[dns_snek]

> If the customers prefer the walled garden then what’s the big deal?

What the customers "prefer" and what's good for society are two very different questions. Anti-competitive behavior for one, like charging your direct competitors a 30% tax on their revenue because you own the platform, ensuring that you always come out ahead.

> There are a number of other phones people can buy

I don't understand this argument. For smartphones there's just one viable alternative which is itself trending in the walled garden direction. Google has been imposing additional restrictions for sideloading and adding various roadblocks that are slowly reeling back user freedoms.

Both companies have a long list of customer-hostile behaviors and we have to pick one of them because interoperability is dead. Because we have to pick one, there's no real pressure to address those grievances on either side.

It's always "just use Android" when we complain about Apple and "just use iOS" when we complain about Google. It's like that scene out of South park with the Cable company people rubbing their nipples listening to disgruntled customers.

[dialup_sounds]

There are at least a dozen companies making Android-based phones without Google. Are none of them "viable"? If not, whose fault is that?

[flax]

no. China. Next question.

[dialup_sounds]

I was actually thinking of European companies like Volla and Fairphone given that the article is about the EU.