Hacker News Reader

Comment by miohtama | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat related, but in other thread two weeks ago people complain Google has too much power over Android ecosystem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24917918

Now, here people are suggesting Google should somehow update the old Androids.

Be damned one way or the other.

View on HN

Yes and Yes.

And both are reasonable and not excluding.

Google sells you a pocket computer with a locked down OS, not for your safety but to control the ability to run ads.

If they cared about user security, they would provide updates, no matter how "slow" (their excuse) the device gets.

If they didn't want full control to show ads (ads are downloaded by the GooglePlayServices, which is pretty much the kernel of all your android experience) then it would be trivial to install other android distributions like replicant.

hence, both a reasonable and google is evil. They want full control and do not care about (your) security updates.

Google does provide updates. It's the device manufacturers and/or mobile operators who choose not to push them.

But that model is flawed, and it's been more than a decade to learn that. The interesting thing is: We already have a model that works much better, and it's been around for longer. If you buy a computer with Windows it is completely normal that you still get your updates from Microsoft, even if your computer is built by a company that may no longer exist by the time you install the update. (That's not to say Windows and Microsoft don't have their own security issues - but the idea that "we provide an OS and we add a middle man for OS updates that by all experience doesn't do his job" is a good model is at this point preposterous.)

Users of the Android OS are not Google's customers.

Most of them are. :) Except for Huawei, I haven't seen an Android user not using Google Play Services. There is probably statistically-insignificant number of users just having F-Droid on a LineageOS who do not use Play Store, Push services or don't consume their ads. So most Android users are indirectly also Google users.

I'd wager that's untrue. Anyone who buys an app, or in app purchase, is directly a Google customer.

I'd also argue that even if someone uses Play Store services, but doesn't pay a penny, they're still a "customer" in a looser sense of the word. They're engaging in the market-place, likely using free apps subsidized by advertising. Even if you want to argue that they're the product instead of the client (and I'd be inclined to agree), they're still revenue-generating users.

> Google does provide updates

That is a lie and you know it. Google updates the OS, but they are also directly responsible for many products they sold themselves with their brand. And those have as much updates as any other company, well maybe one or two more.

I happen to have two devices bought directly from google. One is stuck on android 2.3 and another on 4.0, both full of security holes, not updated because "it would be too slow" when in reality i can't even install replicant et al because google never worked with the component providers to offer compatible binary blobs for the hardware.

Yeah, android itself is opensource (mostly because it is built on top of GPLed linux code so they do not have an option) but 99% of what makes your phone run is a proprietary binary-only code provided by the likes of Qualcomm etc. And why phone manufacturers, google included, use the options with closed source binary blobs? To save $5 or so from the BOM cost in production.

People complaining is pretty constant, yeah. People even complain about complaining.

True,

But we need Google to step up because we know that the manufacturers and carriers won't.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com