Monopolies must be dismantled.

Posted Sep 29, 2025 10:49 UTC (Mon) by wazoox (subscriber, #69624)
Parent article: F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree

There is no other solution. Break up Google.

Monopolies must be dismantled.

Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:05 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Amen. There are a number of tech companies who have gotten far, far, far too large.

At least 3 of the biggest have a tacit understanding between them that each has certain 'territories' or scopes that are theirs, and the others will mostly try avoid encroaching. I.e., search and video, social, and retail/cloud (IIRC). I have heard this understanding spoken of by management at 1 of those big 3.

It's stereotypical protectionism and monopolistic behaviour.

Monopolies must be dismantled.

Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:11 UTC (Mon) by decorum (subscriber, #178110) [Link]

I agree. I'm currently still trying to figure out which Linux system I like best on a smartphone. The goal is to finally get away from Android.

Monopolies must be dismantled.

Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:18 UTC (Mon) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (2 responses)

How would that help? Biggest google products (Chrome, Android) are money sinks, financed by income from Ad business. Split them and there's no viable business model to keep them afloat.

Monopolies must be dismantled.

Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:40 UTC (Mon) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link]

How would that help? Biggest google products (Chrome, Android) are money sinks, financed by income from Ad business. Split them and there's no viable business model to keep them afloat.

The suggested breakup before the courts is to the ad business, so Google has to chose between being the agent for the seller, agent for the buyer and auctions house. Right now they're all three (Can you say "moral hazard"?)

Android, in particular is not a money sink: Google collects significantly from the Google Play Store, pre-installed Google services and default search placement. The Play Store alone generates billions in revenue annually.

Monopolies must be dismantled.

Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:47 UTC (Mon) by excors (subscriber, #95769) [Link]

When it was recently suggested Google might have to sell Chrome (before a judge decided they didn't have to), the AI search company Perplexity offered $34.5B for it. That's a company with $1.5B of funding and an annualised revenue of about $150M, which suggests it is heavily loss-making. Evidently you don't need an actual working business model, you just need to convince a few investors that you have the potential for exponential growth and they'll give you many billions of dollars. (https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ai-startup...)