Yes. GrapheneOS isn't a bridge too far for anybody. It's a modified Google Android. It's in the background and out of mind; it's an operating-system for mobile-computers; it is Android. It's like saying, "A Samsung is a bridge too far". It doesn't even make sense. Family members are used to Android mobile-computers? Guess what? GrapheneOS is Android.

It's blatantly absurd to ditch Google's Android out of a concern about monopolistic abuse and buy an Apple product... I'm sure they can twist themselves into knots attempting to explain it, but it probably comes down to, "I want an iPhone."

I want to state clearly: all of this bullshit is collective. Have a fucking spine. Use free-software on your computers. Stop letting Microsoft/Google/Apple fucking rape everyone. That's capital being slurped up only to further cement their monopolies and fuck everyone else over. Your decisions matter. If your point is that your family-members are drop-kicks and don't know how to use a computer how can you explain your decision? Let Google or Apple look after them? Hello? We're kind of in this situation from that trajectory... Knuckle down and let's continue then. Nothing changes.

Graphene teams recommends to use google play over third party or even Aurora.

And restrictions due to securenet will be noticeable when it impacts banks and some weirdly picky apps. Some apps even refuse to run if installed from Aurora instead of google play.

Those are installing, yes. But I think there's no such thing as sideloading vs installing, since, sideloading is a way of installing stuff.

for instance, if I wanted to install an app on my BlackBerry Z30, I needed a special tool running in your browser to do so. So a 2nd device, with a protocol. That second device surely then "just" installed my software. But I would call that sideloading, since I needed a 2nd device that has the way to install stuff on my phone.

if I can just click the apk on my phone to get it installed... then that's installing. But if I need my PC and a special tool (e.g. adb) to do the installation for me (again, 2nd device, custom software etc... and there's no other way) then it's sideloading again.

Installing from Steam or Windows Store is not sideloading, since you don't need anything special. And using a tool that's already on your target device is nothing special IMO.

If Steam would need to run on a seperate device to install games on your PC, that surely can be sideloading. Also, if I buy a Switch game from Nintendo Store webpage and tell it to install it on my Switch, it's sideloading again.

This is how I like to thing of the word sideloading, at least.

But overall, sideloading is installing - so in the end, there's no such thing as sideloading anyway.