You might be over estimating the impact of a forgotten app. This situation has already been taken into account in the design of Android.

Recent versions of Android have introduced app hibernation. This is a special application state that's triggered when an app has not been used for months, meaning the app is not likely to be important to the user. When an app goes unused or forgotten, Android wipes out all the application's caches and temporary data, revokes all important runtime permissions like location and file access to protect the user, and blocks the app from running without your explicit request to make very sure it can't silently leach your system resources.

Apps you don't use are effectively frozen automatically.

Long before hibernation kicks in, Adaptive Battery already severely punishes applications that the user doesn't use regularly. Within a matter of about two weeks the app will lose the ability to run in the background unless the phone is plugged in and charging, and finally hibernation will kick in to deliver the killing blow until you either launch the app or uninstall.

Feel free to load up on useless junk!

occupying valuable storage space

I can't remember last time in the past 5 years, maybe full decade, where I was running low on storage space on a smartphone.

consuming bandwidth, and draining battery life

If they're truly forgotten and this not used, Android places them in hibernation. At a certain point, Android disables then and removes any granted permissions.

their icons present while the app itself is not actually installed. They would remain dormant until needed, at which point they would be automatically downloaded and launched.

This just sounds like a bookmarked PWA website...which I actually always recommend when available. PWA are less intrusive and less permission hungry than the typical app.

The consequence of this habit is that my phone becomes cluttered with a graveyard of forgotten apps

Then break the habit.

The problem with forgotten apps is that they don't forget you: a lot of those apps are actively gathering data on you behind your back. Also, even if they're legit, there's always the risk that an update will pull in malware some day - either because the app was compromised, or the app maker went to the dark side.

What I do is this: I keep untrustworthy apps in my work profile (untrustworthy being any Google app, Reddit, Whatsapp and any other well-known data collecting trojans). My work profile is managed by Shelter which keeps them all frozen.

Every once in a while, I go around the apps in my main profile that I've installed "in case they might be useful some day" and if I haven't used them for some time, I stick them in my work profile to be frozen and kept out of my data should they start doing something sketchy some day.

And every once in a while, I go around the apps in my work profile and purge the apps that I haven't unfrozen for a long time.

In short, I use my work profile as a stage-out area for uncommonly used apps: they spend some time there to prove their worth until they prove worthless and I remove them entirely. But as long as they're in there, they don't consume resources and they're not a liability.

The Play Store has a wishlist but of course you can't see that from your drawer.

What I do is freeze apps I don't use with Titanium. They can't do anything in that state and they stay visible in the launcher (but not in the drawer). If you try to use them they say "app is not installed" so that's how I remember it's frozen. But Titanium needs root.

Like this?: Reduce uninstalls for your app with auto-archive

Linux mobile!

On my Linux desktop I have houndres of GUI apps, no slowdowns, nothing running in the background without knowleadge. It's just a disk space. Programs/apps can be uninstalled with keeping their data, so on later install it's still there.

And can we stop making separate apps for loyality cards or taxi networks, please? We need to keep programs universal. I don't want an app for [insert company] [insert name of their "smart" home product], I want protocols and standards.

I periodically scan through my app list and delete the ones for which I don't have a definitive need. Virtual decluttering.

You could bookmark this list of open source alternatives you can review when you have need of something.

I think a better way could be just downloading the APK, which you can then move wherever you want.

Unfortunately the play store won't allow that, so you'll need to use third party apps like the Aurora Store from f-droid, which allows downloading the APK file from the play store, even specific versions of it.

Another way to go is to freeze apps, so that launcher "uninstall" said app, but not quite, it just removes all permissions and denies app's attempts to send and receive data from the Internet.

Easy way to achieve this (and the one I personally use) is Insular, it let's me create and install apps on a work profile (so it doesn't have access to main profile data) and it let's you manage main profile apps too, although you need root for it (or Shizuku nonetheless)

Can we just have websites?

this is pretty much the point of Instant Apps

idk why nothing uses them