yeah trying to explain tethering to a non technical person because it used to have a cable and now doesn't

Arch's package management is actually the ideal, in my opinion. Official repositories for the stuff the distro maintainers want to officially support, a user-maintained AUR for other common packages, and the ability to build your own software with the Arch Build System, and letting pacman know where everything is. In a sense, the stuff in the official repositories have a privileged position, and you should be aware of the difference between the AUR and the official repositories, but you're still always in control of what software is installed.

The AUR packages and user-specific builds can be thought of as side loading, and the distinction can matter in some circumstances. So I'm ok with having another name for different installation/upgrade/update methods.

According to Google yes, because the Play Store is the "official" way of installing software.

But personally I hate this mentality and I don't want a centralized and controlled way of installing software

Sideloading is an all encompassing term for when you change the physical orientation of your device so that up/down becomes right/left.

PinePhone 🙂

Greatest con the government ever pulled was convincing the masses that state law = right. Way I see it, there are five primary laws and each region's society and ruler values their hierarchy independently: State, Ethical/Natural, Religious, Corporate, Moral. Each can influence the other. Cutting off from the corporations a cloud-dependent device you paid money to possess is no doubt right, and ethically sound.

Now??

Not where, when. Most likely in a few months, a year tops.

Before phones that was the only way to install apps though.

Maybe we should have a term for the inverse, like 'wallgardening', or 'bootlocking', or 'corputing', or 'inshilling'? 🤔

The point is that today the term only serves to delegitimize what should be accepted practice (installing whatever software you want on the machine you paid for) by making it sound like some secondary/shady behavior. Thus allowing phone manufacturers to maintain their walled gardens and control over consumers.