It seems to require the user to:

1. Enable Developer Mode by going to an obscure settings page and tapping the build number seven times

2. Enable USB ADB debugging in the Developer Options

3. Establish an actual USB ADB session

4. Enable TCP/IP ADB debugging in the Developer Options

5. Unknowingly download a malware app from the official Play Store

6. Blindly click "Yes" on the permission prompt.

In other words: this is all but impossible to impact regular users, and it requires a particularly careless developer to be hit by it. And it only works if the Play Store is useless at preventing malware in the first place - but I thought their excellent app scanning was the entire reasoning behind all-but-banning 3rd-party app stores and sideloading???

It is "for safety" in the same sense that governments banning all encryption is to "protect the children" or to "prevent terrorism": flawed justification invented to distract from the real reason they want it.

I think expert users on HN seriously downplay the ability and willingness of "regular users" to do very stupid things on their devices. If grandma wants that app that gives her a beautiful horse as a lock screen image, she will follow every one of those six steps that the malware HorseLockScreen app developer presents to her. She will tap a button that has a skull and crossbones icon, that says "tapping this will drain your bank account and kill your dog" if she thinks it will let her do whatever she's trying to do on her device. Have you guys never done IT tech support for your elderly parents' computers?

I'm not saying it's right to respond by simply locking everything down, but let's not downplay the blast radius of basically every attack that involves telling the user to do things.

> In other words: this is all but impossible to impact regular users, and it requires a particularly careless developer to be hit by it.

Have you ever worked with someone who barely knows how to use a mobile phone? They will hand their phone over to someone they barely even know to do something they don't understand. They will follow instructions from a stranger over the phone, without understanding what the phone is warning them about.

I have worked with such a person. They did have someone walk them through a dubious process. Thankfully they realized what was going on before the process was complete, but who knows how much damage was done by the initial steps.

There are legitimate security reasons here. Whether there are reasons beyond that is an open question.