If those bad decisions have a lot of higher order effects and they turn out to be very costly for society, then limiting freedom seems worth it.

And it seems Google thinks society is beginning to unravel in SEA due to scammers. Trust breaks down, people stop using phones to do important things, GDP can shrink, banks go back to cheques, trees will be cut down!!

It's bad to let people go and catch the zombie virus and the come back and spread it, right?

...

I don't like it, but the obvious decision is to set up a parallel authority that can issue certificates to developers (for side loading), so we don't have to trust Google. Let the developer community manage this. And if we can't then Google can revoke the intermediary CA. And of course Google and other manufacturers could sell development devices that are unlocked, etc.