> generally people are happy with those two options.
There isn't enough market surface area left to compete for. Anyone trying will spend tens of billions of dollars and still lose.
This has cemented Apple and Google as the eternal victors of mobile. There is no hope in competing. If Facebook and Microsoft gave up, all hope is lost.
Unfortunately, since there hasn't been any regulation against this anti-competitive duopolization, Apple and Google are complete assholes to everyone on "their" platform. It's one of the least free, most extractive markets in the world. And it touches everything and everyone. You cannot avoid it.
The only hope is regulation. Governments telling Apple and Google "no more app store, no more payment rails, no more defaults". That'll bring balance back to the universe.
Meh, it’s not that I totally disagree with you, I just don’t think it’s that big of a deal. And I say that as both a consumer and a mobile engineer.
Lots of market categories are duopolies. Even monopolies sometimes. Somehow the world keeps turning. Apple and Google won’t be the largest and most powerful companies forever, just like the companies that came before them.
There isn't enough market surface area left to compete for. Anyone trying will spend tens of billions of dollars and still lose.
This has cemented Apple and Google as the eternal victors of mobile. There is no hope in competing. If Facebook and Microsoft gave up, all hope is lost.
Unfortunately, since there hasn't been any regulation against this anti-competitive duopolization, Apple and Google are complete assholes to everyone on "their" platform. It's one of the least free, most extractive markets in the world. And it touches everything and everyone. You cannot avoid it.
The only hope is regulation. Governments telling Apple and Google "no more app store, no more payment rails, no more defaults". That'll bring balance back to the universe.