The angry social media narratives have been running wild from people who insert their own assumptions into what’s happening.
It’s been fairly clear from the start that this wasn’t the end of sideloading, period. However that doesn’t get as many clicks and shares as writing a headline claiming that Google is taking away your rights.
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.
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 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.