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Somewhere along the way, installing became side-loading and the rot started taking hold. </boomer-rant>

bjornroberg 5mo ago
Yeah, this. The vocabulary ratchet is underrated as a policy tool. "Install" became "sideload." "Sideload" became "install from unknown sources." "Unknown sources" is becoming "unverified packages." Each rename shifts the Overton window a little further from "this is the normal way to put software on a computer you own" toward "this is a suspicious deviation Google has graciously decided to tolerate for now." By the time the technical mechanism lands, the framing has been prepared for a decade. The 24-hour cooldown, the seven taps, the three scare screens all _feel_ proportional to the danger the language has been implying. That's not an accident, that's the policy working as designed.
- bigfishrunning 5mo ago
  On the other side of the coin, those of us doing tech support for unsavvy family members do not want them installing software from any source but some vetted app store. Making it a bit harder is a real boon for those of us that still carry the mental scars of so many Bonzi Buddy removals.
  - fsflover 5mo ago
    Do you consider F-Droid a "vetted app store"?
    - bigfishrunning 5mo ago
      Yes I do but I don't want to help my parents install it
      - fsflover 5mo ago
        You should, as it is much safer than the one from Google.
        bigfishrunning 5mo ago
        Yeah, but it doesn't include the apps that lay-people want to use, such as Facebook, Venmo, and Google Maps. I like open source software as much as the next guy, but most of it seems very off-brand to your average joe. Setting people up with Firefox is one thing, trying to get them to use AntennaPod instead of Spotify is a much taller order.
        handedness 5mo ago
        Can you explain how?
AussieWog93 5mo ago
I've been following "hackery" spaces like the console homebrew and Android custom ROM scenes for almost 2 decades now. There has long been a culture of deliberately making the installation of certain types of free and libre software needlessly complex and using deviancy-coded language simply because it makes the in-group feel cool and elite. This whole idea of "sideloading" and related terminology being Google FUD only came about in the past couple of years. For the decade before it was people on xda-developers deliberately throwing words like that around because they wanted to prove they were true 1337 h4xx0rz. </millenial-rant>

Yeah, this. The vocabulary ratchet is underrated as a policy tool. "Install" became "sideload." "Sideload" became "install from unknown sources." "Unknown sources" is becoming "unverified packages." Each rename shifts the Overton window a little further from "this is the normal way to put software on a computer you own" toward "this is a suspicious deviation Google has graciously decided to tolerate for now." By the time the technical mechanism lands, the framing has been prepared for a decade. The 24-hour cooldown, the seven taps, the three scare screens all _feel_ proportional to the danger the language has been implying. That's not an accident, that's the policy working as designed.

bigfishrunning 5mo ago
On the other side of the coin, those of us doing tech support for unsavvy family members do not want them installing software from any source but some vetted app store. Making it a bit harder is a real boon for those of us that still carry the mental scars of so many Bonzi Buddy removals.
- fsflover 5mo ago
  Do you consider F-Droid a "vetted app store"?
  - bigfishrunning 5mo ago
    Yes I do but I don't want to help my parents install it
    - fsflover 5mo ago
      You should, as it is much safer than the one from Google.
      - bigfishrunning 5mo ago
        Yeah, but it doesn't include the apps that lay-people want to use, such as Facebook, Venmo, and Google Maps. I like open source software as much as the next guy, but most of it seems very off-brand to your average joe. Setting people up with Firefox is one thing, trying to get them to use AntennaPod instead of Spotify is a much taller order.
      - handedness 5mo ago
        Can you explain how?

AussieWog93 5mo ago

I've been following "hackery" spaces like the console homebrew and Android custom ROM scenes for almost 2 decades now. There has long been a culture of deliberately making the installation of certain types of free and libre software needlessly complex and using deviancy-coded language simply because it makes the in-group feel cool and elite. This whole idea of "sideloading" and related terminology being Google FUD only came about in the past couple of years. For the decade before it was people on xda-developers deliberately throwing words like that around because they wanted to prove they were true 1337 h4xx0rz. </millenial-rant>