The entire history of Android is filled with malware stories. Google has gotten better about moderating their PlayStore, but there have been plenty of flashlight apps or similarly dumb apps that are just rootkits, bitcoin miners, or more malicious forms of malware.

You are talking about malware in the official app store, not how installing software via alternative appstores or without an app store is worse.

AppStore is also filled with malware apps (including explotative flashlight apps and apps that trick you into subscriptions).

Yours is a throughly debunked argument.

Awesome, there will be more of those soon.

Malware occurs in both environments and often comes through the default app store.