While people think this is a move to curl illicit app activity(which is the cover issue), I think there's a much bigger motive. It's the fight against Amazon.
Depending on how strictly this is enforced, now Amazon Fire Tablet users won't be able to use Google Play store (they were able to with an apk till now) which cuts off access to the app ecosystem on the Google Play Store.
Now there are quite a few apps on Amazon's App store[1], but obviously many users will feel the pain.
So now they will not have access to the following - Google Assistant, Google Home and Google Maps which will hurt the most.
Depending on how strictly this is enforced, now Amazon Fire Tablet users won't be able to use Google Play store (they were able to with an apk till now) which cuts off access to the app ecosystem on the Google Play Store.
Now there are quite a few apps on Amazon's App store[1], but obviously many users will feel the pain.
So now they will not have access to the following - Google Assistant, Google Home and Google Maps which will hurt the most.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b/ref=topnav_storetab_mas...