Paying for access means licensing. And your second argument is downright incorrect.

https://developer.android.com/guide/app-bundle/ I just had to check, it doesn’t require source, but just some compiler resource files, but that also doesn’t matter. Google keeps the signing keys and can read all input and also signals private keys, and the user wouldn’t know.

It says specifically, google generates the apk. That means they can shim the whole app, regardless of source code. People subject to government surveillance shouldn’t consider any app store application safe.