This whole situation also reminds me of the Manifest V3 drama with Chromium. They might be planning something similar and want to avoid the early headaches of public criticism.
Or maybe they're doing a bigger overhaul of Android's core, changing how apps can communicate and control each other (e.g., computer-user, Operator)!
Idk, I dnt want to be cynical fingers crossed.¯\_(ツ)_/¯