Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

Google's decision to walk back the supposed freedom to run anything you like removes user choice from the marketplace and harms consumers.

What a ridiculous strawman. I outlined a specific issue with what they introduced. To make it even more clear - the new flow Google created would work just the same with just the 24 hour delay, but the way how they introduced the "For how long should you be able to install apps?" question comes out of left field and suddenly makes you think about timing. Why would they ask you that? After all, you jumped through a sufficient number of hoops for Google, they probably estimated that anyone who has gone that far out of their way should know what they're doing. So why ask a developer or power user about the duration when this feature works? The very unsubtle hint here is that the question is asked because soon enough, 'Forever' will not be an option anymore. It's a very common tactic - restrictions start light, and then are ratcheted up into a nagging reminder that works to dissuade everyone but the most dedicated.

> You understand there's a real goal being pursued here, right? Suppose Google is dealing in good faith.

I do. But why are you so implicitly adamant that the only goals here are good, noble, moral goals? Google will do everything in its interests, regardless of how good or bad it is for people. Decreasing the vectors of attack on their platform is profitable for them, and it also coincides with the public interest of not getting hacked. But ensuring that other brands, OEMs or developers can't interfere with them building an app distribution monopoly is also good for them. Being the sole arbiters of what goes on the devices that have now become mandatory for participating in society is extremely good for them. Do you think they're only pursuing the first one of the three?

> How should they solve it differently?

You're not going to like the answer, but there's no clean, perfect solution that balances everyone's interests. Companies are pushing the safety angle in pursuit of the three interests I listed above. You can see just how much it ramped up in the last few years, even though we've been living under this status quo for decades. But it's not as simple as turning devices into grandma-phones with approved functionality only, because both extremes have big drawbacks. If you have 90s-style insecure fully-privileged computing for everyone, that's a path towards extremely unsafe and vulnerable systems, worked on by people who don't know what they're doing. If you have full lock-down, you're awarding current market leaders with an endless reign of power by insulating them from competition and giving them more control over users. The way we were doing things before this crackdown was striking a good balance of keeping most grandmas out while not choking the abilities of the hobbyists or third-party app distributors too much. If you want an alternative, an ADB flag that you have to change once through a command prompt would've been good too.

Unfortunately, a more accurate way of putting it is: stuff takes cards in lieu of coins. Like, where I live (also EU), ticket machines in buses and trams have gradually been upgraded over the past decade to accept cards, and then to accept only cards.

It's a ratchet. Hidden inflation striking again. Cashless is cheaper to maintain than cash-enabled, so it pretends to be a value-add at first, but quickly displaces the more expensive option. Same with apps, which again, are cheaper to maintain than actual payment-safe hardware.

It's near impossible to reverse this, because to do that, you have to successfully argue for increasing costs - especially that inflation quickly eats all the savings from the original change, so you'd be essentially arguing to make things more expensive than the baseline.

They're an amoral monopolistic megacorp that should have been broken up a year ago.

They are performing the ritual of maximalist offensive position -> half-hearted walk back to a worse status quo.

Is the problem they claim to want to solve real? Maybe. I haven't seen a convincing breakdown that doesn't lump a lot of unrelated fraud in the unvetted APK bucket.

That's beside the point though. No one should applaud this utterly predictable and disgusting behavior.

I don't accept it when Unity does it. I don't accept it when Hasbro does it. I won't accept it here either.