I think it was one of those cases where "the road to hell was paved with good intentions". I'm old enough and was very pro-android in the early days when it fi

I think it was one of those cases where "the road to hell was paved with good intentions". I'm old enough and was very pro-android in the early days when it first released. I absolutely remember the frustrations around having vendors just REFUSE to update the OS on devices. Even things that were brand spanking new often got left to rot, and the OS updates in those days were genuinely meaningful software updates - Lots of new capabilities. So I was actually ok with Google going down the route of moving critical software into an installable package that they controlled, that would provide a way to get new capabilities onto devices that manufacturers didn't give a shit about anymore. --- But the problem is that "Google" today sure as hell isn't the google that I liked back then (and even that google was starting to shift tone). And now this package is a backdoor that they can use like a beat-stick to force vendors to stay on their version of Android, and it functions to make "Android" (the distro that users actually use) functionally closed-source and non-permissive. --- I still strongly believe that the appropriate regulation for this situation (across both iOS and Android) is that the company that makes the OS should be prohibited from running any sort of app store, and app stores must be selectable at device initialization (ex - the Internet Explorer ruling, but for app stores).