> It's getting more and more difficult to use Android without a Google Account.
Good that is how they shoot themselves in the foot. The more they do this, the more people will realise they need alternative and ditch Android.
Good that is how they shoot themselves in the foot. The more they do this, the more people will realise they need alternative and ditch Android.
Not saying the grievance isn't valid, but don't fool yourself
For the few people who distrust Google enough to install LineageOS or some such, they probably distrust Google enough to not care too much about not using Google. Who is in this sweetspot where they want (i.e. install and use, not merely aspire to installing and using) a custom ROM but having no access to proprietary Google APIs is a bridge too far?
- Stopped listening 30 seconds ago
On the other hand, I can see Google's arguments and "plausible deniability" that this is not Embrace, Extend, Extinguish: really nobody expects them to "Don't be Evil" anymore, security vulnerabilities in these apps are probably the last thing in their priorities, and the target audience for these apps is really small.
I think you probably greatly overestimate how much normal people worry about things like that.
Look out your window and count how many tinfoil hats you see people with. If there's more than maybe one or two, you live in a fairly atypical part of the world and it might be time to move house.
That being said, it's Google. Even you didn't sign anything that says you're not allowed to do Google-less Android, when you launch a non-Google device, Googly devices may just "mysteriously" fall into "oops sorry we are understaffed, we don't have time to handle your requests".
I absolutely loathe today's smartphone landscape. You can have a semi-locked-down phone from a company that wants you to put all your data in the clown, or you can have a fully-locked-down phone from a company that wants you to put all your data in the clown. Worse, the only alternative that had a chance just had to be Microsoft. Watching the horror show of post-7 Windows, I think we dodged a bullet with Windows Phone going nowhere.
The masses aren't going to flock to any potential alternative unless it offers something they find truly compelling.
Users are lazy and don't want to take such a risk, but they do have a choice.
This is a wild exaggeration.
How is that not "pretty easy"?
People don't care about Android. They care about their apps. Some are fun, some are necessary. In my country, cash has been almost replaced by an app (just one), and it's getting harder to exist here without it (as I try to). That's just one example. I've heard of other places where compulsory national ID systems only exist as apps. And so on.
Unless those apps becomes available outside official app stores, switching is going to be de facto impossible, and people will take whatever shit Google and Apple roll out.
Apple is completely different of course: you're either in or you're out.
It would be nice if the alternative Android roms were better supported.
But you're completely correct; some apps really are almost necessary for daily life these days, depending on where you are.
Also, maybe at some point the UE countries will start to enforce the CJUE directive that banned US companies (and especially GAFAMs) in 2015 (after the war is over ?), this would open quite a space for competition !
You are already in a lot of national databases, you're easily trackable already. You already are subject to all of your alleged downsides without the benefits of having a single document.
Do you really believe that an American has more freedom than, let's say, a Switzerland citizen? Really????
Such a bizarre take.
Many countries have national ID systems that are compulsory (or effectively compulsory) and do not fall under any reasonable definition of a "police state"
Have a country with a single party you can vote for? This country will be called a dictatorship, dystopian shithole, undemocratic, whatever... Have a country with two parties which are marginally different you can vote for? Now it's just a normal democracy.