Comment by franga2000

Calling the Google Apps agreement something phone vendors voluntarily agreed to is pedantic, reductive and useless. Yes, technically they didn't get physically forced into it, but that's not the whole story.

Google used their unimaginably deep pockets and several monopolies to make sure that no phone without Google Apps will sell. Look at what happened to Huawei after Trump's ban - there were articles in even mainstream media about how people are buying the P10 (was it?), starting it up, realizing nothing works and trying to return it. And literally the only reason that "nothing worked" was that it didn't have Google Play services.