The key question for me is whether this "advanced flow" will allow the practical use of entirely separate app stores (like F-Droid) or if they're going to throw up tons of barriers for every individual app install.
> Google may create reasonable requirements for certification as a Registered App Store, including but not limited to review of the app store by Google’s Android team and the payment of reasonable fees to cover the operational costs associated with the review and certification process. Such fees may not be revenue proportionate.
One appointed by Google, one by Epic, one appointed by the other two. All three will be barred from private communications about any of this with any parties.
Considering this is an anti-trust suit I suspect the judge would be extremely unamused if the committee members found that "must ban NewPipe" was a reasonable requirement.
Real sideloaders (F-Droid users, etc.) know at setup time that that's how they'll be using their phone, so it works for them. But ordinary users who are targets for sideloading malware will become a lot less attractive if attackers must convince them to wipe their phone to complete the coercive instructions.
Aliexpress has a similar approach to protect their accounts from takeovers. If you change or forget your password, all your saved payment methods are erased. This makes the account less valuable to an attacker, at the cost of a little pain to authentic account holders.
And factory reset when it's impossible to backup and restore everything, or anything at all without a Google account
When using F-Droid, I don't think of myself as a "sideloader". I'm using an app store (F-Droid), not installing some random APKs.
(Yes, the F-Droid store app had to be "sideloaded". Once. It updates itself. If or when Google allows alternate store apps in their store app, even that would no longer be necessary.)
I'm not too worried. My employer should be, though.
If it's a one time unlock, eg like developer mode then hopefully it'll just work.
If it's a big long flow per install... Yikes, that's not much better than adb install