<story><title>The European Commission versus Android</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2018/the-european-commission-versus-android/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adventured</author><text>The Google Android skeptics would prefer exactly that. Their ideal is that Android - as we know it today - collapses and Google loses its position with the product and in the mobile market. The fantasy is that then a truly free, pure, saintly solution can spring up and smite the evil money grubbing commercial interests. That&amp;#x27;s likely to have about as much success as desktop Linux among mass consumers (and for the same reason).&lt;p&gt;The sole thing that collapsing Google&amp;#x27;s Android position will do, is redistribute a lot of that market power and tech ecosystem benefit to a few other US tech giants, some Chinese tech giants and possibly to a lesser extent to some European players and Samsung. The US would net lose a considerable hegemony. As such, the US Government - State Dept, NSA, CIA, et al. - should get involved on a strategic economic security basis, and attack a very large EU company in a manner that is crippling (something worse than the Volkswagen emissions hit). We&amp;#x27;re in the midst of an economic war with the EU, the more vicious parts of the US Government need to start getting involved. At a minimum, find an excuse to perhaps take down eg Deutsche Bank, it&amp;#x27;s particularly weak, so a $10 or $15 billion invented magic fine would probably be enough to force its collapse and nationalization.</text></item><item><author>garmaine</author><text>Why would google develop Android otherwise?</text></item><item><author>pluma</author><text>Also I can&amp;#x27;t really muster any sympathy if a company is punished for having spent &amp;quot;billions of dollars at significant risk&amp;quot; to develop something intentionally anti-competitive.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s like saying &amp;quot;but we spent a lot of money on really expensive lawyers to evade those taxes&amp;quot; when charged with tax evasion.</text></item><item><author>galadran</author><text>A pretty well written analysis. I think the author is mistaken on two important points though.&lt;p&gt;The author writes that due to Google Play Services, most Android apps are in fact Google Play apps and couldn&amp;#x27;t be used on a non-Google version of Android without a significant rework. I believe there&amp;#x27;s already a significant body of work on providing drop in replacements for Google Play Services, e.g. microG [1]. There is nothing that stops a manufacturer from providing microG instead of Play Services and hence cutting Google out.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the author complains that:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; More broadly, the European Commission continues to be a bit too cavalier about denying companies — well, Google, mostly — the right to monetize the products they spend billions of dollars at significant risk to develop.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a huge rift in how most Europeans and Americans see the role of regulators but without getting into that, I want to note Android was not Google&amp;#x27;s effort alone and hardly a significant risk. Android as a software stack is built on the back of the Linux Kernel and a dozen other open source frameworks (Java, sqlite etc). Equally, Google is hardly responsible for the hardware. Manufacturer&amp;#x27;s like HTC and Samsung invested far more in making Google a success than Google did. The same manufacturers that Google has been screwing over with its anti competitive practices...&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;microg.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;microg.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fauigerzigerk</author><text>The US has already fined Deutsche Bank $7.2bn and BNP Paribas $8.9bn. At the time, many in Europe felt that the fines were excessive and that the existential threats used to discourage the use of the courts amounted to extortion. It was also seen by some as a form of protectionism.&lt;p&gt;If we don&amp;#x27;t want to descend into nationalist mudslinging (or even war mongering) we have to consider each individual case based on its own merits. I think at least here on Hacker News we owe each other as much.</text></comment>
<story><title>The European Commission versus Android</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2018/the-european-commission-versus-android/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adventured</author><text>The Google Android skeptics would prefer exactly that. Their ideal is that Android - as we know it today - collapses and Google loses its position with the product and in the mobile market. The fantasy is that then a truly free, pure, saintly solution can spring up and smite the evil money grubbing commercial interests. That&amp;#x27;s likely to have about as much success as desktop Linux among mass consumers (and for the same reason).&lt;p&gt;The sole thing that collapsing Google&amp;#x27;s Android position will do, is redistribute a lot of that market power and tech ecosystem benefit to a few other US tech giants, some Chinese tech giants and possibly to a lesser extent to some European players and Samsung. The US would net lose a considerable hegemony. As such, the US Government - State Dept, NSA, CIA, et al. - should get involved on a strategic economic security basis, and attack a very large EU company in a manner that is crippling (something worse than the Volkswagen emissions hit). We&amp;#x27;re in the midst of an economic war with the EU, the more vicious parts of the US Government need to start getting involved. At a minimum, find an excuse to perhaps take down eg Deutsche Bank, it&amp;#x27;s particularly weak, so a $10 or $15 billion invented magic fine would probably be enough to force its collapse and nationalization.</text></item><item><author>garmaine</author><text>Why would google develop Android otherwise?</text></item><item><author>pluma</author><text>Also I can&amp;#x27;t really muster any sympathy if a company is punished for having spent &amp;quot;billions of dollars at significant risk&amp;quot; to develop something intentionally anti-competitive.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s like saying &amp;quot;but we spent a lot of money on really expensive lawyers to evade those taxes&amp;quot; when charged with tax evasion.</text></item><item><author>galadran</author><text>A pretty well written analysis. I think the author is mistaken on two important points though.&lt;p&gt;The author writes that due to Google Play Services, most Android apps are in fact Google Play apps and couldn&amp;#x27;t be used on a non-Google version of Android without a significant rework. I believe there&amp;#x27;s already a significant body of work on providing drop in replacements for Google Play Services, e.g. microG [1]. There is nothing that stops a manufacturer from providing microG instead of Play Services and hence cutting Google out.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, the author complains that:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; More broadly, the European Commission continues to be a bit too cavalier about denying companies — well, Google, mostly — the right to monetize the products they spend billions of dollars at significant risk to develop.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a huge rift in how most Europeans and Americans see the role of regulators but without getting into that, I want to note Android was not Google&amp;#x27;s effort alone and hardly a significant risk. Android as a software stack is built on the back of the Linux Kernel and a dozen other open source frameworks (Java, sqlite etc). Equally, Google is hardly responsible for the hardware. Manufacturer&amp;#x27;s like HTC and Samsung invested far more in making Google a success than Google did. The same manufacturers that Google has been screwing over with its anti competitive practices...&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;microg.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;microg.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>craigsmansion</author><text>&amp;gt; The Google Android skeptics would prefer exactly that.&lt;p&gt;Citation needed.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The fantasy is [..] evil money grubbing commercial interests.&lt;p&gt;What are you even on about?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;desktop Linux&lt;p&gt;What does &amp;quot;desktop Linux&amp;quot; have to do with anything in this context?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The US would net lose [..] hegemony [..] State Dept, NSA, CIA, et al. - should get involved [..] an economic war with the EU ...&lt;p&gt;Or, less bat-shit insane, the US government could look at how different blocs implement anti-trust and consumer protection, and extend those to its own citizens.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; invented magic fine&lt;p&gt;Or Google could just have obeyed the law, American.</text></comment>