I guess the next step in piracy is to change the apk enough that it doesn’t get recognized correctly, if that’s possible? Though then everyone will have to worry about malware-ridden apps.

I think this is horrible, aside from piracy, because you may want or need to stay on an older version of an app. I have had to for devices at work that require a specific version or just an easy way to manage the device and ensure devices only got updates we approved through our MDM.