Ilia's Scrapbook

Re: Why I Hate Android or, Don’t Hate Android Hate the Carriers

parislemon:

Why do I hate Android? It’s definitely one of the questions I get asked most often these days. And most of those that don’t ask probably assume it’s because I’m an iPhone guy. People see negative take after negative take about the operating system and label me as “unreasonable” or “biased” or worse.

I should probably explain.

Believe it or not, I actually don’t hate Android. That is to say, I don’t hate the concept of Android — in fact, at one point, I loved it. What I hate is what Android has become. And more specifically, what Google has done with Android.

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It’s all the carriers fault really. The only thing Google is guilty of is being naive, and maybe not aggressive enough.

The Nexus One failed for two reasons, one being the carriers weren’t willing to support it because they can’t stand the idea of people buying hardware from someone else. Second reason was because people weren’t willing to pay its full price. Without carrier support of course there was no way Google could afford to sell the phone for $99 but there were those of us who have made a conscious decision that “carrier freedom” was more important to us than a cheap phone and did buy it. Personally, I do not regret that decision for a second.

In any case, with the failure of the Nexus One what was Google to do? If they were to try and push Android they had to make deals with carriers. It sucks and they should’ve seen it coming and possibly done more to prevent it but it is what it is.

So we come to the Verizon/Google deal over Net Neutrality. Here’s the situation, Google is trying to push it through but failing because even being Google it can’t compete with all the major carriers in the nation lobbying against it. So it’s got two choices - one, keep fighting, most likely fail, and no net neutrality for you!; or two, make a deal with the devil to get net neutrality in at least partially. They went with two. That’s how I see the situation - they elected to go for the lesser of two evils, in the hopes of correcting it in the future. Maybe I’m wrong and you’re right, maybe they did stab us in the back. Except that it doesn’t jive with Google’s past actions, with their policies and with the general culture and attitude I perceive from the company.

I fully admit that I may very well be giving them too much credit, but so far they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt as far as I’m concerned. And even if you don’t believe that, you cannot look at Android’s history and think that its failures, whatever they may be, are all Google’s fault. All roads lead to the carriers.