Apple method is terrible too and had to be forced by the EU to allow sideloading so tried to make it as restrictive as possible within the rules. And don’t think they bothered to support it outside the EU. So Apple is not the one to use as a defense of restrictions to installation of software om Android.

And I fear malware more from Google Play than F-droid with how they just allow anything and millions of installs give people a false sense of security until it’s later revealed it was a malware app. So no I don’t buy this security bullshit.

It’s about control and data harvesting.

“North Korea does [X], what’s the problem with [USA/UK/EU] doing [X]?”

People use Android to not have such restrictions.

Something like F-Droid (which published its own builds from source) would likely not be possible with such a model.

First, we don’t have this in Android and we’re better off.

It’s another flavour of gatekeeping.

Second, why do we want to copy apple?

to prevent known malware

Nope

Do you think Google won’t revoke the signature for apps like revanced or newpipe or send a c&d to the now doxxed devs?

Main reason apple did that is to limit piracy, nsfw apps and track how many installs so they can still bill the developer for that