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>Yeah, that's exactly the goal of Google: lock-in. The Play Services are nice, so you use them, and then your users are stuck with Google. You don't really care

by asow92 4y ago

>Yeah, that's exactly the goal of Google: lock-in. The Play Services are nice, so you use them, and then your users are stuck with Google. You don't really care about the few users who would use your app on a de-googled phone, so in the end, the user is screwed. Yes. > Right. But what I don't get, really, is this: you seem to say that you already support FireOS (which has a cost), and that you can't afford supporting another de-googled Android flavour. But my point is that if it works with FireOS, then it should work on any de-googled Android flavour. We were approached by Amazon to build a FireOS app in the early days in exchange for prominent featuring back when the Fire Phone was launching, and it hasn't really panned out as valuable since then. > Also moving away from the Play Services is definitely hard. Ideally one would not start using them in the first place. For instance many apps use Google Analytics because managers somehow like to look at statistics, but I am convinced that in many case they don't do anything remotely useful with them (except confirming their biases and showing nice graphs in presentations). Agreed in theory, although actually getting away from that can be harder in practice.

palata 4y ago
> although actually getting away from that can be harder in practice. Sure. A rational company will say "the more profitable way is to reinforce Google's position, so we will do that". At the end of the day, the goal of a company is not to build a nice product, but to make money. If making money means going with the monopoly, so be it. The only way to change it is to make it more profitable for the company to support the alternative. But in this case I can't see how a law could enforce it (how would it even formulate that?), so the monopolies win. That's sad, but that's how it works. That's also precisely why tech is part of the climate change problem and not of the solution: we don't build tech that help the world, we build tech that makes money. And making money means using energy, which means burning fossil fuels. Technology destroys the planet because the rules incentivize it to do so.
- asow92 4y ago
  I think these points are fair, and we are just following market forces. If a new phone OS suddenly popped up with a ~20-30% market share we would obviously need to support it; we are in the business of building apps and not smart phones or their OS. Begin rambling rant / feel free to not respond to any of this: Imagine for a moment that you are trying to build and distribute something as big as an OS: How would you fund it? Would it be non-profit, state driven, or open-source? Or would it be a for-profit company with for-profit incentives? If it's the latter, market forces will likely dictate lock-in and closed-source development. This isn't necessarily meant to be nefarious to users: it's just how it has to work if it's going to work at all. On the topic of free software / open OS's and user habits in general: Most users don't want to toil in the fields of setting up a custom OS for the sake of privacy or software freedom: The vast majority of users just want a convenient way to check their messages, find restaurants, hotels, and flights, engage with social media, play a casual game, maybe use a niche app or two, and check the news. Users get complacent when they build habits, so if you want users to switch they need a 10x better reason to switch to consider breaking their habit. I don't know how something like /e/OS is going to become popular enough to actually pull it off without government intervention, and then we're just trading one market bully for another. Sure we have examples of privacy focused companies seeing success like Duck Duck Go, but think about how much easier it is for the average user to switch to a new search engine over a phone.
  - palata 4y ago
    > Begin rambling rant / feel free to not respond to any of this It actually reads like a constructive opinion IMO ;). > This isn't necessarily meant to be nefarious to users I think it tends to be. That's why we need governments and laws: market forces don't have any notion of ethics, they will use slavery if they are allowed to. Laws set a framework. Laws are supposed to reflect what we want as a society, and then market forces are supposed to play in this framework. Of course it's difficult: players who are too big/rich to fail can abuse laws with impunity, and that's an unsolved problem. If you want companies to stop abusing the privacy of their users, you need laws for that. But laws are voted by politicians who represent the people. So you need to convince the people that they need privacy, so that they put pressure on their politicians to vote laws. But it's hard to convince the people, because they typically don't give a shit. Even if their life is at stake (see climate change). > Most users don't want to toil in the fields of setting up a custom OS That's where I'm tempted to say that you judge /e/ OS without having ever seen it. Am I right? The way I use /e/ OS is that I bought a Fairphone 3+ that came with /e/ OS installed, and that's it. There was absolutely nothing to setup. Of course, /e/ OS comes without the Play Services, so I have to accept that I don't have Google Maps. But that's part of the deal: I got /e/ OS because I did not want Google. Yes, most users are happier not giving a shit and using the Google apps. But that's not a problem of being technically savvy at this point, it's just about giving a shit. My parents can use /e/ OS without a degree in Computer Science. They can use all of their apps (WhatsApp, Signal, web browser, public transport, banking, e-mails) except the ones that depend on the Play Services (I haven't found a single app that they need and cannot use because of that). > Users get complacent when they build habits, so if you want users to switch they need a 10x better reason to switch to consider breaking their habit. I totally agree with you there: people are way too lazy to even consider trying an alternative to apps coming from abusive Big Data. IMO it's a bit like if my neighbour had honeybees and offered to sell me some honey, and I answered "no thanks, I prefer to get the one from China at the supermarket, it's easier for me". It's a bit unfortunate, though. Ethics should be a reason to consider changing habits.

by asow92 4y ago

palata 4y ago

> although actually getting away from that can be harder in practice. Sure. A rational company will say "the more profitable way is to reinforce Google's position, so we will do that". At the end of the day, the goal of a company is not to build a nice product, but to make money. If making money means going with the monopoly, so be it. The only way to change it is to make it more profitable for the company to support the alternative. But in this case I can't see how a law could enforce it (how would it even formulate that?), so the monopolies win. That's sad, but that's how it works. That's also precisely why tech is part of the climate change problem and not of the solution: we don't build tech that help the world, we build tech that makes money. And making money means using energy, which means burning fossil fuels. Technology destroys the planet because the rules incentivize it to do so.

asow92 4y ago
I think these points are fair, and we are just following market forces. If a new phone OS suddenly popped up with a ~20-30% market share we would obviously need to support it; we are in the business of building apps and not smart phones or their OS. Begin rambling rant / feel free to not respond to any of this: Imagine for a moment that you are trying to build and distribute something as big as an OS: How would you fund it? Would it be non-profit, state driven, or open-source? Or would it be a for-profit company with for-profit incentives? If it's the latter, market forces will likely dictate lock-in and closed-source development. This isn't necessarily meant to be nefarious to users: it's just how it has to work if it's going to work at all. On the topic of free software / open OS's and user habits in general: Most users don't want to toil in the fields of setting up a custom OS for the sake of privacy or software freedom: The vast majority of users just want a convenient way to check their messages, find restaurants, hotels, and flights, engage with social media, play a casual game, maybe use a niche app or two, and check the news. Users get complacent when they build habits, so if you want users to switch they need a 10x better reason to switch to consider breaking their habit. I don't know how something like /e/OS is going to become popular enough to actually pull it off without government intervention, and then we're just trading one market bully for another. Sure we have examples of privacy focused companies seeing success like Duck Duck Go, but think about how much easier it is for the average user to switch to a new search engine over a phone.
- palata 4y ago
  > Begin rambling rant / feel free to not respond to any of this It actually reads like a constructive opinion IMO ;). > This isn't necessarily meant to be nefarious to users I think it tends to be. That's why we need governments and laws: market forces don't have any notion of ethics, they will use slavery if they are allowed to. Laws set a framework. Laws are supposed to reflect what we want as a society, and then market forces are supposed to play in this framework. Of course it's difficult: players who are too big/rich to fail can abuse laws with impunity, and that's an unsolved problem. If you want companies to stop abusing the privacy of their users, you need laws for that. But laws are voted by politicians who represent the people. So you need to convince the people that they need privacy, so that they put pressure on their politicians to vote laws. But it's hard to convince the people, because they typically don't give a shit. Even if their life is at stake (see climate change). > Most users don't want to toil in the fields of setting up a custom OS That's where I'm tempted to say that you judge /e/ OS without having ever seen it. Am I right? The way I use /e/ OS is that I bought a Fairphone 3+ that came with /e/ OS installed, and that's it. There was absolutely nothing to setup. Of course, /e/ OS comes without the Play Services, so I have to accept that I don't have Google Maps. But that's part of the deal: I got /e/ OS because I did not want Google. Yes, most users are happier not giving a shit and using the Google apps. But that's not a problem of being technically savvy at this point, it's just about giving a shit. My parents can use /e/ OS without a degree in Computer Science. They can use all of their apps (WhatsApp, Signal, web browser, public transport, banking, e-mails) except the ones that depend on the Play Services (I haven't found a single app that they need and cannot use because of that). > Users get complacent when they build habits, so if you want users to switch they need a 10x better reason to switch to consider breaking their habit. I totally agree with you there: people are way too lazy to even consider trying an alternative to apps coming from abusive Big Data. IMO it's a bit like if my neighbour had honeybees and offered to sell me some honey, and I answered "no thanks, I prefer to get the one from China at the supermarket, it's easier for me". It's a bit unfortunate, though. Ethics should be a reason to consider changing habits.