[zaidf]

I have recently found myself reconsidering my views on Tim Cook. He has generally positioned himself as the voice of reason, especially on matters of privacy. He’s gone as far as attack companies like Google and Facebook. And yet, all of this masks a simple truth abt Apple: any extra privacy or consumer protection comes at a very hefty cost, making most of its products unaffordable for most of the world. In contrast, Google’s Android is affordable for many large markets Apple doesn’t find worthy of competing in.

[nradov]

In principle there's nothing stopping Android device manufacturers from respecting privacy by using AOSP without Google services. However in practice such devices have either been market failures, or are even worse from a privacy standpoint (i.e. infested with Chinese government spyware).

[samat]

Until very lately there were secrect mandatory agreements with google which made device manufacturers unable to sell devices with and without googles software at the same time. You had to choose one.