Discussion
Google has become an enemy of the open web, and it's increasingly locking down Android to dominate (with Apple) mobile computing. https://keepandroidopen.org/ A once-principled company gets more and more control-freakish, for money and power.
Nothing Google does now is surprising, just predictable.
It's a problem inherent in the investor-driven, remote-shareholder corporate form.
Most small businesses are pretty well behaved, because the personal morality of the entrepreneurs creates their business ethos, and in any case they are generally close to their local or online communities, which complain or desert them if they behave badly.
But the whole purpose of investors is to extract profit - they're not otherwise involved, so large corporates have no internal, natural brake on abuse, or incentive to good - and if they achieve enough monopoly there's no natural external brake either - except the government, which in the US is cuckoo.
@dangillmor
Googlefree smartphones:
https://friendica.world/display/84b6ef2b-116a-895c-242e-d53123920841
Jolla
Fairphone
Volla
Murena
Freifon
Punkt
@dangillmor dont touch my apks google
@dangillmor The simple warning that power corrupts has a polarised version with absolute power. But it fails to describe this incremental obsessive steering towards the latter.
Something that happens so often that we need to rethink how power/responsibility is handled. Across the planet.
Our genetics often still operate with small, egalitarian community notions.
@dangillmor Were they ever principled though?
@dangillmor This is so clear, as they haven't a product that in itself isn't producing value by *addiction*. Apple instead created more dependency on exclusive hardware (with returns from services, even extortively), Meta with online services (returns from ads, payed manipulation), Amazon with old goods capitalism, etc.
All of them, when they start loosing the initial grip, have to change, to another form of abuse, as any predator. They're all just slimy human garbage, with nice words.
@dangillmor
I blinked and missed when they had principles. Before Eric Schmitt?
@dangillmor
I have and Android phone. I have shut down all Google stuff. Now every time I start the phone I get ten or more messages insisting I enable playstore as my apps like the met will not work. Everything works well by the way.
Install bonfire.cafe
Get the full app experience
