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Why my apps will soon be gone from the Google Play Store
(frozenfractal.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
There are plenty of repositories for F-Droid, and from what I've heard, also for Aptoide.
That said, it is not really beneficial for most companies to compete with Google Play since they know the user base will be smaller, user experience will be worse (install warnings, no auto-update), and people may get affected by malware if they don't pay attention to where they are downloading things from (may download a scam app directly instead of the legit app store).
I said paid.
Of course it is. The reasons are detailed in the OP.
This is a thing of the past at this point.
The same can happen on any other store.