this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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Not at all, there are a lot of third party spots stores for Android and getting them working isn't that difficult.
Apple allows nothing but their store, peroid.
Seems like we're focused on the wrong app store here.
Oh, ok, let me explain.
When Android was still young there were actually more app stores, for example one from Amazon. Since Google owns a lot of services and apps that people like to use on a phone (maps, email, browser, search) phone manufactures wanted to sell phones with official Android licensed by Google. So what Google did was to offer discount on Android license to manufacturers that would preinstall only Play store on their phones. Most manufactures went with it and soon all phones had only Play store preinstalled. Since no other store was popular app developers would only publish apps in Play store thus ensuring that no other store would gain popularity among normal users.
Today, when Android is the only competition for iOS Google only licenses Android to companies that don't offer un-googled phones. So if company wants to sell Android phone with Google Maps, Gmail and google search they can't also offer Lineage OS versions.
This is definition of monopoly. Google used money to kill off competing stores and now is using their dominant position to not let anyone else on the market.