

Hopefully there will soon be a fix for this, because like you said, it really sounds like something that should be able to be fixed relatively easily, lol.
I have one final question, which you might know perhaps… Where would one go to make feature requests for Linux itself? If I quickly Google this I find places to make feature requests for specific distros, but not for Linux as a whole.
I ask because I suspect this issue is more fundamental to Linux itself, rather than the individual distros I tried.
Edit: Or maybe I am misunderstanding, and this is something that does need to be brought up with the distros
The problem in this case is the Google Play Store, not Android.
Google is blocking Nextcloud from updating their app on the Play Store unless they remove this vital permission. But nothing is stopping Nextcloud from making their app available on third party app stores with the approriate permissions.
If you download the app from F-Droid instead, it should work correctly.
That is not to say that what Google is doing isn’t monopolistic. I’m just pointing out that you can bypass this restriction by not using their app store.