Android, in 2008, felt the need to launch and market a new version of Apple’s tightly knit open source. For many handset makers like Samsung, LG, HTC, and others struggling to compete with Apple’s iphone, Android came like a godsend: a free, flexible operating system that they could customize to suit their hardware. Google promised freedom and flexibility, with customizations and a free open source; it slowly became a carefully laid trap to which only Google could hold the keys to the real profit.
To get access to many critical apps like Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Play Store, handset makers had to sign many restrictive agreements with Google. These deals locked them within the Google ecosystem, leaving them with no space to differentiate between profits and sales.
This lead to dependency. Users expected that Google services would be out of the box, but without them, a phone somehow seemed incomplete. As a result, many hardware makers became little moe than middlemen,competing on razor thin margins while google raked in massive amounts of profits from ads, data collection and most importantly app store commissions.
The real trick came in when hadnset makers did all the hard work of building and selling these “android phones”, Google simply made billions by taking a cut from every app and in-app purchases made through their Play store. No matter which Android phone a user was buying, google controlled the payment gateway, making it impossible to defeat and win over. Unlike Apple, google did not even have to sell its hardware or build its phone; as long as it was andoird, google won!!
Even when Samsung, the world’s largest Android phone maker, has struggled to escape Google’s grip. Its attempts to build its own ecosystem—Bixby, Galaxy Store, Tizen OS—have largely fallen. Users expect Google’s apps, not alternatives. And despite Samsung’s hardware dominance, it still relies on Google’s software layer.
What we see here is that, the illusion of opennes was masked with a tightly controlled ecosytem,over time , google consolidated full power over android phones and today we see how much evident it is. Manufacturers were left with no choice but accpet it.The only real winner in the Android economy has been Google itself.
In the tech world, “free” often comes with hidden costs. Android’s open-source pitch was never just about community or freedom—it was a calculated move by Google to control the mobile world from the top layer down.