You're all missing the point! This is not about whether an app can be installed on an Android device, it's about whether the device's owner has any say in the matter. It's about freedom of choice.

Over the decades, from the Apple II to the present, I've owned every imaginable kind of computer. And yes -- I owned all of them -- I had the right to use them as I saw fit. They were extensions of my intellectual creativity. I've written dozens of Android apps, including TankCalc, used in industries across the world to measure and control storage containers. TankCalc is useful, it's free, and it's about to die.

I tried meeting Google's demands, but over the years I realized that wasn't possible, because Google refused to take "yes" for an answer. This is true for all my Android apps -- all would require constant maintenance to meet Google's endless compliance demands.

We're witnessing an extinction of personal expression, of defending the rights of individuals, and the sideloading issue is a symptom of a deadly disease, one that shifts control away from individuals to giant corporations.

Sideloading is just an example. Samsung has updated its already-sold refrigerators to begin showing ads to powerless consumers. Car makers Mercedes-Benz and BMW have starting charging monthly subscription fees for access to features already present in people's cars. Farmers can no longer repair their John Deere tractors.

It's an unprecedented historical shift. Instead of being crushed by an army that invades and takes over, we pay for things that own us, body and soul.