Comment by ACCount37
5 months ago
Just a year prior, I would have been against a decision to force Google to part with either Android or Chrome.
Now, I'm of the opinion that they should have been forced to sell off both, and maybe Chromebooks too, for the good measure.
No company with a direction as vile and openly user-hostile as what Google currently demonstrates should have anywhere near this level of control over the ecosystem.
They should lose YouTube as well. Remember how they used their control over YouTube to kill Windows Phone back in the day also. They should have lost it right then.
Google is very clearly an abusive monopoly, and has been for a very long time. We all overlooked it because they were mostly benevolent. That is no longer the case.
> YouTube to kill Windows Phone back in the day also.
I hope you're not referring to YouTube blocking the 3rd party YT Windows Phone client that didn't play or display ads? At the time, Microsoft was threatening Android OEMs with patent infringement (without disclosing the specific patents!), and making it go away if they agreed to make Windows phone models[1]. Google refusing to make a first-party YouTube client for Windows Phone was to be expected, it was an ugly, hand-to-hand fight and all parties used the weapons they had at hand.
1. The agreements were never made public, but HTC and Samsung disclosed they'd be making Windows phones in their respective agreements with Microsoft. Microsoft also initially filed an Amicus brief in Google v Oracle - supporting Oracle's position.
The sad thing is I think Google keeping Chrome is actually likely the better of two possible bad outcomes... Anyone else interested and willing to pay the true value of owning the entire Internet ecosystem is almost certainly going to look to extract value from that, and that's almost certainly worse than what Google does today. E.g. using everyone's browser to extract training data for AI without getting IP blocked.
A year or so ago, I would have agreed. Not anymore.
Sure, a company can buy Chrome and proceed to sell user browsing habits data to the highest bidder, or use it as a backbone for decentralized scraping - backed by real user data and real residential IPs to fool most anti-scraping checks. But if they fuck with users enough, Chrome would just die off over time, and Firefox or various Chromium forks like Brave would take its place. This already happened to the browsing titan that was IE, and without the entire power of Google to push Chrome? It can happen again.
The alternative is Google owning Chrome for eternity - and proceeding with the most damaging initiatives possible. Right now, Google is seeking to destroy adblocking, tighten the control over the ad data ecosystem to undermine their competitors, and who knows what else they'll come up with next week.
Why do suppose Chrome would die off for user-hostile actions under a non-Google entity (2nd paragraph), but not while being controlled by Google (3rd paragraph)?
5 replies →
Split it to a point where no one company can own the entire Internet ecosystem. Apply antitrust laws to keep it like this.
Maybe the development will slow down, but let's be honest: we would still be fine if Android and iOS had stopped "improving" years ago. Now it's mostly about adding shiny AI features and squeeze the users.
>Split it to a point where no one company can own the entire Internet ecosystem. Apply antitrust laws to keep it like this.
Facebook was once small too. Yet people happily signed up, giving up their privacy in the process. What makes you think the remaining companies offering a free browser wouldn't try to monetize users in a similar way? How many people are willing to pay $5/month for a browser?
4 replies →
I wonder if Android and Chrome would support open source even less as independent companies though.
Why not spin them each off into an independent non-profit?
Because people don't just throw away money.
2 replies →
And by destroying the Android development team you'd achieve what exactly? Magical appearance of the security patches you're complaining about here?
Would you start to actually pay for all those hundreds of engineers maintaining the OS?
Either the new company takes over maintaining Android, or it fumbles the bag and the development becomes less centralized for a while - until some leader emerges and takes over.
Either way, the new control center of Android wouldn't be Google. A decade ago, I would have seen that as a very bad thing. Now, I'm almost certain that this would be a change for the better. Google is not what it once was.
Or a more likely scenario is that Apple picks up even more market share, and we go from a duopoly to a monopoly.
1 reply →
Drone manufacturers like Samsung, Xiaomi etc need an OS. Right now it's more profitable for them to just pay licences to Google. But if Google lost Android... they would need to find a solution.
I would like to see this, at least something would be happening.
I could see sort of an Android consortium taking over developing it and keeping it going outside of Google. Samsung, Oppo, Xiaomi, Huwawei, Motorola, etc.
Honestly it'd probably be better off that way. Google has far too much influence and control.
2 replies →