I have the feeling Google has given up on using nerds as beachheads. The market is saturated enough and they don't need us anymore to do grass roots spreading of their products. It's the same with Youtube. As long as there were enough people who were unencumbered by ads because of their ad block and kept spreading links, the importance of Youtube was growing. After market saturation that vehicle isn't necessary anymore and they can squeeze them out.
Google needs to be broken up. Apple too.
The lack of antitrust enforcement is a clown show.
We have no choice in the most important computing category in the world. It's a duopoly and they have everyone in straightjackets - consumers, companies, competitors, governments, ...
A huge percentage of the world's thoughts and economy flow through mobile. And two companies own it.
Ma Bell was nothing compared to this.
It certainly seems like there is problematic behavior in the restrictions Google puts on OEMs that want to use Android (or, more specifically, play services) on their devices. However, I think it would take a different enforcement mechanism to address that.
In general, making anti consumer decisions is also easier when you know you can fall back on income from other units.
Apple only allows software on their macbooks and mac mini, and every release of MacOS it's more locked down. Everything else, from iPhone to the watch, is 100% locked down. Likewise, every version of Windows tries, again and again and again, to lock down programs that can be run. People absolutely don't accept it, but they do try (remember when they tried to bury the ability to run unverified apps behind a price hike?)
I'd at least give it a shot to simply appeal to Google on the justification they give. After all, the blogpost ... It is very strange for Google to do what they do in that blogpost, don't you think?
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-...
"In Brazil, the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN) sees ..."
"Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs praising it for providing a “balanced approach” that ..."
"Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society sees it as a “positive and proactive measure” that aligns ..."
"Developer’s Alliance have called this a “critical step” for ..."
And it's easy to come up with other government requirements, like the DMA (yes, ironically) and ChatControl that require vendors are able to disable apps.
Clearly there is more than a little government pressure on Google to do this, including US and EU lobby groups (Developer's Alliance). Clearly Google is unwilling or unable to resist government pressure to allow governments to control which apps get to run ... Has anyone even asked these groups why they push for this?
I'm not sure I agree, particularly with respect to their core businesses. Like Google basically own all parts of the ad stack and use that dominance to compete unfairly against basically everyone else, causing them to appear to be a better service. There was even an anti-trust case about it (up for sentencing at the moment, here's hoping for a breakup).
Facebook have certainly done a bunch of nefarious stuff, but Google is just a more useful product to the people who come here (and I agree with this), so they get more of a pass.
Google and Apple are holding the entire world hostage.
I can't even order food at half the restaurants I visit any more without a Google or Apple device. They're all using smart phone QR code menus. It's absurd.
Imagine what happens when they're the only way to pay. When they're the only form of government ID.
Do we really want these devices to be locked down and not owned by us? This much responsibility should be a business liability imposed by the governments of the world, not unlimited permission to tax and coerce without impunity.
Imagine if your government was as free as your smartphone. We wouldn't have elections. We'd have no freedom, no peace of mind, forever renters. Bad choices would be imposed upon us as defaults. The government would make us more dependent upon them. If we had a business, we'd be taxed 30%, told we couldn't have a relationship with the customer, made to jump through frequent hoops, deal with constant friction, have to pay protection racket money to avoid ads, have everything we do monitored and controlled, be subject to takedown whenever and for whatever reason, not be allowed to issue updates or use our own technology, have the government themselves compete with us and look at our data...
The governments of the world need to end this.
Locked down: no. But Google does not want them locked down. That has never been how Google operated (even now switching search engines, moving away from Google's core business, is trivial on any device, including Android)
Not "owned by us"? Yes. For the simple reason that "owned by us" means government phones, and governments have demonstrated what devices they'll build (ie. none), as well as how locked down they want these phones to be.
To say nothing of the fact that many governments would extend control over Google's services until nothing allowed is worth doing anymore (for example Pakistan has demonstrated many times they'd love to kill Youtube, as apparently French children's movies insult some sort of prophet, which apparently justifies blocking the whole thing)
And third many governments are adversarial towards one another. Which means Google just can't comply. India probably tries to threaten Google into stopping services in Pakistan. But while the India-Pakistan relationship regularly results in killings, nearly all governments are adversarial to some extent and will try to threaten any multinational into attacking other countries.
At best Google can give in to government pressure very slowly, because when that control gets strong enough governments would certainly use it to kill off Google.
It's become my go-to for "I need a utility for X task".
I, too, love vendor lockin.
It’s utterly bizarre how BBM could have been the iMessage and WhatsApp and who knows what else. But rich out-of-touch people thinking exclusivity is a perk in a commodities market just shows how business savvy and wealth are in reality disconnected from eachother.
For vast majority, Android vs iPhone is not massively different so iMessage availability is a draw for some people.
I doubt they learned their lessons. Apple walked all over them in so many ways and, if memory serves me right, they even mocked Steve Jobs over the iPhone.
Edit: just so I’m clear I’m discussing it from the perspective of early to mid 2000s. iPhone hadn’t yet come out, but iPods were popular. Trillian and Pidgin were dominating the online landscape of software that could support multiple chat protocols - seamless ICQ, AIM, IRC, Yahoo, MSN Messenger, all in one program. If there was a time for RIM to corner the market here it was right then and there because BBM was the real deal, being available on phones and they could have signed agreements with others to bring it to, for example, Nokia and Motorola and whoever else.
But no. They’d rather be arrogant and stupid.
Isn't that just doing their jobs as executives for a competitor?
Though internally, one would hope they were sounding some alarm bells. Though at the time, it wasn't at all obvious that people could get used to doing relatively serious typing on a small (even tiny back then) virtual keyboard.
WhatsApp became popular specifically because it was a multi-platform replacement for BBM.
BBM had little else to offer in terms of apps. It was a corporate ecosystem and good at that part of it.
iMessage also came out after BBM, and did their own device lock in, except iPhones were designed for the many instead of the few, especially beginners to smartphones.
This does not suggest to me that BBM was somehow positioned for mass adoption. There was no problem for it to solve. It was worse than the existing messaging landscape.
(If I had wanted to send a message to someone else whose only mode of communication was their BlackBerry, a situation that never arose, I would have emailed them. Convenient email was the BlackBerry's entire marketing strategy. Note that this works just as well on smartphones today.)
This frog is being boiled
And there are many great apps available on these free Android devices that are simply not available on "official" builds such as NewPipe, because Google obviously doesn't want you to block ads on Youtube.
Until EU's cross compatibility between messaging apps is passed, we are forced to be in vendor lockin.
We do not have to choose the lesser of two evils this time.
Maybe also on the ATMs of other banks?
Are you describing checks?
This is (I believe) part of PSD2, so basically all EZ banks require this now. Hilariously enough, they still have absurdly weak passwords but apparently they meet security requirements by forcing you to confirm stuff on your phone.
So, if you're interested in adding more devices, join the community and see what you can do!
Sell a way for businesses to send trusted communications to their customers in sensitive industries - i.e. healthcare would be a big one.
They need both an actual revenue stream, but also that sort of professional messaging can drive adoption which ultimately furthers the Signal mission.
Plus all those things could desperately use good secure messaging systems.
Much of the love was built before Facebook took it over.
Meta only bought it after it was already the de facto standard. And to be fair they are only just starting to ruin it after quite a few years. So I would say the world made a pretty good decision there.
So, yes, it's possible :)
If an adjective is sufficient to make you fall back to the mean then there wasn't much one can do to convince you, I'm afraid.
Sideloading was the killer feature for me as well.
And guess what, sideloading has never been allowed on iPhones.
So you just went from bad to worse. The only rational option for tech-minded people nowadays is to buy a device that supports Lineage or Graphene (ironically Pixels are good for this) and to replace the stock OS.
So if the reason you're choosing Android over iOS is freedom and flexibility, once that's gone, why not choose slickness, speed, battery-life, photo quality, and an integrated experience?
Hard to see that as a plus.
I have owned iPhones in the past (and still have a couple of old models collecting dust in a drawer), and I don't think they are in any way more refined than my Pixel 9 running Graphene. Most importantly, it is immune to arbitrary restrictions like sideloading bans or government-mandated spyware (aka Chat Control in Europe).
This is only true in English speaking markets, the rich countries of Western Europe are much more Android heavy.
Eh? I have a 6000mah Android. Everyone with an iPhone that I know struggles to get half the battery life I get.
Then I might as well treat myself with better hardware & ecosystem.
But you'll be reminded quickly how comparatively shit Apple's software is.
Aka the litany of "Oh, yeah, everyone knows that's broken but just deals with it, because there's no way to fix issues on a closed platform other than {wait for Apple}."
android sucks, but it was open
now it just sucks
My pixels haven't done that (yet anyways).
The only thing I can think of that's worse on iOS is that you're forced to use safari or another skin on webkit rather than true alternative browsers. Everything else works better thatn android AFAICT, and integrates amazingly with MacOS.
Tapback emoji choice being uneditable.
There's a lot of little annoyances that on Android can be user-fixed, but on iOS it's just... wait and hope.
I’m always searching for things with unnecessary dots in them, and I’d forgotten about the keyboard options on Android.
Remember when GPS navigation was a $5/month app that was a cellular plan addon?
“In 2024, the App Store made $103.4 billion to Google Play’s $46.7 billion.”
Android used to be weak against iPhone and needed to cooperate, so they allowed more apps in to grow the userbase. Now that they're big and strong, they don't need allies, so they start kicking out everyone who isn't making them money.
Every "enshittified" service does it - Imgur, Reddit, whatever. Everyone selling $10 bills for $9 does it. Microsoft did it. They took a step backwards by buying GitHub, when they realized they were totally blowing it on cloud. But now that they have users stuck on GitHub and VS Code, they're defecting again.
Googles/Apples argument would have been much stronger if their stores managed to not allow scams/malware/bad apps to their store but this is not the case. They want to have the full control without having the full responsibility. It's just powergrab.
Scam apps are rife in the iOS App Store. But what they can’t do easily install viruses that affect anything out of its sandbox, keyloggers, etc
I agree let's have sandboxed app instalations on platforms. Flatpak is already going this way. But it looks like big players Microsoft,Apple and Google are gatekeeping app sandboxing behind their stores instead of allowing people/devs to use sandboxing directly.
ChromeOS/ChromiumOS uses heavy sandboxing. Android currently uses sandboxing transparently, despite plans to iOS-ify the platform. Hell, Windows uses app isolation sandboxing these days.
All four consumer platforms let you run the software you want to and they provide sandboxing at the same time. They also let you configure sandboxes, too.
As for open source, consumer products like the Steam Deck use sandboxes, popular game launchers like Lutris use sandboxes, Firefox transparently uses sandboxing by default, as does Chromium/Chrome, anything installed automatically with Flatpak or Snap are sandboxed by default and AppArmor/SELinux works in the background automatically on most distros and are activated by default.
Saying open source projects like the Steam Deck, Firefox, Chromium, ChromiumOS and Android suck for consumers is a weird opinion, but you're free to have it.
And Android’s sandboxing is so bad, you always hear about the malware of the week especially outside of the Play Store.
ChromeOS also isn’t open source. And expecting end users to “configure sandboxes” you might as well not have one.
Firefox is s browser, and didn’t they tighten what third party extensions can run?
Android - or at least the version that most people use - is not “open source” by any stretch of the imagination.
Apps can and do ship with sandboxing rules that will be applied at runtime.
> ChromeOS also isn’t open source. And expecting end users to “configure sandboxes” you might as well not have one.
I listed ChromeOS as one of four consumer operating systems used by billions of people that uses sandboxing, not as an open source OS.
Notice how I did use ChromiumOS when referring to open source software, along with Chromium.
> And expecting end users to “configure sandboxes” you might as well not have one.
Who said anything about expecting users to do that? I just mentioned that you could configure them if you wanted to, like I said in my GP.
Again, my point is that these are consumer products that billions of people use everyday that use sandboxing by default, yet somehow not even having to think about sandboxing is too onerous for end users?
> Firefox is s browser, and didn’t they tighten what third party extensions can run?
Yes, it is open source consumer software that does sandboxing by default without the user having to think about it.
> Android - or at least the version that most people use - is not “open source” by any stretch of the imagination.
AOSP is very much open source
Hardly any apps outside of the Mac App Store voluntarily opt in for sandboxing
> I listed ChromeOS as one of four consumer operating systems used by billions of people that uses sandboxing, not as an open source OS.
And also locked down…
> AOSP is very much open source
Calling AOSP open source when it’s almost useless to most consumers without the proprietary bits from Google is just as disingenuous as calling iOS open source because Darwin is open source.
If users without that level of technical skill are pressured into making those decisions, that's because they're being mistreated.
Is that really your answer? To make the phone ecosystem as fraught as Windows PCs for the average user? How is they worked out for PC users since the 80s?
Just to be clear, are you claiming that we would be better off if PC hardware and OS vendors had the level of control that smartphone vendors do today?
You really can’t trust developers to do the right thing - even major developers like Zoom (the secret web server) , Facebook (the VPN that trashed usage actoss apps on iOS) and Google (convincing consumers to install corporate certificates to track usages on iOS).
Even more to the point, you read about some app installed outside of the Google Play store that’s malware - including the official side loaded version of FortNite…
https://blog.checkpoint.com/research/fortnite-vulnerability-...
You really can’t trust developers to do the right thing
Indeed not, and that includes OS developers. Imagine if Microsoft had been able to block web browsers other than IE in the name of "security".
In the modern day, I actually think this mostly works? Are you aware of instances where normies installed Windows malware because they purposefully disabled Windows Defender?
Everyone always talks about the "Dancing Bunnies Problem" but I'm not convinced it's actually a thing.
On the Mac, people installed Zoom and it installed a backdoor web server.
0 - https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/16046-google-keyboard-w-net... 1 - https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/sandboxed-google-play-pr...
I think they’re just going to track down a random person in a random country who put their name down in exchange for a modest sum of money. That’s if there’s even a real person at the other end. Do you really think that malware creators will stumble on this?
This has to be about controlling apps that are inconvenient to Google. Those that are used to bypass Google’s control and hits their ad revenue or data collection efforts.
Do that + identity check = bans for virus makers are not easily evaded, regardless of where they live.
Given that Google both owns Android/Google Play Store and YouTube: what do you think they would do with the developer information of someone who makes an app that skirts their ad-model for YouTube?
The "security" wording is the usual corpospeak - you can always trust "security" to mean "the security of our business model, of course, why are you asking?"
Things like Newpipe seems much more of a target, especially if you want to take legal action. More so than stopping users, this gives Google fat more leverage about what Apps can exist. If they ever want to stop Newpipe a serious lawsuit against whoever signed the APK seems like an effective way to shut down the whole project. Certainly more effective then a constant battle between constraining them and them finding ways to circumvent the constraints.
It means that Android is no longer suitable for my own private dev projects.
There's only so much you can do as a maintainer of a custom OS like Graphene before its too hard to maintain. I don't think there's enough coming in by way of donations to play catch-up.
Need legislation quick. But I suspect the EU doesn't want side loading either in the grand scheme of surveillance.
Thats the Banks fault then. I complained to mine and they removed the safetynet check / let you skip it.
Also, with this move, Google has made it very clear that they don't want people to have any real control over their machines -- so I'm not inclined to think that using adb to work around the problem will always be possible.
It's fine, though. My hobby projects will continue into the future, just probably without using Android.
https://www.androidpolice.com/use-wireless-adb-android-phone...
The fact that there was a temporary workaround didn't change the endgame.
It's just there to boil the frog more slowly and keep you from hopping out of the pot.
It's the same game plan Microsoft used to force users to use an online Microsoft account to log onto their local computer.
Temporary workarounds are not the same thing as publicly abandoning the policy.
Developers, and power users often pre-date these kinds of smartphones.
The only solution to this market share problem is for a bunch of us to just dive right in by adopting them, put up with all the inconveniences for a while (a long while), convince everyone we can to adopt it by pretending that it's the cool new trend and then complain to every organization, agency and government that they are discriminating against us by not supporting our platform. At some point, everyone will take it up. Hopefully!
How will Google force Android users to "update" so sideloadinng can be prevented
Non-updated versions of Android running non-updated versions of sideloaded apps will not have the restriction
Another example of how not every "update" is for "security" and "updates" should be optional
The computer owner chooses one version of an operating system, e.g., "I chose Android because I can sideload any app", but by allowing automatic updates, without reviewing them first, the computer owner agrees to let the operating system vendor change the software remotely to anything the vendor chooses. The computer owner goes along with whatever the vendor decides, letting the vendor take them for a ride
If the operating system gets _worse_ in the opinion of the computer owner, if it fails to meet their needs, e.g., "sideloading", then that's too bad. The computer owner chose one version of Android, but by subscribing to "automatic updates" they effectively chose all future versions as well
This is why I prefer BSD UNIX-like operating system projects where I can choose to update or not to update. Unlike the hypothetical Android user, the project does not decide for me
HN replies may try to draw attention to "security" and away from "sideloading restriction". However there is no option to accept "security updates" while rejecting "sideloading restriction updates". According to the so-called "tech" companies that conduct data collection and surveillance as a "business model" through free, auto-updated software, every update, no matter what it contains, is deemed essential and critical for "security"
Online commentators seem to agree that the computer owner should have the choice to install or not install _any_ software outside the "app store", so-called "sideloading". Perhaps this freedom to choose whether to install or not install software should also apply to operating system "updates"
Google has the Google Play Services, which can be remotely updated via the Play Store, as has been done for the COVID exposure notification system [0]. Google's Play Protect already hooks into the installation process and could be updated to enforce the signatures.
(Own experients conducted over the years make this a "rhetorical question" meaning I already know the answer)
Not every app requires Play Services and internet access
(Online commentators sometimes try to argue that all apps, even offlines ones, "require" Play Services otherwise they cannot be updated automatically, highlighting the significance of "automatic updates" in steering debates about Android. Own experiments show that many if not most apps work fine without Play Services and can be updated manually if desired)
Not every phone is used for banking or other "government services"
(For example, some owners have mulltiple phones. Some owners may have phones with older versions of mobile OS that may be used for experiments)
Not every computer owner is the same
(For example, most phone owners do not install any apps at all. Of those that do, most use "app stores", not so-called "sideloading")
HN replies are likely to invoke "security" as a retort to any suggestion of decision-making and control being placed with the computer owner
Edit: that said, nowadays, maybe because I'm back in the EU, I use WhatsApp way more often than iMessage.
There are no good reasons left to use either platform - you're basically paying an arm and a leg to rent a device whose primary purpose is to usurp your attention and plunder your wallet at every possible opportunity.
Use and encourage your circle to use Signal, so you're not limited to any given platform, or the political or ideological whims of the gardenmeisters.
Google has gone full enshittified with this move, might as well move as far and as fast away from all the shit if you're technically capable, introduce whatever pressure you can to signal that there's a desperate need in the smartphone market for something clean and honest.
Many, but not all, of the programs I use on iPad are also available on Mac and Windows at much higher prices. That alone is reason enough to use a iPad. Most of these apps can be run on the least expensive iPad and/or older ones.
Like it or not, computing appliances have led to really good software markets. The “clean and honest” software markets are either much more expensive or don’t exist at all. The optimist in me is hoping that Android losing some freedom might lead to higher quality software and some actual competition to Apple.
But regardless, thirdparty ROMs will continue to exist regardless of how much effort it takes because the demand exists and will not merely dissipate.
I'm working on a project myself but it's taking forever considering the large scope. Getting close to having it ready for technical individuals to try it out.
The iPhone 17 is the same price as the Pixel 10
> better
But the iPhone 17 has better hardware features, like UWB, better cameras, and a _far_ faster CPU.
> open source
Only if you install Graphene, and then never install anything that requires Google Play Services, which is basically every commercial app.
Too bad there aren’t any other Android phones…
No longer true with the newest chip that Mediatek cooked up, ARM licensed cores like C1 are catching up rapidly with Apple CPUs (or maybe Apple has hit the limit of their current design philosophy)
A month or so ago I went to NYC, I visited some of the museums.
Although I managed to get some great pictures, framing wise and sharpness wise. The color resolution was absolutely ridiculously bad.
I couldn't figure out a way in that moment to fix the issue, but seriously, the colors were so far off it kinda ruined this phone for me.
My friend had an iphone, we took the same pictures of the same paintings and his photos looked much closer to life than mine. Huge disappointment.
In the iphone its very easy to shoot raw and the camera app has a lot of very good intuitive controls. Not to even begin talking about video.
At some point I think Google did make really good photography phones but it seems to me like they've basically stopped trying to stay ahead of the competition whereas apple is always trying to improve. Thats my impression anyway.
I mean, flagship vs flagship idk if one has ever been significantly cheaper, but I've never been in the market for those either. It's very easy to get a higher priced, more interesting, highly specced Android phone. Both iPhones and flagship android phones are way too expensive for what they are capable of compared to any of their own prior generations of themselves, if you ignore tech specs and consider the tangible end-user functionality, but even still.
I've always bought the phone that suits me in the moment, have never budgeted higher than $600CAD, and have simply never been interested in iPhones beyond what used to be nice industrial design. For that, last time I got a brand new Pixel 7 on sale, Pixel 4a, Nexus 5 etc.. and they've all done what I needed and usually came close to matching the fancier versions in some ways in the same year's lineup.
Usually though I have breadth of options to pick from across a range of brands that I can choose between based on whatever the hell I prefer. iPhones are just iPhones, bigger or smaller, more expensive or cheaper, big camera plateau or small, and that's all fine too.
The sideloading aspect for me and a better sense of control is absolutely a component in that preference, and I'll have to consider that going forward, but I'd sooner just dial back my dependence on phones in general than switch to an iPhone.
Not my experience at all. Only some banking apps or apps that otherwise hard depend on play services feature like google pay. GrapheneOS offer isolated unprivileged sandboxed Google play services for those.
2. I think it's better, I like the UX but that's subjective.
3. Not open source. AOSP is open source. Android is not open source.
The only Android phones that are significantly cheaper than equivalent iPhone tend to come with some kind of compromise (and don’t forget that Apple’s phones start at $600 - the iPhone 16e exists).
The specs that you can't just plug and play are a bit more relevant to look at I'd say
I’m personally fine with it at this point. It’s not ideal and it’s not consumer friendly, but SD cards are slow and failure prone compared to internal storage, and I find that multiple storage volumes introduces management friction (moving apps and content between two locations).
2: yeah okay with that logic "I just subjectively feel that way", there's no point having a conversation
3: Android is short for AOSP. You're probably thinking of things like Google Play or OneUI?
Most android flagships are about the price of iPhones.
> Android is short for AOSP.
This actually made me laugh out loud.
Uh, no. AOSP is a showcase project which currently cannot run on any phones produced on Earth.
Android is the most popular mobile operating system.
AOSP does not include code to run almost any viable hardware and also does not include code necessary to run android applications. Everything that is Google play services is not in AOSP.
Bear in mind Google play services isn't the Google play store. It's basic device functionality, like cellular service and GPS.
https://grapheneos.org/features
>GrapheneOS is a private and secure mobile operating system with great functionality and usability. It starts from the strong baseline of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and takes great care to avoid increasing attack surface or hurting the strong security model.
If you would put AOSP on a Pixel, it wouldn't even boot and if you managed to get it to boot, the apps would be unusable.
It is still unbelievable to me that Google is shipping a product which takes 10 seconds to show anything when I search through my phones settings. What are they doing?
>open source
Sure. If you buy the right phone you get some open source components. Of course half the Android companies are trying to funnel you into their proprietary ecosystem as well. The rest just wants you to use Google's proprietary ecosystem.
Ah, I see ol' Google's been shamelessly copying Apple again.
Unrelated but related to embarrassingly-bad search: On my iPhone, I have a Hacker News reader app called Octal. Now when I search the phone itself for "octal" (like I do to launch most apps), sometimes the only result found is... the Octal entry under Settings (where iOS sticks the permission-granting interface for notifications, location, etc.) Can't find the app itself. Just the settings for it.
You still can do that with PWAs in Android. Let's see for how long.
And I wonder when can we stop lying to ourselves pretending "web"-apps are real (native) apps?
I make lots of "real" healthcare apps that are PWAs.
Much better installation and user experience, no dev cert nonsense, brain dead simple updates, no app store, etc...
On M1+ devices it might also need "ad-hoc signing" if the developer hasn't done it (not required for Intel binaries). This is not a true signing, it just inserts a cryptographic checksum into the binary, no actual signing is involved.
The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
I had been thinking for a long time to switch to Android (GrapheneOS, probably) when my current iPhone 13 dies, but this whole thing with "sideloading" on Android is making me reconsider. If I can't have the freedom I want either way, might as well get longer support, polished animation and better default privacy (though I still need to opt-out of a bunch of stuff).
I haven't heard about this. Source?
I think there has been much _speculation_ around this, but no proof that I am aware of.
So you're just speculating.
Doesn't mean you can predict the future with high certainty.
Source: I have been a happy user of custom AOSPs for years.
Can you do something similar to load unsigned apps on Android?