The infuriating part of the Google enshittification process is that there is absolutely nothing the user can do about it.
Literally the only thing that motivates Google is profit. Controlling side-loaded apps will almost certainly boost their profits by a infinitesimal fraction of a percent, therefore it will be done. Even if consumer uproar causes Google to back down in the short term, they'll simply implement this a few months later. Late-stage Capitalism sucks.
You can stop using all Google products. Now I understand their market share on the web means they’re going to continue to shape the web.
But make no mistake. There is something, however small, that you can do. De-Google.
You can stop using all Google products.
My public school -- that my children are basically required by law to attend, remember -- is badgering me to sign a consent form so they can have Chromebooks.
This fight is a lot fucking larger than mere individual boycotts!
And my kids school requires every parent to have a Google account to track progress and share information.
What happens if you refuse?
I will help hand hold anyone who wants to build servers or services (to the best of my ability) to replace Google services with their own.
De-Google
The complaint is side loading is being restricted and the only long term alternative Apple. Google already began the process of shutting down Graphene by cutting drivers out of AOSP.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-not-killing-aosp-3566882/
Honestly Googles products are terrible these days. I have been pretty lax about my privacy but after so much enshittification I switched my services to something that works and doesn't harvest my data for the privilege.
When they kill off Graphene/Custom ROMs I'll switch to a linux phone or brickphone.
You can stop using all Google products.
That may be true for you, but other people face different realities. When Google implements the sideloading block it will eventually be pushed to everyone who doesn't use a custom ROM.
also not everyone is saavy enough to use obscure services too.
Not everyone cares enough to avoid Google. Some of us that want to do so are related to them.
When reading cyberpunk lore, quickhacks didn't make any sense to me. Some programs that break cyberware because of backdoors, but why would people install cyberware with backdoors?
Now I look at the sad state of mobile market and, yeah ok, that makes sense.
I feel like this is the new normal cycle of every software company. Once they become a leader, it's never enough. It replicates the rise of billionaires. Just as the billionaires being rich beyond anything they and all of their succeeding generations could ever spend is not enough, being the industry leader and producing an amazing product that people want is somehow not enough. It always turns to control and power.
I can't wait for AI to become a living corporate trillionaire entity and fuck us all to the end of humanity.
Its about time an open standard happened for mobile OSes.
That's what Android was and they keep trying to undo that any way they can
We need a new one that isn't made by a for-profit company that only was good at the beginning to get total market saturation before flipping the enshittification switch to maximize those profits.
We need open bootloader and drivers for phones to make any real progress on this. This is what's holding back all initiatives.
the best outcome for the short term would be to forcibly take away android from google and give it to an independent foundation. as I heard antitrust proceedings in the usa were heading that way a few months ago
Time to back to the analog world and short wave radios.
Lemmy would rock in Morse code
It would only be days before someone builds logic gates using Morse code somehow (who am I kidding, it probably already exists), and we recreate the entire thing again lol
I don't know about anyone else, but I got into computers at a young age because it gave me a sense of control over something. I didn't understand everything, but I could do a lot of trial and error, read things and experiment, build cool things, and I shared a sense of community with some random internet strangers based on that knowledge.
In a world where we are so powerless in so many other ways, why did we insist on bringing that power dynamic into the new bright tech sphere? Why did we have to do that? (N.B. this is rhetorical questioning).
In the new Alien Earth TV show, 5 corporations basically run everything.. unfortunately I suspect thats where we are headed as a species.
There are at least two generations of us who are disappointed at the contrast between tech's possibilities as envisioned decades ago and the corporate surveillance crap we have to put up with today.
Year of the Linux phone, I guess.
chrome is at thier limits, since people can just use a different browser/
I came here specifically to ask about alternatives to Android now that google is becoming too abusive in the relationship.
Custom Android ROMs based on AOSP, which is the open source parts of Android. I used to use LineageOS back in the day.
Before buying a phone, make sure that it has an unlockable bootloader and a custom ROM of a recent Android version. Note that some phones have multiple versions for different regions and some might not be unlockable, while others are. For example many Samsung international phones are unlockable, but none of the USA models are.
Note that many commercial apps like Netflix, Pokémon Go, bank apps, etc. will refuse to run if your bootloader is unlocked. It also permanently trips Samsung's Knox.
As shitty as M$ is, it would have been nice to see Windows phone become moderately successful and be a third primary mobile os.
just dont update your phone problem solved
now it's just a race for the giant conglomerates to make the worst decisions for consumers
they just want to confirm a malicious actor didn’t develop it
So Newpipe, SmartTube, Nintendo emulators...
Clones of opensource apps bundled with ads that violates license is OK, but restricting everyone to build and test apps from source so it can test new features and report any issues is too risky for the user
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