But... Why? Are you not an Android user maybe? Because it didn't make sense to me as an Android user. My default browser is set to Firefox with ublock origin installed. Search backend is still set to Google, but it's pretty easy to switch between providers. You're not forced into anything here
The real issue there is the deep coupling between Google services and Android, removing at least 70% of the phones utility if the phone isn't signed into a Google account.
The same applies to apple devices though, with the added issue that everything else is forced as well. While I'd be glad if Google opened up the services api, that's a very different issue to the one the original discussion was about.
I hope it's not going to be a talk about which commission rate is fair, because it completely misses the point. If apple wants to charge 30% commission for being able to distribute on the store, use their development tools, their apis, and have people pay using apple, fine. But just let my customers free to install my software on the hardware they own the way they want to.
I generally agree with the sentiment as a developer.
As I user I never want to side load an app though. I’m afraid this will e.g. allow my bank to develop a shitty app bypassing the permission model and ask / force me to install it. I prefer to know even “strong” entities need to play by the sandbox rules.
And as an aside: you can sideload apps on Android. Have you seen any banks try to convince users to sideload their app? I sure haven’t.
The same should happen to Google with search, Chrome, and Android. You can't use dozens of entire markets as your product moat.