I think that most of the world is overdue to replace their ubiquitous computing devices with ones not controlled by the US, and the current administration's behavior must be accelerating those thoughts.

(BTW, if a platform were designed for security-first, rather than corporate-surveillance-and-and-passive-engagement-first, it wouldn't as much matter who wrote whatever "app" code ran on it.)

Hopefully this means that a third player will join and provide a truly open android platform.

If an OS is owned and controlled by a single company, it's never truly open. No matter how much they claim it is.

edit: I should clarify, I'm talking about devs that develop for third party stores exclusively. Usually privacy conscious or devs whose apps aren't allowed on the play store for this and that reason like tachiyomi.

As always with Google policies, this means users will need to jump through more and more hoops (as today with custom ROMs and banking apps already). I really hope first and foremost that this policy can be reverted, and if not, that the community develops means of technological circumvention (examples mentioned by others include an "app runner" app or letting others identify the app).

It is a sad state the Android ecosystem is heading to.

Maybe I'll get a used Librem5. I'd get a Jolla phone, but they don't ship to the US. But honestly in my research, there's been no blogs I can find that compare these 3rd party phones to each other that aren't like 4 years old and outdated.