
The average user expects to find a system that is set up in such a way that they can start using it right away. This includes:
- An app store that provides them with apps and updates for the same and is easy to use. (Including reviews & co for apps)
- Finding their usual apps or at least alternatives that are usable (e.g. Whisperfish).
- A website that provides them with information in advance and looks trustworthy.
- An easy way to install Android apps, if this is being sold as a major feature to compensate for missing Sailfish OS apps. (e.g. an Android app store installed directly or at least a simple summary for laymen of what, how and where)
There are many technical people behind Sailfish OS, which is good and necessary, but ultimately everything is logical and understandable for these people, while it is not understandable for the average user. This means that a minimum of out-of-the-box functionality is required, or at least, as mentioned, reasonable instructions/setup with all the information.
As long as the user does not get this, they will be frustrated and will not continue, and as long as they do this, it is not a European alternative; it will always remain a nice product but will unfortunately never make the big leap.
However, if market share increases and the company enjoys increased sales, e.g. through services such as app store fees when introducing paid apps and the like, then more developers will be able to further develop and improve the system, which in turn will increase quality and possibilities.
Best regards,
Schmaetz92
PS: I don’t use AI for my replies, but translation software to ensure that the discussion doesn’t crash due to wording and so on.
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I fully support this initiative. It would be great to check what apps you can find from official store before purchase decision. Also I would like to see more of “basic” apps to added to official Jolla store and even having paid apps. Would love to pay a little bit for apps to boost the app ecosystem and compensate even a little of the time devs use to offer those great apps.
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2 posts were split to a new topic: AI in the forum
Way faster too
I avoid looking at the google play store web pages, but, sometimes have to check stuff for kiddo. It’s a nightmare. I have no idea how anyone deals with the information overload from all the scam apps on the play store!
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Maybe harbour.Jolla.com could be open sourced and extended, it seems to have all info already
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Actually, a pretty good idea. It’s just a view we need. Hmmm. Jolla!??
Sometimes I really miss the downvote button. All I see here (from some commenters, not OP) is arrogance and zealotry. Crashing a very small party, asking all sorts of dumb questions like “why didn’t anybody know about this? Why isn’t this party bigger? What’s with the weird music? Don’t you have a real soundsystem?” and unsolicited advice. Instead of just soaking it in, listen for a while, and then decide if they want to stay - and maybe help out - or go.
I have seen plenty of zealots who pop in for a while, spout all sorts of pompous nonsense masked as “trying to help” (no you’re not, you’re just complaining) or even “hoping to push the revolution along” - and then leave, out of “disappointment”.
There, I said it. Have to, every now and then.
Happy New Year Everyone!
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Reading through this discussion I find myself changed from believing a web view of the Store isn’t necessary at all to finding the idea of a web presentation of some apps quite appealing.
Why not all? Well, because the Store does have certain issues which makes it even hard to know what ‘all’ even means (version incompatibility, arm vs aarch64 apps, abandonware etc).
But we do have
- app reviews from community newsletters
- rankings such as Most Downloaded, Highest Rated…
This could be made into a kind of App Showcase page, gradually updated with new reviews from the Newsletters.
I think that could fulfill some of the wishes expressed in this thread. It would be a bit like the Plasma Apps page where not every KDE app shows up, but a nice selection.
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For me the situation with 3 appstores looks nice! I like this, have a look into more shops, looking what’s there, what’s new, like real shopping tour on friday afternoon.
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