zlacker

Aside from the prospect of bad press and user protest - There are still non Play Protect certified Android phones being released, including a few rare phones that skip the Play Store altogether (including the Fire phones). So they could lose at least a little bit of ground in this area. In a sense, they are in competition with their open source offering, even though they have a lot of control over it these days.

It could also make jailbreaking more commonplace, which on the Android side has died down in recent years because sideloading is enough for most users.

>>creato+(OP)
What is the killer app people are sideloading these days? For people to get onboard they need to feel like they are really missing out on something they find valuable. iOS doesn't have sideloading (outside of some TestFlight loopholes), and I don't see anyone is real life talking about it. It's just activists for this kind of thing online.

I don't think the average user feels like they are really missing anything, which makes it a hard sell.

>>al_bor+I3
I am not the average user, but my key apps are ReVanced, Termux, OsmAnd. All sideloaded. I am on a Pixel 9XL.

I definitely fly less now, because I am tired of the Orwellian circus at the airports. I guess same mechanism will reduce my smartphone use

>>cft+v5
Why is OsmAnd sideloaded? When I visit the website it shows it in the App Store and Play Store.

>>al_bor+cW
i installed it from F-Droid. Prefer using the opensource ecosystem