Comment by echelon
4 hours ago
This is unacceptable.
Google needs to be broken up. Apple too.
The lack of antitrust enforcement is a clown show.
We have no choice in the most important computing category in the world. It's a duopoly and they have everyone in straightjackets - consumers, companies, competitors, governments, ...
A huge percentage of the world's thoughts and economy flow through mobile. And two companies own it.
Ma Bell was nothing compared to this.
Breaking up Google will not help in this particular case. The problem is entirely within the Android unit; and would still be present even if Android were to be split off into it's own company.
It certainly seems like there is problematic behavior in the restrictions Google puts on OEMs that want to use Android (or, more specifically, play services) on their devices. However, I think it would take a different enforcement mechanism to address that.
Disabling the ability to install arbitrary apps, like ReVanced, etc. benefits other parts of Alphabet.
In general, making anti consumer decisions is also easier when you know you can fall back on income from other units.
A smaller company would at least be less capable of ignoring the fines or the loss of market share. Or in other words, "too big to fail".
"Too big to fail" usually refers to companies such as banks that are such integral parts of the financial infrastructure that governments must bail them out when they screw up. In Google's case I would rather call it "too big to care", because every fine they get is basically a rounding error.