[Dahoon]

>Is Google a monopoly?

Yes in more than one area. The lowest hanging fruit (which will cause downvotes): Google Play. No one can release anything Google disagrees with on Google Play.... but google could. Google and Apple really should be separated from their stores. They know everything that happens on them and no one can compete against that.

Bundling Chrome with Android (and Apple apps in iOS) is no different than Microsoft bundling IE or Windows media player.

[jasonvorhe]

Except that the web is a completely different landscape than it was during the prime of IE6. If IE6 had been standards compliant like Chrome, no one would have bothered with Microsoft bundling it with Windows because you'd been able to switch browsers without every 2nd website telling you to use IE6.

Firefox and later Chrome continued to rise because they were faster, extendable and more open, not because Microsoft has to offer a browser selection in some markets.

[pgeorgi]

> No one can release anything Google disagrees with on Google Play

Recent Android versions made it ever easier to install apps without using the Play Store: I have F-Droid installed and whitelisted (so no warnings every time an apk appears), which required toggling a permission switch the system pointed out to me.

As for Chrome, apparently various vendors ship their own browser as default although it seems they still have to ship Chrome as alternative.

[Dahoon]

>Recent Android versions made it ever easier to install apps without using the Play Store

Yes I'm using it myself but how is that making Google Play less of a monopoly? F-droid can't sell apps on the play store without using Google.

[pgeorgi]

> F-droid can't sell apps on the play store without using Google

"I can't sell my organic bananas at Walmart without dealing with Walmart"?

I can understand ideas that there shouldn't be a "default store" on devices. Or that Android's certification (whatever that is called) shouldn't require pre-installing the play store as only option. I may or may not agree with them.

But "I should be able to sell my wares at a store without dealing with its owner/operator" sounds strange to me.

[hedora]

Side loading is nice, but unless you can uninstall the play store and blacklist the google APIs without breaking your phone, you’re still forced to send them your data (or to switch away from Android).

So, they’re tying their market power in phone operating systems to their unrelated monopoly (duopoly?) in surveillance capitalism, and many peopfle unwillingly/unwittingly hand over their private information as a result.

If you consider the full suite of their products, you’ll find that all people that are on the internet (and some that are not) hand over such information, unwilling or not.

[mav3rick]

Right Android is the only mobile OS where Epic and others can distribute APKs. You can't do that on iOS.

[wpasc]

Epic Games circumvented this pretty easily with Fortnite on Android

[Dahoon]

Yes, huge companies can make their own stores by levering a huge hit game, lots of cash and opening the gaping security hole that is sideloading apps. Firefox could also be downloaded from getfirefox.com. That doesn't mean Microsoft didn't abuse their monopoly with IE.

Btw. also the same Epic that paid a developer to pull their game off Steam and make it exclusive to the Epic store after the game had had lots of advertisement on the Steam store. That is twice Epic has abused one store to promote their own. They are even worse than Google. At least Google pretends not to be scummy.

But that is beside the point.