E: apparently it needs to be said that I am not suggesting you switch to Linux on your phone today; just that development needs to accelerate. Please don’t be one of the 34 people that replied to tell me Linux is not ready.

Android has always been a fairly open platform, especially if you were deliberate about getting it that way, but we’ve seen in recent months an extremely rapid devolution of the Android ecosystem:

  1. The closing of development of an increasing number of components in AOSP.
  2. Samsung, Xiaomi and OnePlus have removed the option of bootloader unlocking on all of their devices. I suspect Google is not far behind.
  3. Google implementing Play Integrity API and encouraging developers to implement it. Notably the EU’s own identity verification wallet requires this, in stark contrast to their own laws and policies, despite the protest of hundreds on Github.
  4. And finally, the mandatory implementation of developer verification across Android systems. Yes, if you’re running a 3rd-party OS like GOS you won’t be directly affected by this, but it will impact 99.9% of devices, and I foresee many open source developers just opting out of developing apps for Android entirely as a result. We’ve already seen SyncThing simply discontinue development for this reason, citing issues with Google Play Store. They’ve also repeatedly denied updates for NextCloud with no explanation, only restoring it after mass outcry. And we’ve already seen Google targeting any software intended to circumvent ads, labeling them in the system as “dangerous” and “untrusted”. This will most certainly carry into their new “verification” system.

Google once competed with Apple for customers. But in a world where Google walks away from the biggest antitrust trial since 1998 with yet another slap on the wrist, competition is dead, and Google is taking notes from Apple about what they can legally get away with.

Android as we know it is dead. And/or will be dead very soon. We need an open replacement.

    • Ulrich@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      9·
      6 days ago

      I went with a Sonim XP3Plus flip phone

      This is how I solved the modern tech problem.

      You didn’t solve any problems, you just opted out of a whole bunch of features.

        • Ulrich@feddit.orgOPEnglish
          11·
          6 days ago

          I did solve the problem; by choosing not to bother with it

          Walking away does not solve the problem. It just makes it no longer your problem. Everyone else still has to deal with it. Not everyone has that privilege.

          • jnod4@lemmy.caEnglish
            51·
            6 days ago

            If we all stopped the world would adapt. The council let the street signs rot because everyone is on gmaps, restaurants stopped having menus just qr codes, places in England were you get kicked out if you insist to pay by cash.

            All of it would be reversed if… we reversed A pipe dream but weirder things happened

            • Ulrich@feddit.orgOPEnglish
              4·
              6 days ago

              Yes and no. Some of us actually need our phones to accomplish things. Work, primarily. As people mentioned elsewhere, simple things like accessing their banking accounts. I wish we didn’t, but we do.

                • Ulrich@feddit.orgOPEnglish
                  4·
                  6 days ago

                  I’d never do banking on a smartphone; not in a million years.

                  They’re not doing it by choice. The phone is used as mandatory authentication to access the account.

                  One theft or hack in public, and all your money and data are at risk

                  …and how do you suppose your laptop is immune from this? Or your desktop, even?

                  that’s the aspect you want to keep avoiding.

                  I’m not avoiding anything. What you fail to understand is that not everyone’s situation is the same as yours. For some of us, these things are outside of our control.

      • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        My wife’s pixel 3 just busted without any warning a few years ago. PLEASE be sure to have backups of your things and passwords. At the time they didn’t remember their password and was only logged in on their phone. We were able to recover through my email but it wasn’t a recovery address so it was really scary.

        The worst part is we already had a family password manager they weren’t using, so it was very difficult to not make it seem like an “I told you so” moment, but they’re on it now and have backups and stuff.

        But yeah. We took it to some phone repair guy and he tried a bunch of different stuff. The motherboard just failed or something. No way to extract anything. He said it happened a lot with that model (well, he’s only seeing the bad ones but still).