I imagine what they're going to do involves a time delay so a scammer cannot wait on the phone with a victim while they do it.

What are you talking about? This change for "experienced users" was only just announced and not part of any previous announcement. It has not been clear from the start at all.

Sorry what? Their original plan absolutely was the end of sideloading on-device outside of Google's say so. That's what the angry social media narratives were that you seem upset about. Anyone being pedantic and pointing out that adb install is still an option therefore sideloading still exists can fuck off at this point.

Have you missed the plot entirely? This is absurd

> The angry social media narratives have been running wild from people who insert their own assumptions

There may have been exaggerations in some cases but these hand wavy responses like "you can still do X but you just can't do Y and Z is now mandatory" or "you can always use Y" is how we got to this situation in the first place.

This is just the next evolution of SafetyNet & play integrity API. Remember how many said use alternatives. Not saying safetynet is bad but I don't believe their intentions were to stop at just that.

I don't think this section is actually the same as the present state just with a new alert box.

I suspect they mean you have to create a android developer account and sign the binaries, this new policy just allows you to proceed without completing the identity verification on that account.

> The angry social media narratives have been running wild from people who insert their own assumptions into what’s happening.

No, until this post, Google had said that it wouldn't be possible to install an app from a developer who hadn't been blessed by Google completely on your device. That is unacceptable. This blog post contains a policy change from Google.