If you look at the workflows for these changes, you'll notice that some of them are actually there to prevent you from doing stuff under duress.

Like it or not, if one wants security some freedom will need to be moved elsewhere.

And since the market is heading that way, the only thing we can do is form an android sandbox SIG and maintain a fork for enthusiasts.

Well people can be tricked into sideloading apps if it’s possible.

To be clear I’m totally on your side and I think that’s a ridiculous reason to not have an open system, but let’s not pretend it’s not a possibility because doing so harms our otherwise very solid argument

Hey, I’ve side loaded and F-Droided and all that. But here’s the thing: I just need the phone to work, minimally spy on me, and not turn into some horrible malware sinkhole. Google and their OEM ecosystem lost my confidence on all three counts.

One thing I used to side load or F-Droid was a keyboard, to circumvent what I perceived as privacy violations. But my selection Year 0 got forked or disappeared by Year 2, idk when or why, and thats a glaring security or privacy risk that I don’t have time to monitor and figure.

I actually thought Google’s solution in the article was charming— toggle developer mode. If you’re in developer mode you know you’ve got something to monitor and mitigate. Smartphones just aren’t powerful enough to use for their own defense at a consumer level against professionalized hackers, and from a product positioning perspective Google’s move is completely defensible.