If you're clever enough to sideload are you not clever enough to recognize and remedy the problem? Developers should not be enabling people who aren't able to handle that responsibility.
Actually, now that I think of it, I can see a business requiring employee devices to be flashed with a set of apps but not wanting to put the effort to actually check that it'll work. In that case the developer should determine if the user is an individual or a company and in the later case sell them a contract for support.
There are popular "mirror" sites for apks, I wouldn't expect most users of them to be able to debug a wrong arch package download. Ideally the people taking the apks to mirror wouldn't pull thin apks, but sigh
Many people choose to not link their device to a Google account, so cannot access Google Play. Others use devices that haven't licensed Google Play. Widely used apps are frequently available officially as apk downloads (eg WhatsApp), or other more inclusive app stores (eg f-droid), others you have to get from unofficial sources.
> If you're clever enough to sideload are you not clever enough to recognize and remedy the problem?
Hmm, I always shared apk files with friends when they simply were too big, kinda easy to do with ES File Explorer or other root-using file managers. Lucky for us, our CPU archs never proved to be a problem though.
But I can very well imagine this being a problem for warez, or people in countries not served by Google Play (or who simply have no easy access to payment, e.g. because they don't have a CC), or people with devices not sold with Google Play (cheap ass chinese phones).
Actually, now that I think of it, I can see a business requiring employee devices to be flashed with a set of apps but not wanting to put the effort to actually check that it'll work. In that case the developer should determine if the user is an individual or a company and in the later case sell them a contract for support.