Discord. It's extremely popular and has no direct alternatives (Matrix spaces thing isn't ready at all yet)

EDIT: I didn't know Revolt and Zulip existed. I'm doing a research on them now

Plain banking apps for smartphones. Having those developed in the open would hopefully make it possible to have forks that work on rooted devices without hiding magisk and whatnot.

My phone firmware

FOSS CAD softwares. I know FreeCAD exists but it’s very unintuitive compared to the proprietary ones. I am thankful that it exists but it’s a long way apart to become a household name like Blender.

I wish I could start writing one but I don’t have a clear picture of requirements to plan and start writing one. If anyone is expert in this field please link some research papers and guidelines for someone to start fresh.

I wish there were more Open Source games.

Spotify.

An open source music streaming service where I can financially support artists but where I'm not forced to put up with annoying advertisements (even when paying membership fees!), and which allows me to use whatever app I want to play the music I listen to. It is annoying AF that I need to switch between apps to listen to music because Spotify's shitty native app is inferior in every possible way with the single exception of offering more content.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs. After spending years getting a community to contribute to one of the best music resources on the web, they turn around and lock all but the most basic features behind a pay wall.

Photoshop.

And yeah, no, please, don't come over and mention Gimp and Kryta and all the others. I get it, they're cool for the stuff they do. They just aren't the all in one package that Photoshop is or have as powerful tools specifically for photo editing. Photoshop would require a Blender-style major effort to replicate and Gimp just isn't up to it. I wish it were. Photoshop is at the perfect intersection of being uniquely capable and walled off behind the single crappiest ecosystem in software.

Nobody likes Adobe, nobody wants to work with Adobe. Nobody can avoid Photoshop. That's just the world we live in and I don't like it.

A decent language learning type app, like dulingo

grindr

Stylus/handwriting oriented note taking. Stuff like Samsung Notes or Goodnotes (or OneNote, though it does a lot more) in the Android space, or e-ink options like Remarkable's stock software.

If I just want to use a keyboard for everything I have great FOSS options like Joplin and Standard Notes, but when I want to use a pen instead it feels like no other freedom-respecting option seem to even remotely approach the usability of just sticking with real ink and moleskine-like paper notebooks.

Even someone willing to pay an upfront fee for proprietary apps will struggle to find good options that allow syncing and reading (let alone editing) your notes on other devices/platforms without resorting to a monthly subscription.

An alternative to iTunes so that I don’t need a Windows VM to backup my company iPhone. But I know it’s never gonna happen because Apple is the devil.

• Digital wallets (for things like cc, ID, coupons)
• Map apps (like google maps)
• Dating apps

Full on Transit app that works well. Most that do are closed sourced and the ones that are open do not work well. A traffic app would be good but that would be very resource intensive. So not holding my breath.

Software for the production of music and audio, like Ardour but for more platforms which more typical people could use more easily, plus plug-ins for that ecosystem. It's a major sticking point how corporate that field is for me.

Discord. And no, Matrix/Element isn’t an alternative.

SnagIt!

Flameshot is great, but it lacks too many features I've come to depend on from SnagIt! and I would absolutely pay for a Linux port even if it isn't FOSS

Swiping library and keyboard.

Yousician or similar entertaining musician motivator. One that has scoring or analysis, specifically. Not just a video/backing track player.

Some kind of buy/sell/auction/freecycle system service/app/front-end that isn't evil and it's simple enough for normos to use so it gets critical mass and makes it easy to buy/sell/give/recycle stuff locally.

Dating websites

I don't see anyone talking about it here but I'd dream of an open source alternative to AndroidTV/Apple Tv. Firstly because ATV is ultra-dependent on Google, and secondly because the interface is unclear and not really pretty.

Today I've switched to Apple TV, which is much better in terms of UX, but the OS is too closed and sideloading isn't possible...

So I hope to see some sort of CalyxOS / LineageOS for Tv arrive one day!

I would love to see a good Lightroom alternative in terms of ease of use.

Darktable is great and the results are good, but it's pretty complex to use and has a really steep learning curve. And it doesn't do photo management other than a few basics. Even after months of use I still struggle to replicate what I can do in Lightroom.

YouTube