Your mistake is taking Google's argument at face value. Protecting users is an outright lie, this is purely about control.

Google doesn't give one single shit if users download malware from the Play Store, but hypothetical malware from third party sources is so much worse that we need to ruin the whole OS? That doesn't pass the sniff test.

Google wants to make sure you can only download malware from developers who give google a cut. They want to control the OS and remove user choice. That's all it is. That's what it's always been about.

"Protecting users" is a pretense and nothing more. Google does not care at all about user safety. They aren't even capable of caring at this point. There are far, far cheaper and more effective ways to actually protect users, and google isn't doing any of them.

▲

grishka 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm assuming good faith and giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Of course it might be that they want more control. In addition to controlling the world's most popular web browser and the world's most popular search engine and the world's most popular online advertising network and the world's most popular online video service.

▲

nijave 11 hours ago | parent [-]

It's really hard to when there's already technical solutions. They could require a process like bootloader unlocking that puts it in "dev" mode for instance

While signing is useful, leaving no escape hatch imo is blatantly predatory

	▲	grishka 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		These restrictions already don't apply to something you install over adb, so there's already that. But that still considerably raises the bar for things like apps made by sanctioned entities, for example, most Russian banks.

▲

Teckla 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's all part of the war on general computing. This dystopian nightmare is coming to desktop operating systems too. See the age verification stuff that's all of a sudden being pushed hard by countries all over the world.

As someone that was going to switch from iPhone to Android/Pixel later this year, at least now I know not to bother anymore, as the locking down of Android won't stop here.

	▲	EvanAnderson 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's crazy to me how technical people willfully disregard the coming end of individually-owned general purpose computers. I have a strange mix of nostalgia and crushing sadness knowing that I got to live through that time.