[cromka]

Why? You have many examples throughout history when an overconfident manufacturer lost their momentum before they even realized it. I mean, take Sony for example. They had the best product but completely ignored public's demand for MP3 and thought they could peddle their own proprietary shit forever. People's private sentiment towards product/brand can change simultaneously en masse often without notice to the manufacturer. Especially if something better comes along out of the sudden — and it usually does.

I have been an Apple fanboy for 10 years and their recent abysmal software quality and complete lack of the 'final touch' they've been known for made me go back to Linux and Android. Because there I can at list fix those annoying bugs myself — or at the very least, I can have them reported publicly for visibility.

I went from an advocate to 'fuck that shit' in 6 months, and if I recall it was one annoying bug too many that was the tipping point. I have a feeling many people share a similar experience roughly at the same time. And I actually think same thing is happening with Windows. So why not Android, too?

So yeah, I think companies can absolutely inadvertently reach a tipping point with one of those seemingly benign decisions.

[JasonADrury]

Android just isn't getting many outside contributions, and this doesn't affect manufacturers.

There's simply no reason for AOSP to matter to google because AOSP doesn't matter to any serious manufacturer.

[cromka]

Person you responded to complains about restricting sideloading, not closing the source.

[JasonADrury]

The people who care about that aren't paying