schweizer Sure, I have some understanding for that too. But one could say the same thing about other privacy topics. There are sometimes benefits to mandate identification and it can sometimes increase security. But I think you understand the implications here and why we don't want it enforced like this. Especially not by a mega corporation like Google with multiple monopoly products and services who makes money off of people's data. Plus, GrapheneOS and alternative repos are a conflict of interest for Google's business model.
There are other ways to go about this. Flathub, for instance, will classify apps as safe if they are verified and the developers are known to be the official ones. It will classify them as "potentially unsafe" (orange scary box) if not. There are negatives to this too, as many users will simply assume it's less safe and use a green box app instead beause it feels safer.
We always lived in a world with many hostile actors. And there are more ways than identifying the publisher or developers to determine whether what you install is safe.
I say: Make it optional, mark unverified devs with a scary orange box instead.
I'll ask you this: We know the identity of Facebook/Meta, Google, Samsung, Tencent, Microsoft etc. Do you prefer their apps and services? Do they make you feel safe?
There's a lot of software, services and products with identifiable devs and owners which pave an unsafe path for the user, sometimes not even being on the wrong side of the law.
So. Are you safe? E.g. from Facebook exploiting vulnerabilities in Android to conduct illegal data mining and user tracking? Or these companies illegally selling your data illegally? Employeers browings people's personal data? Or doing social experiments on users? These are some examples of things that actually happened. They are things we know. What do we not know?
I for one feel a lot safer using the many open and privacy respecting softwares and services. Play Store apps are also riddled with malware, trackers and shady actors (some of which are identifiable). We don't need mandated Developer Verification.