Comment by alluro2

3 months ago

This phase from the last couple of years just had to come - and while it's painful to be exposed to it - it seems highly illogical for us to complain and cry about it.

- "Free" search - yay, let's all use it for everything and even make a verb out of it

- Email - such nice guys, Google - free email forever, what could go wrong if I have my 95% of all my info there

- Maps - yeah, let's all depend on these free Google maps with our lives

- Chrome - ofc, heck yes, let's all use their browser, it's the best and free - no need for anything else

- Google account login for EVERYTHING - so convenient! Google Authenticator app, Google Wallet - yes, more!

- Free mobile operating system - nice, take that, Apple!

Google has taken over a large portion of our lives, step by step - good enough services, on global scale, for free, until they became essential.

They are not evil, like they were never good - they are a company, and in the current socio-economic structure, that means having a duty to use their position to enrich their shareholders - and absolutely have no interest in people's wellbeing or morality or opinions or reputation - unless it temporarily serves to do so more / better.

I'm in no way trying to defend them. Just, with all the futility of it, pointing out how hyper-capitalism we've built/allowed to grow, has reached the stage where it's practically impossible for the "free market" to react / provide solutions that people want. Now the big players decide what people get.

In this case, you can no longer have a high quality phone of a good manufacturer and install on it what you want. Small manufacturer catering to that demographic won't get government certification, you can't have your e.g. Samsung and install a ROM anymore, and you can't install your app freely on Android unless Google lets you. That's all just in a tiny sliver of space.