Corpo marketing to obfuscate the idea of installing software and nurture dependency to pre-installed proprietary repositories for an entire crowd of dependent non-tech savvy users that doesn't know what an apk is probably.
I avoid using the term unless I'm being cheeky about "sideloading" from Google Play.
They're killing third-party client access, limiting adblockers, blocking VPNs, and forcing sign in more and more. I sincerely hate it but this was inevitable. They have their monopoly, this is just the "abuse that position and enshittify for more data and money" stage. I hope an alternative takes off because I refuse to play by their rules.