An sort of TLDR maybe, or side discussion - many does not trust that google do something with the intent of being good. Their history has been anything but good so far, and therefore oppose it out of fear of the actual intent behind their decisions. Blocking side loading takes away freedom to install whatever we want, and Google seems to blame malicious actors using third party sources when malicious apps already exist in the Play Store and their security gets bypassed.
I wouldn’t say that you’re naive, you’re just asking questions about something you want more information on since the info you have seen doesn’t match up with the general opinion.
I found some articles, both in favour of Googles security and some that are not so you can read through them and decide for yourself if this can be considered Google being lax or if they are doing their best:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/11/tech/google-ai-lawsuit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google
https://www.creativefuture.org/google-scandal-timeline/
My own opinion: Google takes action sometimes, but as some of these articles says, many ads from scammers came through apps installed on the Play Store. Not by side loading or third parties. They do take action, but some may argue that they often don’t do that until it’s already widespread and argue about the morality of the company itself, but I’m going to focus on our original question - the side loading issue. After reading through these articles, I still find myself questioning why Google would block side loading and blame scammers, when it’s already a problem in the Play Store itself. The only reasonable answer I can think of is to keep their monopoly and remove projects like Aurora Store, microG, ReVanced and so on. Especially since it is well known that Google does not care about its users, only about its profits.
I understand that thoughtprocess, I really do because I’ve thought the same at one point. Most who are angry and frustrated at Google have.
To explain it a bit, it’s pretty much what I said before. If it really were to deteer scammers, they would implement better security and safety in their Play Store first. There’s also ways they could block phishing attempts through there, but instead they use a bulldozer to hammer a small nail to a wall when a hammer would do just fine. I’m sure if you do a search for articles there’ll be news covering this, and surely son statistic if you are more curious on numbers.
What they need is better checks in the very first step, because locking down sideloading won’t fix their inherently flawed Play store security and vetting. It’s like putting a patch of glue on a crack in the wall, but right next to it there’s already a gaping hole.
Because no one believes that Google (Evil Corp) did this to deteer scammers, as they claim their reasoning was. If that was the case, they would take a much better care about the virus apps that gets released on Play Store, or the phishing ads that gets served through games.
This was always about monopoly.
Does Tuta do that? I’ve missed that discussion in that case, I’ve been using them myself and if I can expect to be locked if I want to try another provider I’d rather switch now than when it becomes an even larger hassle