Aside from the prospect of bad press and user protest - There are still non Play Protect certified Android phones being released, including a few rare phones that skip the Play Store altogether (including the Fire phones). So they could lose at least a little bit of ground in this area. In a sense, they are in competition with their open source offering, even though they have a lot of control over it these days.
It could also make jailbreaking more commonplace, which on the Android side has died down in recent years because sideloading is enough for most users.
What is the killer app people are sideloading these days? For people to get onboard they need to feel like they are really missing out on something they find valuable. iOS doesn't have sideloading (outside of some TestFlight loopholes), and I don't see anyone is real life talking about it. It's just activists for this kind of thing online.
I don't think the average user feels like they are really missing anything, which makes it a hard sell.
I am not the average user, but my key apps are ReVanced, Termux, OsmAnd. All sideloaded. I am on a Pixel 9XL.
I definitely fly less now, because I am tired of the Orwellian circus at the airports. I guess same mechanism will reduce my smartphone use
Android forks. AOSP, GrapheneOS, LineageOS, CalyxOS.
we need more OEM unlockable phones, though. GOS is looking at getting one made, I'm planning to throw money at them to make it happen.
I've gathered that various cell networks won't let me use VoLTE on my unlocked phone with forks. I've been reluctant to install LineageOS because of that.
You won't be able to use your banking app. Moving to Apple is the only logical step.
I won't move to Apple yet... but now there is not a reason to buy anything but the cheapest Android phone available.
And maybe a separate one to root while they still can be.
I'm going to be buying Apple from now on. If I have no choice and I have to be in a walled garden, I'm going with the best dammed walled garden on the market.
This isn't even going to be some sort of an ideological decision. It's simply the intelligent choice.
How will it go? Where are people going to go? People who draw a hard line on this can’t go to iOS for more freedom. Linux phones aren’t ready for prime time. So what’s left? Going back to a flip phone that doesn’t even have the capability of running apps in the same class?