Google has announced their intention to end the installation of applications on android phones by 2026. Once this update takes place, you will no longer be able to install applications from .apk files. You'll only be able to install programs through the official Android app store.
If this goes through as planned, it will bring an end to the era of pocket-sized general-purpose computers. Without some long-overdue trust-busting and heavy government regulation, which isn't going to happen, I don't see any reason why this won't go through as planned. Google is a monopoly, so consumer pushback is irrelevant--no matter how vocally people dislike it, they'll buy them anyway, because there aren't any alternatives. The only competing device is the iphone, and that's already an appliance.
They claim this is for "security", which is bullshit: nobody who doesn't know what they're doing will install an app from a .apk. Enabling installation of apks is an explicitly opt-in process that you can only do from the device settings. No casual user encountering a rogue .apk is at any risk whatsoever.
No, the real reason Google wants to lock our phones down is obvious: they're an ad company. There are apps you can install that will remove or defeat their ads. They don't like that. It's the same reason they nerfed extensions in chrome: so they could nuke ublock origin. Purely malicious cartel shit.
Well, count me among those this scheme isn't going to work on: if I can no longer use newpipe on my phone, I'll download videos with yt-dlp and transfer them over. And if they somehow kill yt-dlp, I'll only watch them in Firefox with ublock origin. And if they somehow kill ublock origin, I'll stop watching youtube. I have control over my life, and I choose not to engage in psychic self-harm for the sake of entertainment. There are plenty of things I can do to entertain myself that won't shit in my brain. I'll do those instead. I'm free.