That's like accepting vaders 'altered' deal, and being grateful it hasn't been altered further.

If google wants a walled garden, let it wall off it's own devices, but what right does it have to command other manufactures to bow down as well? At this stage we've got the choice of dictato-potato phone prime, or misc flavour of peasant.

If you want walled garden, go use apple. The option is there. We don't need to bring that here.

I am not english native. Is "The W" a synonym for "A Win", described as a positive outcome after a contest? Is there more nuance or context than that?

This is not a win. This is having independent distribution shut down and controlled.

We no longer own our devices.

We're in a worse state than we were in before. Google is becoming a dictator like Apple.

This isn't a "W", but I am finding my own "W" from this by seeing others distrust Google, and remembering to continue supporting and looking for open alternatives to Google.

It's not fine. Some apps particularly banking apps have developer mode detection and refuse to work if developer mode is enabled.

That's not fine at all. A developer who doesn't want to (or can't) distribute through the Play Store will now need to teach their users how to enable developer mode and toggle a hidden setting. This raises the barrier a bit more than the current method of installing outside the Play Store.

I imagine what they're going to do involves a time delay so a scammer cannot wait on the phone with a victim while they do it.

> The angry social media narratives have been running wild from people who insert their own assumptions

There may have been exaggerations in some cases but these hand wavy responses like "you can still do X but you just can't do Y and Z is now mandatory" or "you can always use Y" is how we got to this situation in the first place.

This is just the next evolution of SafetyNet & play integrity API. Remember how many said use alternatives. Not saying safetynet is bad but I don't believe their intentions were to stop at just that.

I don't think this section is actually the same as the present state just with a new alert box.

I suspect they mean you have to create a android developer account and sign the binaries, this new policy just allows you to proceed without completing the identity verification on that account.

Sorry what? Their original plan absolutely was the end of sideloading on-device outside of Google's say so. That's what the angry social media narratives were that you seem upset about. Anyone being pedantic and pointing out that adb install is still an option therefore sideloading still exists can fuck off at this point.

What are you talking about? This change for "experienced users" was only just announced and not part of any previous announcement. It has not been clear from the start at all.

> The angry social media narratives have been running wild from people who insert their own assumptions into what’s happening.

No, until this post, Google had said that it wouldn't be possible to install an app from a developer who hadn't been blessed by Google completely on your device. That is unacceptable. This blog post contains a policy change from Google.

Have you missed the plot entirely? This is absurd