Google used to be really hands off with chrome and android but that stopped some time ago. Now both of them have captured markets and google is slowly making both worse for users and privacy. Saying this after having worked on and loved both products and teams.
If Google doesn’t do this, people will move towards Apple as someone stated.
Plus, Google is evil! They themselves are adopting the subscription based model now over ads
My understanding is that the greedy advertisers, Rupert Murdoch empire, and WPP have been steadily forcing Google to share even more information about Google properties and used on Google properties for at least a few years now.
Google needs subscribers so it can go to these unscrupulous actors and show then the middle finger.
It is very interesting to see Google reaction to being forced to share even more information with advertisers. I am completely with Google. Why should advertisers on Google properties know more about Google business than Google knows itself?
Now the question for everyone else is: why should Google (or Facebook) know more about your business than you know yourself? I actively discourage against using Facebook JavaScript SDK in any web project I’m involved in because most of the time all small companies really need is a sharer.php link. It is mind boggling how little people think about “let’s use their SDK”.
+1. Plus, I'd assume the people who care about online privacy enough to let that influence what phone to buy are already using iPhones. Better "privacy" has been touted by Apple for a while.
Google used to be really hands off with chrome and android but that stopped some time ago. Now both of them have captured markets and google is slowly making both worse for users and privacy. Saying this after having worked on and loved both products and teams.