Comment by echelon
7 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.
Then why does Google make so few anti-consumer decisions? I mean, compare Google with Facebook. Surely we can agree Google is the better behaved of those two.
Apple only allows software on their macbooks and mac mini, and every release of MacOS it's more locked down. Everything else, from iPhone to the watch, is 100% locked down. Likewise, every version of Windows tries, again and again and again, to lock down programs that can be run. People absolutely don't accept it, but they do try (remember when they tried to bury the ability to run unverified apps behind a price hike?)
I'd at least give it a shot to simply appeal to Google on the justification they give. After all, the blogpost ... It is very strange for Google to do what they do in that blogpost, don't you think?
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-...
"In Brazil, the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN) sees ..."
"Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs praising it for providing a “balanced approach” that ..."
"Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society sees it as a “positive and proactive measure” that aligns ..."
"Developer’s Alliance have called this a “critical step” for ..."
And it's easy to come up with other government requirements, like the DMA (yes, ironically) and ChatControl that require vendors are able to disable apps.
Clearly there is more than a little government pressure on Google to do this, including US and EU lobby groups (Developer's Alliance). Clearly Google is unwilling or unable to resist government pressure to allow governments to control which apps get to run ... Has anyone even asked these groups why they push for this?
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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.
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