I don’t have unlock some secret options and wait 24 hours every time I want to wire money to a new account.

A lot of services will do the verification step where it sends a few cents to and from a newly linked account which can take 1-3 business days. You only do it the one time. It’s a small speed bump that prevents millions of dollars in fraud every year.

To me this change to sideloading is a very similar speed bump. You do it the one time then set it to allow sideloading indefinitely. That’s where it’s at now.

If they move to extend the delay or strip out the “indefinite” option then yeah, freak the fuck out and grab some pitchforks because that’s not good at all. But where this specific change is at I see it as more anti-fraud than anti-consumer.

once you’ve waited 24 hours, you can choose to allow sideloading for seven days or indefinitely.

I know I’m going against the current here, but I don’t think this is a bad change at all. It’s a step to protect normies from themselves who, despite how inconceivable it is to fall for this kind of scam, are actually even dumber than that.

I do think it’s reasonable to be worried about future changes that further restrict sideloading. It’s often how these restrictions are slowly implemented. But where it’s at now with this change in particular I’m cool with.