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> There is nothing that stops a manufacturer from providing microG instead of Play Services and hence cutting Google out.

Except that microG doesn't work. It is even far behind Amazon's own implementation of GMS, and Amazon has dumped piles of money into it.

> The same manufacturers that Google has been screwing over with its anti competitive practices...

Surprisingly, the manufacturers aren't the ones filing the anti-trust complaints in this case. The case was brought initially by Oracle, Microsoft & company.

But isn’t this reasonable since Samsung bringing up this lawsuit could be disastrous in harming their partnership with Google.

The Microsoft case wasn’t brought about by Compaq and Dell either even though they were being hosed [0]. While the case was brought by states and DOJ, there was lots of pressure from Netscape/Sun. Not really their hardware partners.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

> But isn’t this reasonable since Samsung bringing up this lawsuit could be disastrous in harming their partnership with Google.

Sure, but you can't make the claim that Samsung is then being screwed over by Google.

> Not really their hardware partners.

Sure, and Samsung preloads its own browser today.

Why can't you? You can concede they would get more screwed by dirtying their relationship, without conceding that they are in a great relationship now.

> Why can't you?

Because you have no information to make that conclusion.

But if you want to make a wild guess, sure, go ahead.

So you don't have a logical reason people couldn't make that claim. You just want them to provide some evidence to corroborate it?

"Not having any evidence to corroborate" is logical reason enough not to make a claim.

But that is a different route. Claim that they don't have evidence. Or refute that the relationship is truly bad. This line was specifically "You can't make the claim that Samsung is then being screwed over by Google." Sure you can. Just provide evidence.

So, change that refutation to "what is your evidence taht they are getting screwed over by Google?" On that, you have my complete agreement.

It's very very simple to understand, but I do recognise your name from your repeated and tireless defences of Google and the morally bankrupt spyware/online ad business. And once again I'll have to correct some misconceptions.

Samsung / Sony / etc are companies with a lot to lose, and they correctly calculated that "better the enemy you know". Their entire mobile business depends on a good relationship with Google, so it's blindingly obvious that they won't bite the hand that feeds them.

Internally, they're probably throwing parties that the big bully is punished by the headmaster.

> I do recognise your name from your repeated and tireless defences of Google and the morally bankrupt spyware/online ad business

Ouch, ad hominem attacks?

Come on, you can do better than this.

Also I can't really muster any sympathy if a company is punished for having spent "billions of dollars at significant risk" to develop something intentionally anti-competitive.

That's like saying "but we spent a lot of money on really expensive lawyers to evade those taxes" when charged with tax evasion.

Why would google develop Android otherwise?

Cause they don't want to be beholden to Apple in the mobile space.

More like Microsoft. Google's nightmare was that Microsoft would control the mobile phone OS, and would use it to drive search results to Bing.

At the time, Apple had the dominant smartphone, not Microsoft.

True. But Microsoft was coming. They were not yet clearly a loser in phones.

The Google Android skeptics would prefer exactly that. Their ideal is that Android - as we know it today - collapses and Google loses its position with the product and in the mobile market. The fantasy is that then a truly free, pure, saintly solution can spring up and smite the evil money grubbing commercial interests. That's likely to have about as much success as desktop Linux among mass consumers (and for the same reason).

The sole thing that collapsing Google's Android position will do, is redistribute a lot of that market power and tech ecosystem benefit to a few other US tech giants, some Chinese tech giants and possibly to a lesser extent to some European players and Samsung. The US would net lose a considerable hegemony. As such, the US Government - State Dept, NSA, CIA, et al. - should get involved on a strategic economic security basis, and attack a very large EU company in a manner that is crippling (something worse than the Volkswagen emissions hit). We're in the midst of an economic war with the EU, the more vicious parts of the US Government need to start getting involved. At a minimum, find an excuse to perhaps take down eg Deutsche Bank, it's particularly weak, so a $10 or $15 billion invented magic fine would probably be enough to force its collapse and nationalization.

The US has already fined Deutsche Bank $7.2bn and BNP Paribas $8.9bn. At the time, many in Europe felt that the fines were excessive and that the existential threats used to discourage the use of the courts amounted to extortion. It was also seen by some as a form of protectionism.

If we don't want to descend into nationalist mudslinging (or even war mongering) we have to consider each individual case based on its own merits. I think at least here on Hacker News we owe each other as much.

I don't see why we'd owe each other that much here as opposed to everywhere else in our lives.

That's why I said "at least here", i.e not opposed to everywhere else, but my expectations of a very international community like this one with an analytical bent are higher than of some other places I had in mind.

Anyway, you are right of course that we do owe each other that everywhere.

This is a Google talking point, and a laughable one at that. The list of complainants is full of American companies. Here's DuckDuckGo for example:

https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1019562507294461953

> The Google Android skeptics would prefer exactly that.

Citation needed.

> The fantasy is [..] evil money grubbing commercial interests.

What are you even on about?

>desktop Linux

What does "desktop Linux" have to do with anything in this context?

> The US would net lose [..] hegemony [..] State Dept, NSA, CIA, et al. - should get involved [..] an economic war with the EU ...

Or, less bat-shit insane, the US government could look at how different blocs implement anti-trust and consumer protection, and extend those to its own citizens.

> invented magic fine

Or Google could just have obeyed the law, American.

I personally enjoy how Google, Apple, Microsoft, et al are American companies when Europe fines them, and then are magically Irish companies when it's tax day in the US.

Despite what the administration wants you to believe, we are not at "economic war" with our closest allies and trading partners.

"hardly a significant risk"

Android is a massive, massive undertaking by any measure, and it doesn't matter that it uses Linux and other things.

"Manufacturer's like HTC and Samsung invested far more in making Google a success than Google did"

I totally disagree (edit: I disagree that they are spending 'massively more' but it's of course a lot) as most of what they are doing is commoditized, and the hardware aspects that they are actually competitive on ... those are differentiated in their models and they can capture the surpluses generated by that differentiation, which is to say those competitive aspects are not going back into 'Android' or any 'community' etc..

Nope, Android v1 was a no-name product from a highly competent web service provider without any track record whatsoever in mobile OSes.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn't a good product, so it needed to be open source to gain traction, since no one in their right mind would pay for it. Furthermore, it needed the device manufacturers on board, since Google had zero mobile HW experience, as can be seen on how they handled their Motorola acquisition. So Google actually owes device manufacturers quite a lot. It couldn't have done it without them.

And you completely fail to appreciate how complex and important the Linux kernel is. Look at their Fuchsia effort: it was published in 2016 and was in dev for a couple of years probably. Still not ready for production. Now try to imagine what would happen if Apple had 3 extra years to develop iOS before Android was launched. Android would be stillborn. That's what Linux brought to the table.

We're not talking about Android v1, we're talking about Android now and all that's been invested in it.

The 'complexity' of Linux is not relevant - it's a part of the underlying platform, in much the same way that it is in so many other products.

Competitive manufacturers, mobile OS makers etc. all have access to the same Linux that Google does.

Google has invested massively in Android, it's a product of theirs.

If they can't 'bundle' whilst giving it away for free, their going to justify their investment by locking it up and selling it for money.

It doesn't matter who invested the "most", Android is a joint venture and would not exist without the efforts of manufacturers and Linux itself.

Furthermore, Google gained a lot of money through Android, it's in no way a charity or a gift.

And given that they gave it for free to destroy all competition, charging money all of a sudden for it might attract some regulatory attention even in the US.

"It doesn't matter who invested the "most""

There's no discussion about 'who invested the most', because it's besides the point.

The point is that Android is a massive investment - full stop.

Linux is irrelevant to the equation.

There is definitely a giftable aspect to Android in that manufacturers can use the software for free and leverage most of Google's investment for free without a cent to Google.

Of course Google is making money, and that's their objective, (nobody is going to state otherwise) however - because of the EU's directive, Google can't make money using their current business model, ergo, cannot recoup their cost or make a profit, ergo - the product is dead in that zone. Were this ruling to happen for North America as well ... either Google starts to charge for Android - or Android is put on the shelf.

Google invests heavily in Android, and if their current business model is not allowed, then they'll have to charge for it, which may mean all those who use Android 'for free' may not have the option, which is not good either.

The EU's ruling is kind of stupid and self defeating:

Is Apple allowed to bundle all their money-making crap? Of course?

Nokia? Of course!

MS? Of course?

So if Android is made totally private, and it only comes as 'one version' i.e. 'with all their crap' - is the EU really going to force Google to separate the products? It's completely stupid.

If the EU wants to force Apple to sell iOS separately from the iPhone, and force them to also remove all their bundled crap ... well then they can do that but the stupidity is even more exposed.

The EU should focus on getting their companies to make great products instead of stopping fairly benign innovators from doing stuff - and holding their own consumers back.

More to the point, the EU didn't say "Google can't monetize Android". It just said that this tying arrangement between Google Search and Android is too anti-competitive.

Android could find other, more transparent and competitive, revenue models.

Google does not even want or need to make money from Android they were/are afraid that iPhone and Windows mobile devices would not default to Google search, having all the mobile devices not defaulting to google gave them nightmares.

This.

Remember that article about how they acted like a toddler to Microsoft when the latter wanted to have a YouTube app?[1] All to keep WP from being viable enough to have a significant market share of users, especially users that didn't know or care enough to swap out bing search for Google.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/14/15970082/google-killed-wi...

Google not allowing WP to have a YouTube app that purposely stripped out the ads and ignored various other aspects of the ToS is nowhere near the reason why WP wasn't viable.

They made an app but got told the only thing they could have was more or less a webview iirc

Careful now, can't be criticizing Google too much on HN, they send the wolves for you.

I'd love to know how many of the people rallying around Google's defenses now were anti-Microsoft back in the day for doing what is basically the same damn thing they were doing with Internet Explorer, only IMHO worse because Google didn't even develop Android, they just picked it up and filled it to the brim with their software.

I don't know which HN you've been reading, but there's a fairly strong anti-Google sentiment around here...

Due to their past and current behavior, I'm still anti-Microsoft. And I'm definitely anti-Google. Anti Apple, and Amazon, too.

Generally, I'm anti-lock down and anti-spying. I bet a lot of those old anti-MS people feel like I do.

>Google didn't even develop Android, they just picked it up and filled it to the brim with their software.

What Google initially bought was no where near a commercially viable product and any remnants of that legacy code probably don't even even exist in the Android code base of today.

>only IMHO worse because Google didn't even develop Android

Sort of like how Microsoft bought MS-DOS, the foundation for Windows 1.0, from Seattle Computer Products. Except for the part where Microsoft then tried to screw them over by suing them and ultimately settling out of court.

> Careful now, can't be criticizing Google too much on HN, they send the wolves for you.

These are kale fed wolves. You'll be fine.

You neglected to mention that Microsoft employees reverse engineered the YouTube API's and then, for good measure, prevented ads from appearing in the app. They also had no permission to use someone else's IP.

>All to keep WP from being viable enough to have a significant market share

This is a company that not only had to pay developers to write apps for their platform, but would also offer to write it for them. They were never going to have a significant market share because of their incompetence.

I can't see how this microG is at all helpful. Sure it has a replacement to GCM but every app backend would have to be rewritten to support it. It's hardly a drop in replacement if every chat app doesn't support push notifications.

microG acts as a drop-in replacement for Google Play Services. Apps do not have to be rewritten

But if I, as a developer, want to send push notifications, I would have to send them somewhere else. I couldn't use the stuff I'm using for everyone else.

Yes, but you can't replace the parts that rely on Google's cloud infrastructure, such as push notifications. If a feature literally requires that you send a HTTP request to a Google web API, you can hardly use that app without Google's support.

> There is nothing that stops a manufacturer from providing microG instead of Play Services and hence cutting Google out.

Except the contract ??

The contract is to get Play Services. If they don't want Play Services, they don't need the contract.

And that's the issue the EU is having. Play Services is pretty much essential to having a successful smartphone product in much of the world (at least the US and the EU). Many, many Android apps are only distributed through the Play Store, and many of those rely on Google Play Services. So trying to ship a phone in those markets without Google Play Services is a non-starter. Google knows this, and so they have added anti-competitive restrictions to that contract. That is the behavior the EU is objecting to.

I never claimed otherwise. GGP said shipping microg would breach a contract. It doesn't.

"There is nothing that stops a manufacturer from providing microG instead of Play Services and hence cutting Google out."

I would be shocked if 1). The licensing agreements with Google to get the Play Store in the first place allow that, and 2). If MicroG would be production ready. It might be fine for some enthusiasts and hobbyists, but I highly doubt it's ready to be shipped by default.

The API of Google Play Services is not really open to re-implementation by third parties. The fact that microG exists doesn't invalidate the author's point. Google allows microG to exist because it is something of a niche, it is not threatening to their model.

The second point you are trying to make is not really clear.

Putting billions of dollars and hundreds of engineers' time into Android for years rather than something else does seem like the definition of a significant risk to me. Not to mention all the legal issues.

Is microG, and Yalp, usage not against ToS?

it is

> hardly a significant risk.

Oh come on.

Imagine the EU would invest these 5 billions into funding microg, alternative app storrs and other drop in replacements for APIs and Apps.

What exactly would the EU be spending that money on? Where does this kind of punitive fine revenue go into? Is it the general slush fund, or is it earmarked for some purpose?

It's distributed to all member states in the proportion that they contribute to the EU budget, after all appeals are completed.

No it's not. It's contributed to the general fund of the EU.

If you fully follow the money, it's mostly used to make local EU agricultural products cheaper, and for the government offices and jobs in Brussels and Strasbourg.

They would build a really nice app store and then it would sit empty because it is not preinstalled and the network effects of Google Play make it pretty much impossible to gain any traction for an alternative.

The idea is that with microg as drop in replacement all the apps would still work without the play services and be as good as. Putting your app on this additional store would cost you just a click. The vendors can preinstall that and ship google-less phones.

It will not happen, but if they really care about what they claim to care about, this is what they should spend the money on. Not sure if just putting a few on Google will help to get a better, healthier market.

Screwing over ? Manufacturers have made a ton of money selling $800 devices every couple years.

One or two have. Most Android OEMs aren't making that much money, if they're making any at all.