I think a different perspective on this is required. This requires taking Google in good faith (for the arguments sake). The requirements are being rolled out first in countries with high amounts of scam apps. Let's assume it's causing a real issue for the people, which then is a bad look for Google because all these apps are hosted on their store. I could imagine in the future a country sueing Google for allowing these apps on the store. So due to image issues and potential future litigation, Google feels like it has to do something so they do this.

I think the real problem is that these countries are abdicating their duty to govern. Why are they not jailing these people running these scams? Or if they are in another country, using political and economic pressure on the other country to crack down?

I don't believe that Google's intentions are actually that great, but there is a real problem in these countries with scams and people's lives being harmed by them.