[shadowgovt]

> Ruining Android for everyone to try to maybe help some rather technologically-hopeless groups of people is the wrong solution.

Those groups of people are Google's paying customers. Google will, of course, defer to the ones who need more help to be safe online over the ones who don't. That's how you create a safe ecosystem.

[dzikimarian]

What's then left as Google's advantage? I'm really not interested in buying myself a cage, but if Google will make me choose between two cages then Apple has nicer one.

[shadowgovt]

Google still doesn't make you pay s dollar to write an app on their architecture (only to have it hosted in their store).

[andrekandre]

you also don't need to pay apple for using xcode and building apps for ios either; the 99 dollars is for uploading to appstore or installing to devices for more than 7 days

[shadowgovt]

Using xcode does require paying Apple, unless you've gotten your hands on a free copy of the OS and/or free Apple hardware somehow.