I completely agree with your statement, but you have to lower your standards to sell your product to as many users as possible. After that, you can gradually raise the standards. Imagine F-Droid, which has a lot of FOSS apps if it started requiring the same standards that Accrescent requires right now to include an app in their store, what would happen? Developers would have to follow their security standards just to maintain their apps in the F-Droid store. Obviously, not all developers would do this, but it’s a good strategy to try.
Regarding donations, the blog I linked above mentions that in 2025 they received $30,665.41 in cryptocurrency. That’s not a small amount of money. Also, the roadmap you linked isn’t very reassuring. In the ‘Roadmap’ section under the short-term timeline, it states that in the next month, some new features (such as a log description and a screenshot for every listed app) would be added to the Accrescent app. However, the blog was created on 11/08/2025, and today is 20/05/2026. I personally still don’t see these features.
I am fully aware that I am coming down hard on Accrescent, but I do not intend to convey any message of hatred toward the project, nor toward the developer. However, what I am expressing is simply my own point of view how I see the project right now.
The most concerning issue for me is that easy notes (which I use) is currently version 1.4 on acrescent while the latest release is 1.7. They should at least be checking their apps are up to date?
It’s up to the devs to keep their apps updated, but apparently Kin69 (the easy notes dev) lost their keys for the accrescent version. This is according to a screenshot someone posted in the matrix room.
When one of the first apps on Accrescent was a reIigious app (AndBible) and then the whole donations thing with no progress, it became evident it is just grift.
During a routine audit of my phone software, Ive discovered that Accrescent’s auto-update feature has been malfunctioning. Despite the availability of an update on Accrescent, and the app’s configuration to allow auto-updates, I am running out-of-date apps…
I’m not so sure a Bible app is an indicator of grift.
I could be biased as I am religious, but it’s pretty standard for FOSS platforms to have a couple of religious study tools available (Linux package managers usually have a selection).
There’s a lot of people who do use religion study apps every day so it’s possible they merely saw AndBible as a good option to add.
But, I will admit that their selection process on apps seems almost random for such a small selection.
