alt Hacker NewsPeople use alternatives for many different reasons (or multiple at the same time):
- They might want privacy from Google. Using Google Pay probably doesn't make much sense.
- Security protection against Google. Google can remotely brick devices with unsandboxed Play Services. After blocking of ICC officials and all the Greenland threats, it's not odd that some European citizens would like to block this Google/US government attack vector.
- They want a clean phone without all kinds of crap like Gemini preinstalled.
- They want to reduce dependence on big tech/Google product in general.
In cases 2-4, using Google Pay with sandboxed Google Play services may be an acceptable compromise for convenience.
Replies
Is this an AI response? I get why people want a de-googled phone. What I don't get is why they would want to use tap to pay, one of the payment methods with increased attack vectors.
Minor note, you forgot battery life. Pinging your location every other minute for traffic and crowd denisty for Google Maps, even using AGPS, isn't cheap.
When you find battery life randomly tanks for a few days, despite not changing anything in your life, it's always Google Play Services that end up being the culprit