What's extra funny is that I already did all of this, and yet, I've been informed that my developer account is subject to deletion because I'm not active enough. Since my game does not get regular updates I said F this, let them delete my account. It's still available for sideload on itch.io anyway. Jokes on me for believing that.

So yeah, it seems like Google is actively hostile towards building a library of software/games that just work and intentionally only wants live service garbage apps on their platform because those make more revenue.

I'd say a big ton of them :(

I'm on your side and you are correct, besides Google amassing a ton of money (each registration costs $25) they will have total control and we know that Google is far beyond "not evil".

none of those apps would receive authorization in this scenario. you would not be able to use them

Torrent client is just an application, author shouldn't be responsible - naive thinking I suppose

Torrent clients are not illegal in any way. So why not?

The only way to fake it would be to use a "public" signature, but then again, I'm sure google will revoke them eventually. I guess rooting won't be enough, one would have to change some internal binaries. Perhaps it's time for a ungooglified android OS 🤷‍♂️