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0 pointslern_too_spel5y ago0 comments

This is the big one that people forget. Android itself isn't there to force tracking and marketing on users. It's there to prevent somebody else from controlling mobile devices and being a gatekeeper between Google's services and users. As long as nobody else can prevent Google from reaching users, Google doesn't care that people can run Android without Google services.

In practice, poor development practices and incompetent product management has left some bits hard to change. The search provider used to be hardcoded with no way for the user to override it. That only changed when some early Android phones began shipping with Bing as the default. To this day, it is impossible to allow any non-system app store to update apps in the background. This hasn't changed only because Amazon, Samsung, and many other OEMs failed to get developer traction with their own app stores. Now that there are antitrust rumblings, Google has hinted they will finally fix this, but once again, this isn't a threat to the core Android strategy of removing gatekeepers.

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jolux5y ago· 2 in thread

> Android itself isn't there to force tracking and marketing on users. It's there to prevent somebody else from controlling mobile devices and being a gatekeeper between Google's services and users.

It can be, and is, both.

lern_too_spelOP5y ago

If that were the case, it would require more data collection than competitors and force ads. Instead, you can trivially get your location on Android devices (even those sold by Google) without telling Google. You cannot on iOS. You can install apps on your Android device without telling Google. You can develop apps for your own device without telling Google. To do any of these things on iOS requires exploiting a vulnerability.

Similarly, Google doesn't give itself a privileged separate settings for marketing data collection that ignore global settings. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074

If the point of Android were data collection and marketing, Google would abuse configurability of data collection at least as much as Apple does, but it does not, not even on devices that Google itself sells.

fragileone5y ago

Google Play Services is essential for most features a user would expect in a modern mobile phone. For running bank apps (SafetyNet), many maps apps or apps that include maps (eg Uber, Tinder - due to Google Maps API), push notifications, etc. It's absolutely used to lock-in users to the Google ecosystem and discourage them from degoogling.

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