Seems like a very reasonable compromise. What's the catch?
Also, other commenters have mentioned that adb is unaffected by this which makes it seem like less of a problem, to me at least. Still inconvenient that even if you adb install fdroid you can't install apps directly from it.
> In addition to the advanced flow we’re building free, limited distribution accounts for students and hobbyists. This allows you to share apps with a small group (up to 20 devices) without needing to provide a government-issued ID or pay a registration fee.
i.e. Government-issued ID and fees are needed for more than 20 devices, e,g, every app on F-Droid
The trouble is, the accounts aren't meant to be anonymous. Pseudonymous at best, depending also on the country (a lot of places require government ID before you can assign a phone number, or have a central government querying system for mapping IP addresses and timestamp to the name and address of the subscriber that used it at the time). It's not like they let you create infinite Google accounts without supplying an infinite amount of fresh phone numbers or IP addresses. You also agree to the general Google privacy policy, which allows them to do anything for any purpose last I checked (a few years ago) unless you're a business customer (but then you've got a payment method in use, and they don't accept cash in the mail), such as fingerprinting as part of reCaptcha
Note that the OP is about side loading, i.e. installing apps from non-Play Store sources and thereby circumventing developer verification.
Developers can choose to not undergo verification, thereby remaining anonymous. The only change is that their applications will need to be installed via ADB and/or this new advanced flow on certified Android devices.
Either way, you can still distribute your apps wherever you want. If you verify your identity, then there are no changes to the existing installation flow from a user perspective. If you choose not to verify your identity, then the installation will still be possible but only through high-friction methods (ADB, advanced flow). These methods are high-friction so anonymous scammers can't easily coerce their victims into installing malicious software.
Are apps like this more dangerous than browsing to a website? I thought they were entirely sandboxed from the rest of the device?
Depending on your threat model, it might be mostly harmless
"The only change" – with all due respect, are you even listening to yourself? The "only change" is that you, as a developer, will be completely excluded from publishing apps in the Play Store and that people effectively won't be able to install your app anymore! (Unless you were targeting only e.g. F-Droid users to begin with, which very few apps do.)
In essence, you are cutting down on the privacy of tens of thousands of honest developers around the world in the name of protecting users from scammers and you're pretending that 1) it's a nothingburger and 2) developers have a choice.
Google Play already requires developer verification: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
That means those apps still keep on existing, they are just more of a hassle to install.