I’m not saying I have a solution but looking at yourself and pretending it’s all fine because you’re 10 times more tech savvy than the average citizen isn’t a viable answer. That kind of issue must be solved by regulation, hopefully Europe gets to bring back on earth whoever at Google agreed on that idea.
The "normies" won't protest because it mostly doesn't affect them, at least not in any direct and obvious way that would trigger a pushback.
Regulation is unlikely to give you what you want. For one thing, regulators love centralization in general because it makes it much easier to regulate - when there are only a few large players, you can write the laws around them, effectively forcing them to be the enforcers. A large and diverse field where users can install whatever apps from wherever is much harder to regulate wrt things like banning porn or violent games or whatever it is that "normies" feel upset and demand that SOMEONE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!1! today.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't try to use political tools. Just be very clear that what you're trying to achieve is a minority take, and therefore you're unlikely to actually reach the goal in a democracy; at best, you will move the needle very slightly.
So, if you want to actually enjoy freedom in the meantime, learn how to be a criminal.
I’m referring to protest happening in context like Hong Kong or in Africa during state coup, then having a phone that can run apps used to organize themselves without any government (and so Google) overreach is a necessity.
At the individual level, we could at best petition European deputies.
You’re saying government love centralization so they won’t do anything yet in apple case they forced them to allow third party App Store. Sure Apple did Apple stuff and put horrendous conditions and pricing but the political will was and is still there in Europe.
How exactly does the app detect this?
Can’t be bypassed without root and otherwise all rom not official and validated by Google are on time watch.
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2024/12/making-pla...
Which only work on a tiny, almost insignificant sub-set of phones. If you don't have one of those, you're screwed.
Not to mention the bootloader is getting locked down so you can't even install one of these in the first place.
At least most of the world has until 2027 to install LineageOS or GrapheneOS.