I agree. And it’s exactly what the aggressor would love the discourse to be.

Such a waste of R&D resources

You’re right. But they already started keeping their internal dev branch private this year, which hinders everyone else working on the AOSP, including GrapheneOS. While in theory AOSP is still FOSS, they are doing everything they can to gain more control and keep rom developers and other stakeholders out of date.

And even though Android is FOSS, more and more Android device manufacturers are locking down their bootloaders, thus leaving no option to switch to an alternative.

We need a viable alternative to Android. Google has clearly shown that it’s a terrible steward for anything under its wing. Even if they somehow backtrack, they will continue pushing anti consumer practices in the long term. It’s been a couple of years now that I can’t install an apk that is unavailable in my country, because they’re somehow verifying my country with Google Play services. I’ve managed to ditch Chrome this year after 16 years and I’m not looking back, I wish I had done this earlier. If only there was an open Android alternative I could jump to.

I’m all for Disney getting the cancellations they deserve, but articles like this one are entirely sensationalist. No one can know the real numbers of cancellations unless Disney announces them, which will never happen.

Same outcome as with their search engine, same thing with Chrome, Youtube and many other Google products. They built up their user base with a solid product (or bought it), and then started shitting all over their users by making horrible decisions and inserting all sorts of dark patterns in the name of “security” or whatever else pretense. I’m still hoping another entity steps up and fills the vacuum that Android leaves behind.

My favourite talk of all time. It never gets old!

Unfortunately the Android experience is getting more and more bloated and users’ freedom to tinker with their phones or sideload apps is getting more and more difficult. The Play Store is riddled with more ads than useful content. Just try searching for something, and oftentimes more than half of your screen is ads.

I’ve been with Android since the start and I hate what Google is reducing it to. It pains me that the only viable alternative is Apple and I feel trapped.