Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple also is a monopolist.
So two companies in the same market are mono polists?
You've never heard of "a cartel"?
Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
101–110 of 206 posts
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, what’s anti competitive is Google making an open source operating system that is worth absolutely nothing without the Google play services, and locking these play services behind contract that contains anti competitive rules, like « you have to set Google Gemini as default assistant », or « you can’t ever sell a phone without the Google play services or with any alternative than the Google play services ». Androi…
So if Google closed sourced their OS and access to their store is only via their OS, is that anti competitive ? Trying to figure out the argument. As opposed to Apple, Android is free and open like you said. It’s the Google Play Store that has limited access.
Apple never pretended iOS is free and available to all other phone manufacturer. It was always a main selling point for Apple phone.
Google killed competition by first making a free operating system that all phone manufacturer could use, lowering their production cost, and when competitor like windows phone or Samsung tyzen died, slowly tightened his grip by pushing more and more core feature in their third party services, hence forcing manufacturer to agree to their terms if they want to have a play store, Google pay service or just pass play integrity so that bank app can run.
That’s in my opinion completely different strategies, one is fair, the other is deceptive and manipulative.
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#103Did anyone read this article? The headline is misleading. It clearly states in the first line: > "Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity AI as the default assistant on its new devices" They didn't block Perplexity AI from Motorola's devices, the agreement states that they allow them to preload the devices with Perplexity, but the agreement, that both p…
> they think they had no choice And they really don't have a choice. if you don't abide by googles terms then they will not permit you to use google mobile services. That means (at the very least): - No "play" services (breaks lots of apps and 3rd party peripherals). - No app store (over 90% of apps are distributed solely through the play store. even major android players like samsung have tiny libraries in their own…
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#104Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#105I might be missing something big here, but how does the consistency work in these scenarios? At one place, you are saying Google is not allowed to pay to be default, but at the same time you are allowing others to be default because they are not a monopoly. One would naively assume that rules should be consistent. I get that asking people to choose induces friction and yet people would gravitate towards the most popular option. But, giving the default to an objectively inferior product (not talking about perplexity, but you would agree bing/DDG is not on the same level as Google for most non tech users) is worse when it comes to user experience and increases the friction even more.
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
They blocked Perplexity via agreements, amongst many agreements to fortify their monopoly, the legality of which has been challenged in court and this testimony is to demonstrate that this agreement also belongs in the "illegal" bucket.
Google Cloud has also gotten a huge boost from large retailers who, understandably, don't want to run their software on Amazon owned AWS. When I asked out of curiosity why not Azure, especially given that these companies almost all use Office, Teams, Outlook, etc. several have told me it's because of Google Shopping and SEO. Though never formally stated or part of the contract it's often mentioned by Google that "The…
I doubt it's because of that. Being a user of those msft products like Teams, it is more likely that they don't want another msft product if they can avoid it. why would you want bugs on top of bugs?
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#107It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates. Open source Android vs. closed iOS Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on…
> Open source Android vs. closed iOS https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on... This article lays out in painstaking detail in one place most of the criticisms about Android you'll find in this comment thread. And this was published in 2018! That Google still maintains "a better actor" aura despite all that we know now is the greatest trick they ever pulled.
the comment doesn't say that is good, it says that it is better than ios. do you think android is more closed than ios?
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#108It continues to baffle me that Google gets harassed by the courts for being a better actor in almost every area it participates. Open source Android vs. closed iOS Install apps from any source on Android vs. total restriction on iOS Switch default app for browser (and many other things!) vs. No choice but Safari tech on iOS Easy switch of search provider in Chrome vs. countless dark patterns pushing Edge and Bing on…
>Open source Android vs. closed iOS Google have slid back on this from day one. A pure-AOSP build of Android is borderline unusable, to the point that the dialer UI, various essential apps such as contacts and the like are now proprietary Google code, stripped out of AOSP. Additionally, AOSP has gone to a source-dump release pattern, rather than an open build. Last I knew, even basic things like the Camera and clock…
> However, the thing the courts have gotten very angry with is that in order to use the Android trademark, you have to get certification, which requires you to exclusively ship a series of Google applications (Chrome, Gmail, Youtube, the Google Photos app, etc) even if you have your own replacement (e.g. Samsung's browser, a native photo app, email client, etc.) and you Must ship with the Google account system up front.
The Daylight Computer doesn't ship with Google applications like this from what I can remember, and I noticed it doesn't actually mention Android on their home page, just that it can "run your favorite apps". It only mentions Android on the specs page under software. I wonder if they did that because of this.
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure a contract was signed, but as has been pointed out many times about Google's heavy-handed control over Android, it doesn't mean it was fair to all parties: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on... Given the recent judgements about Google's anticompetitive behavior in multiple other arenas, revisiting these licensing agreements seems justified.
Android is open source and Google play services is technically possible to avoid. What other major operating system vendor for consumer electronics goes out of their way to make this sort of thing possible? Apple and Microsoft sure don't.
Legally or illegally? If you don't care about doing it legally, sure you can make a stub Google play service and fake the device integrity by extracting certificates from other devices.
If you care about the laws though you cannot really get rid of the play services.
Re: Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
With Apple, they are the manufacturer of the phone and the software, so they get to decide what goes on the hardware. Google makes the OS, but not the hardware. Why should they be able to decide what another company puts on the hardware. This is exactly the same playbook Microsoft tried in the 90s, and it is going to court for the exact same reason. It's using your market power to prevent competition. We've decided t…
So are you proposing that Google shouldn't allow other companies to install Android? What would Samsung, Motorola switch to and do app developers have to create apps targeting all of the different mobile OSes? This seems like a far worst path than today, and to OP's point, though Google isn't perfect, they're doing better than their competitor in providing options. Pushing Google to only offer Android on their own ph…
That's not at all what I'm proposing.
I'm proposing that Google can't decide what other hardware companies include in their devices just because they are including Android.
I think it is fine for Google to say you have to include the Play store, or you have to include Chrome, but to say you can't include firefox, or you can't include instagram, etc. etc. That shouldn't be up to Google.
This is what got Microsoft in anti-trust trouble in the 90s. They included Internet Explorer with the OS, and said that it had to be the default and only browser included by vendors. They weren't allowed to include competing browsers.