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While it is annoying to people like you and me, this is a good thing for the average user. Your average downloads folder probably contains sensitive information that shouldn't be visible to apps. Same with Android/data. Locking it down is annoying for sure, but it's admittedly a good privacy&security measure.
If the average user was more occupied dealing with identity theft they'd have less time to spread misinformation on Facebook and Twitter.
Even if it's blocked for the average user, it'd still be awesome if we could circumvent it with adb. I've used KDE Connect to access my phone remotely for a long time, and now that feature is useless.
Exactly.
I have often found malware apps with all sorts of permission on my relatives phones which suddenly started to lag alot. These folders can be easily exploited by malware apps, so its kinda good.
Meanwhile windows and linux-deb packages: it's free realestate
... Unrelated:
Speaking of windows privacy, it's similar to xorg that is being abandoned and replaced by the much more secure and modern Wayland