> eliminating the ability of our devices from running any old code it downloads and runs is a huge safety win

No, this is just false. There's numerous, well-documented instances of malware making it past gatekeepers security checks. This move is exclusively about Google asserting control over users and developers and has nothing to do with security or safety.

The only "huge safety win" comes from designing more secure execution models (capabilities, sandboxing, virtual machines) that are a property of the operating system, not manual inspection by some megacorp (or other human organization).