> And hypothetically speaking, at this point Google could just shove whatever they want down their throats and tell them to deal with it. Or the new GMail app

> And hypothetically speaking, at this point Google could just shove whatever they want down their throats and tell them to deal with it. Or the new GMail app on the Lollipop ROM for my Nexus 5. My email address was originally on Google Apps. I switched to Windows Phone from my Palm Pre in 2011 and they discontinued Exchange ActiveSync support shortly thereafter, so I moved everything over to Windows Live Domains, keeping my Google Apps login as my Google account. I recently took a foray to Android in June and picked up the Nexus 5 I'm currently using, and I had no issues setting up my now Outlook.com account (same email address I used for my Google account) in the stock AOSP email app, I removed GMail and there was no trace of my no longer used Google Apps services on my device. Now with Lollipop, I always see two email accounts, one of which is the Google Apps account that no longer has email routed to it but I have no way to hide, and since it shares the same address getting my Outlook.com account added was a pain in the ass (it errored saying I cannot add multiple accounts with the same email address, had to use my @outlook.com alias). Google used its search monopoly to wedge its way into other areas, the two big ones being email (I see way more active @gmail.com users than I do @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com/@outlook.com and ISP emails today) and online video (youtube). They then used these markets to push their way into the mobile space, which now has the opposite effect (their mobile OS is pushing people into using Google services exclusively). Both iOS and Windows Phone use their own account systems (Apple ID and Microsoft Account respectively) to provide access to platform-specific services (Store, Synchronization, etc) but both allow users to sign up without requiring they create an email account with them, and both platforms have easy setup for the wealth of other email/calendar/contact sync services most people use. Honestly, anyone who DOESN'T see Google abusing their monopoly position to prevent or at least actively discourage people from using competitive services is lying to themselves.