[hparadiz]

Google made Android open source for free and you can even see this on this on HN as everyone glazes GrapheneOS. Without Android there would not be an entire ecosystem of software. Google even complied with a previous rulings about search engine choice and browser choice. In fact Android has always allowed you to set those things.

As usual Europe can't innovate so just taxes people out of their market entirely. Why would anyone want to locate their business in Europe after reading a headline like this? Have you guys ever considered making your own operating system? Your own tech companies?

[epolanski]

The EU's concern is less "is it technically possible?" and more whether Google's licensing and commercial agreements discourage effective competition.

In particular:

- Google forced every manufacturer to have search and chrome on every android phone if they wanted access to Google Play. No technical reason, just forcing their position. This is why Samsung, despite investing on their browser, was still forced to ship with Chrome. Browser competition on mobile was rigged by default.

- Manufacturers signed agreements making it de facto impossible to ship Android forks not approved by Google. If you want Play Services, you can't ship a fork Android did not approve, no matter whether you're Sony or Samsung. Again, no technical reasons, just forcing their hand.

- Google paid manufacturers so Google Search was going to be the only search option on that phone, preventing competition.

None of these practices make the landscape better for the user or incentivize competition when the game is rigged at contract level.

As for the rest of your post: Europe (but also Japan or South Korea or pretty much the whole world) does not enjoy the corporate laws, abundance of capital and risk prone mentality the US does. Those are problems. Over regulation (or better, inconsistent one across EU) is also a plague.

But that's unrelated with the fact that companies living in monopolies commercially abuse their positions. US regulators themselves have found the practice of paying Apple to ship Google as default search engine to be questionable.

[hparadiz]

The point of those agreements is to make sure those phone manufacturers didn't basterdize android with their garbage crapware like they all want to do. Google is actually protecting the average user in this situation by mandating some standards. They could simply lock Android down as closed source forever and move on from all of this.

[cbg0]

Nothing's stopping them from doing that, but you're incredibly naive if you think they're "protecting the average user" out of the goodness of their heart.

[epolanski]

> The point of those agreements is to make sure those phone manufacturers didn't basterdize android with their garbage crapware

You're naive if you think these deals were about protecting the user. It's a commercial and strategic play to make sure users end up on Google's core business products.

Manufacturers get a free OS they don't need to develop, Google gets their core business products in every user's hands as default.

They didn't develop an open source browser and OS for any other reason than money.

And they pay (Apple, Mozilla, etc) or commercially force the usage of those products wherever they can.

[4thguy]

I think you might need to reconsider how open Android actually is given the recent moves.

[hparadiz]

You don't even know how good you have it. With incentives like this what company would make anything open in the future? You're punishing them for it. They're gonna make it like iOS precisely because of rulings like this.

[latexr]

> They're gonna make it like iOS precisely because of rulings like this.

And then what? It’s not like iOS is exempt from the rules. See all the trouble they’re having with the DMA.

[Supermancho]

> You don't even know how good you have it

ie Quit complaining about the abuse you know about or there might be more of it.

[stodor89]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[4thguy]

I'm sorry, but what does "pre-installation deals with smartphone makers" have to do with being open?

[9dev]

> Google made Android open source for free

And Hitler built the highways in Germany. What does that even prove? They can still abuse Android for vendor lock-in, or as a sales funnel to their commercial offerings, or as a data source for a myriad of things users did never really consent to.

> As usual Europe can't innovate so just taxes people out of their market entirely.

Yawn. Last time I looked, big tech is still wholly present all across the EU, only that I have the option to install apps from alternative stores on my iPhone. Also, the EU as an institution isn't the same thing as European companies. Go check the machines in any factory near you, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll find a German one in it.

> Have you guys ever considered making your own operating system?

You might want to look up where Linus Torvalds created Linux.

[bilekas]

> Go check the machines in any factory near you, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll find a German one in it.

It is always interesting to see how underestimated the EU is in terms of manufacturing and pharma for example, they're unsung and not always glamourous industries, but nobody does them like the EU.

The tech innovation does happen more in the US, there has always been simply more private capital thrown around there and thats fine. Comparing the EU and the US in terms of economic activities and procedures is a futile exercise. They're just not the same, and thats by design.

[petcat]

> You might want to look up where Linus Torvalds created Linux.

He also immediately relocated to the US and made the Linux Foundation an American company though.

[9dev]

That still doesn’t take away from the point that innovation does happen in Europe; the first version of Linux was created and released while he was at the university of Helsinki. If you want another example, Fraunhofer created the MP3 format, which went on to revolutionise the world of digital audio. Many of the LLM foundational science came from European scientists.

However, when it comes to ones to turning science into products, the USA seems to have an edge quite often. It’s just not as mono-dimensional as GP framed it.