[petesergeant]

Literally the only people this isn't good for is Google's senior management.

[freedomben]

You think this would be good for Android users? What do you see happening to Android if Google were broken up?

[fwip]

Lots of possibilities. One is that Android charges a per-device* fee to the phone manufacturers to license the OS, similar to Windows.

*with the usual hijinks where a high-end device requires a bigger license fee than a budget phone.

[freedomben]

Wouldn't that essentially mandate the discontinuation of AOSP? That seems like a massive loss to humanity, and certainly to the open source world.

I suppose it's possible that GAPPS would become licensed but the OS for free, though I could see the bean counters having a big problem with that.

[tmpz22]

Won’t somebody think of the Mountain View Realtors Association?

[nostrademons]

Google's headcount in Mountain View has decreased by ~30% since 2022, with many of the jobs being shipped to Bangalore and Hyderabad.

[basiccalendar74]

how much did it change compared to 2019?

[nostrademons]

About -25%. Current campus size is roughly what it was in early 2014.

The difference in the housing market is that instead of being 28-year-olds who live in apartments, all those MTV Googlers are 38-year-olds with families who are sitting on a couple million in stock compensation each.

[b112]

Not sure it would hurt them.

All of the broken up companies created, the Googlettes if you will, would be flush with senior devs and researchers, many of them somewhat well to do and likely with savings.

Many of those people will spread like the wind, create new startups, and will require a house with garage to house said startup.

The MVRA and agents will be happy indeed.

And we may get a new barbershop band out of it too.