Very few people care about this change. The current outrage will be a distant memory in a few months. I'm sure fdroid will find a path forward. Folks who want to install custom apps on their phone will still be able to do so, maybe with an extra tedious step in some cases but if you're motivated the changes won't stop you.

> beginning of the end of Android.

You underestimate how much money & effort it takes to make an operating system.

No - I'm not saying it will be soon, or fast. I am saying only it will now come, just as Linux did.

Wouldn't people just fork AOSP? Seems like GrapheneOS has a running start?

Forking a project isn't really the same as "ending" it, as much as it is becoming it. Even ignoring that, you can't be a meaningful competitor unless you actually ship on a phone, and support the features that the average consumer is looking for. Amazon even tried and failed spectacularly.

If that actually were the case, the iPhone would've died in 2007.

In reality, most people don't even know what sideloading is. Those are the people who are buying phones and supporting the market for their existence.

The 0.001% of people who want to side load applications onto their phone, can clamor for a new OS all they want, but unless they put the resources in place to make that happen, it won't.

> If that actually were the case, the iPhone would've died in 2007.

But there was Android. If you cared about loading, you could ditch Apple. You had something else to go to.

Now there's nothing.

There were zero Android phones in 2007. The G1 launched in 2008 as a brand new platform with no third party apps. In 2007, Windows Mobile was the popular platform for people who liked loading their own software on their phone.

If you were around for the early Android scene you might have heard of XDA Developers -- which was named for the O2 XDA Windows Mobile phone.