There is a lot of truth in what you write, so I am just going to point out the UnifiedPush project[0].
Of course with the, rather large, caveat of that not working outside of
> TestFlight or an analogous Android channel
This implements a push service (caveat: Android only) that is less restrictive than what google provides, and allows the reuse of an existing notification server (ntfy, prosody, etc) by other installed apps.
Since f-droid exists, this allows for a halfway decently user-friendly-ish way to completely self host outside of relying on googles server's and zulip, for example, could offer the ability to receive notifications through it if there's an a unified push distributor available on the phone.
It seems that there is at least awareness for this in the project [1].
But with google tightening the noose around alternative ways to install apps, who knows how long this will be even possible.
Of course with the, rather large, caveat of that not working outside of
> TestFlight or an analogous Android channel
This implements a push service (caveat: Android only) that is less restrictive than what google provides, and allows the reuse of an existing notification server (ntfy, prosody, etc) by other installed apps.
Since f-droid exists, this allows for a halfway decently user-friendly-ish way to completely self host outside of relying on googles server's and zulip, for example, could offer the ability to receive notifications through it if there's an a unified push distributor available on the phone. It seems that there is at least awareness for this in the project [1].
But with google tightening the noose around alternative ways to install apps, who knows how long this will be even possible.
[0] https://unifiedpush.org/ [1] https://github.com/zulip/zulip-flutter/issues/1198