Originally Posted by
DonHB Proprietary APIs and Amazon offers no device as sticky as a phone. And it isn't all that different from Google in terms of business model.
Thing is... do the majority of developer and user want something different from what Google offers.
I know a LOT of people are very loud about wanting something else... but in the end, do they really? And are they willing to pay more for it? Are they willing to give up some things to have it?
And the real trick as we have seen and learned.... is how do you get both groups, consumers and developer to take the risk together?
BlackBerry's BB10 platform failed
Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile platform failed
Samsung's Tizen platform for phones failed
Mozilla's Firefox OS failed (has rerisen under new ownership as KaiOS.... .13% marketshare with mostly $100 and under phones )
Jolla's Sailfish platform is dead in the water... not even sure the Russians are really going to use it.
Amazon's Kindle platform... only exist on mostly $50 tablets that they subsidies.
Harmony OS platform might be the exception.... with State backing and billions poured into it. But even that isn't assured.
What you want is something like GrapheneOS, Lineage OS or Replicant..... no need for OM to make their own.
But in the end the big developers use GPS for a reason, and they aren't going to go chasing a few thousand users on some forked Android OS or on some Linux distribution.