[gruez]

>How is that different from "installing software"?

It's easy to see this play out if try to replace "sideloading" with "installing software". If you apply it to OP's headline of

>Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

You get

>Google confirms 'high-friction' installing software flow is coming to Android

which isn't at all accurate. You still need the distinct concept of "installing software not from first party sources", otherwise it sounds like google is making it a pain to install all apps, which isn't the case.

[glenstein]

Sure, you could argue it helps to express a distinction but that doesn't mean it has to live inside the verb install. Historically installing software was the general act and provenance was handled with qualifiers eg installing from "third-party sources", "manual install" etc. Android is alone among computing platforms in collapsing that qualifier into a new term that implicitly recenters the Play Store as the default meaning of "install."

In other ecosystems the store path is described as "store install" not the other way around. Android chose the inverse framing and that choice isn't neutral.

[gruez]

>Sure, you could argue it helps to express a distinction but that doesn't mean it has to live inside the verb install.

Right, which is why they used "sideload".

>In other ecosystems the store path is described as "store install" not the other way around. Android chose the inverse framing and that choice isn't neutral.

No, this is just being non-neutral in the opposite direction. Given the fact that installing from the play store is the default experience for the overwhelming majority of the user, calling it "store install" is even more obtuse.

[glenstein]

"That’s why they used sideload" is exactly the point being contested. Historically, install was the unmarked, neutral verb for adding software, regardless of source. The distinction, when needed, lived in qualifiers about provenance. Introducing a new verb for non-store installs does more than merely describe a difference, it reassigns conceptual ownership of "install" to the store path.

And neutrality here isn't about mirroring current usage frequency (which is unique to Android and recent relative to the history of computing), it's about continuity with prior computing norms. Even when one distribution path dominated in practice, it didn't get to redefine the base verb.

[dns_snek]

Well that's just self-referential. You're justifying the distinction by referring to Google's (artificial) distinction.

[sophrosyne42]

It is more informative to reword it