> they think the audience is now fully captive.
the audience is captive. Do you have a choice to move from android, if you didnt want to have an apple device? Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don't compete)?
Google behave in ways that they think makes them more profit. When users cannot migrate (nor even threaten to), then it simply means they can do this.
Why are saying that Firefox or even Chrome reskin can't compete with Chrome? I haven't been using Chrome for maybe 10 years or more, so I'm genuinely interested. Even if you hate Firefox, something like Brave is felt the same way but without google's garbage. I heard there are new guys in town like Helium and other Chromium based browser which choose to remove telemetry, support manifest v2, adblocks and so on.
The browsing experience without constant upselling some trash and proper adblockers are magnitudes better.
> Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don't compete)?
Can I run an ad blocker in Android's Chrome? I can in Firefox
> Do you have a choice to move from android, if you didnt want to have an apple device?
Not wanting and not having a choice are two different things.
> Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own)
My wife uses ddg and outlook, she's non-technical. I convinced her to use ddg but she's always used outlook/hotmail.
the move don't have to be permanent, there are alternatives and as we increase our usage and give active feedback and commit to invest even little money in them, they will improve too. I've seen this pattern a thousand times the monopoly gets worst and worst until a revolutionary new tech will rise it applies to social concepts, business sectors, companies, mother-in-laws, etc.
>Do you want to use a different search engine other than google?
Yes, type yahoo.com into your browser, or install an app. Non-technical people love installing apps on their phones.
>Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own).
Yes, there are hundreds of good e-mail providers to use instead of Gmail. Easy for the non-technical person to use.
> Do you want to use a different search engine other than google?
I've been on Kimi now for 3 months. I rarely used Google in that time. Kimi is largely free though sometimes when I run of the free quota I fallback to DeepSeek/Perplexity. I have no idea where they are getting their index from though.
> Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own).
There is microsoft/apple/yahoo mailboxes. However, I think most people should pay for their email especially that it's cheap and also critical (2FA).
> Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don't compete)?
Firefox is a solid fallback and also webkit (Apple) is now basically a different browser (ported to Linux on GNOME Web). Not the best situation though it could be worse (given Firefox situation).
For me personally, the only two things I still use Google for are chromium and maps. I am unlikely to move from Chromium anytime soon but might consider alternative for maps (though might still need maps for reviews/photos/street view).
I am the most bullish I've ever been on Google losing its monopoly especially after they botched AI and hyper-scaling.
Once an alternative to one of their things, like immich, becomes viable, people run as fast as they can.
The strategy of doing everything you can to make sure your customers truly and utterly despise you and want to spit in your face is probably not productive.
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I'd agree if you picked Google Docs or something like that, but Gmail? Chrome?? Come on! Edge is just Chrome with extra features, plenty of people use Bing without even noticing and many even non-techy people are fine with DuckDuckGo, good free email providers are everywhere (yahoo, hotmail, proton...).