📖 Read: https://keepandroidopen.org/

💘 Follow: @keepandroidopen

#Google #Android #enshittification #dystopia #software #monopoly #technology #idverification #privacy

To distribute an Android app outside Google Play, starting September 2026, developers will need to register with Google, submit government ID, and pay a $25 fee. Even if they're using F-Droid or the Amazon Appstore, stores Google doesn't own or operate. Privacy groups are pushing back.

https://reclaimthenet.org/open-letter-google-android-developer-verification-policy-criticism-2026

#Google #Android #enshittification #dystopia #software #monopoly #technology #idverification #privacy

⚠️

#TrumpVirus #media #Ellison #CNN #Paramount #CBS #disinformation #monopoly #propaganda #Netflix #Tiktok #Fascism #truth #Epstein

Alt...

A PSA/ Meme describing the potential purchase of Warner Bros./media (w/CNN) Image of an upside-down ("in distress") American Flag. Text: One family is about to control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok. They’ll buy Warner Brothers with $24 billion in money from the Saudis, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. To win over Trump, they canceled Colbert, blocked a segment on CECOT, and blocked a James Talarico interview. America now has state- compromised media. This is fascism. Support independent media. Block this rotten deal. / WOMEN FORWARD

My sentiments exactly

Monopolies need to be shattered

#RAM #DDR4 #DDR5 #LPDDR5 #LPDDR4 #China #technology #monopoly #disruption

@kkarhan

RAM CXMT

RAM factory emerged

• Location China
• Products
• DDR4
• DDR5
• LPDDR4
• LPDDR5

DDR5 RAM can be found for as little as USD138 (unverified source!)

https://www.cxmt.com/en/

#RAM #DDR4 #DDR5 #LPDDR5 #LPDDR4 #China #technology #monopoly #disruption

@botvolution nodds in agreement

And that is a huge problem!

• I know that.from experience with #Vodafone which against my protestations against it, was allowed to buy up #Unitymedia and has comitted itself to #Enshittification of my #Internet access to the point that I feel required to publicly petition @EUCommission & @BNetzA to regulate them as #Caboe #monopoly akin to #DTAG but also not only demand my money back until they unfuck their mess, but even consider procuring a different #Internet access (which as a tennant means worse xDSL at worse speeds and prices!)

@xaetacore lets be honest: #Steam being a #monopoly is not good, actually…

Remember when we believed #capitalism was about #competition because that is what they taught us in school when the truth was they key to sucess in capitalism is #monopoly.

The game inventors knew though and that is why they did not call their game about capitalism Competition.

#FollowTheMoney 🧵64/n The article made me think once again about Monopoly, and how perfectly it captures what the world is like. Originally called “the Landlord Game”, it was invented in 1903 by left-wing feminist Lizzie Magie who wanted to expose how rentier capitalism works through a game. She more than succeeded but - this being capitalist US - never got the credit for it. Interesting piece about it all here.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins

#privateequity #Assets #Monopoly

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Screenshot of top of article Годонон MONA МОНОРОС + OPOLY Monopoly • This article is more than 10 years old The secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game's leftwing origins In 1903, a leftwing feminist called Lizzy Magie patented the board game that we now know as Monopoly - but she never gets the credit. Now a new book aims to put that right

In the last week or so, #Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella announced that they were going to pull back from doing new feature work for #Windows for a bit, and focus on bug fixes and other quality-of-life improvements for users and administrators. Windows' already shaky reputation has taken a beating over the last year as it seems that every monthly rollup #patch, and many out-of-band #patches, introduce new problems at the same rate as they fix previous ones.

Is this giving you deja vu? It should. Remember a couple or three years ago, when the same guy announced that Microsoft was going to focus on security? They were in the middle of a long spell of brutal security holes found in all their products. Remember how they told their #engineers "If you have to choose between doing a feature and doing security, choose security"?

Remember how you never heard about that initiative again?

It's the same thing here. #PR garbage in service of a narrative that no, Windows' horrible security, usability, and #stability aren't actually that bad, so that MS can focus on their core competencies of buzzword promotion, stock market analyst manipulation, and monopoly abuse.

Perhaps someone in Microsoft management actually believes these refocusing efforts are genuine - but if you don't change the incentives, they won't actually take hold.

#PR #marketing #buzzword #MSWindows #SatyaNadella #security #WeveHeardOfIt #stability #crash #rollup #monopoly #MemoryHole

What's old is new again... Funny how all the parts of Ma Bell slowly but surely make their way back... 🤔

My account was was originally under Qwest, then CenturyLink, then Quantum Fiber, now Quantum Fiber from AT&T.

#ATT #QuantumFiber #Telephony #Monopoly

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A screenshot of an email from Quantum Fiber (now with a From AT&T tag under the logo) Same great service and new possibilities Hi Liam, Quantum Fiver is now part of the AT&T family. For you, this means the same reliable connection you've come to expect and enjoy with the potential for much more. That's the combined power of AT&T and Quantum Fiber.

@marcoxa @thedarktangent @pluralistic Pretty much, but now the broligarchs are trying to force it on everyone. They really don't like taking "no" for an answer.

Indeed, that one thing—categorical unwillingness to respect others' refusal of consent—is the defining characteristic in common to every one of them. Despite how some viewers understandably took offence, Louis Rossmann characterized the you'll-own-nothing CEOs' mentality exactly correctly.

No wonder they bought the US government for the rapist-in-chief.

#technofeudalism #rightToRepair #rightToOwn #monopoly #enshittification

If we're being honest this should probably be the biggest news story today. We already knew all the terrible things the media is focusing on today, but this could be a game-changer.

#LegalNews #TechnologyNews #Internet #Google #Alphabet #TheAtlantic #CorruptBusinessPractices #Lawsuit #News #Anticompetitive #Monopoly #CompetitiveAdvantage #Fraud #Misrepresentation #UnfairCompetition

https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/business/the-atlantic-google-alphabet-lawsuit

#menschärgeredichnicht
#monopoly
#risiko
#gameofthrones

@dotmeow @da5nsy granted, #OpenNIC does also resolve the #ICANN #rootzone, and in fact they actually went out of their way to cancel a comflicthig #TLD in their rootzone...

• The problem is the concentration at ICANN and the ones that tried to fight that #monopoly legally - #NameDotSpace - seem to have gone bankrupt on that endeavour...

Obviously you'd not do a #Kickstarter campaign and try to raise $$$$$$$ in funds if you didn't want to get included in ICANNs rootzone, which paywall the hell out of gTLD applications...

I've been thinking about this for some years. As others have noted, the problem is that the market is accustomed to browsers being "free", ever since #Microsoft illegally leveraged their OS #monopoly to destroy #Netscape by driving their income to (essentially) zero.

I started thinking about it in terms of how I support various creators for small amounts with monthly #subscriptions. Could you fund reasonable #maintenance and #development of #Firefox purely based on low-cost subs from users? Bigger donations from companies or billionaires would be welcome, but it would need to be sustainable on its own first.

Development wouldn't have to be as expensive as what #Mozilla does (which is mostly counter-productive anyway...).

There are still millions of people - more than a hundred million, apparently - who use Firefox, and many of those are more knowledgeable about and involved with open-source #software. They're more likely to appreciate that funding development is the key to keeping Firefox relevant, and keeping the "AI" / #LLM / #advertising / #surveillance out of the #browser.

Some people are starting to pay a few bucks a month just for a search engine subscription. Why not pay for your browser? For many people, it's the software they use more than everything else put together. For some people, it's the only software they ever use.

I'd pay $2 a month to support my browser, if it kept it safe from <handwave> all that </handwave>.

2/x

"A secret algorithm helped meat giants allegedly collude to raise your prices and slash workers’ wages. According to multiple lawsuits,🚨Agri Stats let major meat processors coordinate pricing and wage decisions behind closed doors.

The stakes:🚨$billions in food costs, stagnant worker pay, and an industry operating like a cartel."
#Antitrust #Monopoly #Oligarchs #AnarchoCapitalism #WorkersRights #USPol
https://www.levernews.com/the-secret-algorithm-behind-your-20-burger/

What happens if Netflix are allowed to buy Warner Bros.

#netflix #monopoly #arts #cinema #WarnerBros #HBO

@robcinos

There were two sets of rules for Monopoly.

One for capitalism
One of socialism

Once Parker Bros(?) bought the game, they only kept the capitalism, which was meant to illustrate how bad it is when only one player cleans up.

#monopoly

Anyway, check your Google Drive, if you use that: go to drive, then click the gear. Choose Settings -> Manage Apps, and make sure "Use by default" is checked OFF for everything you don't like, especially Gemini (Google's AI that they're pushing on everyone). This was added and turned on by default for most people, it seems. It also looks like Google is training their AI on every document you open; people report very slow load times when this setting is on, remedied by turning it off.

#Google #Gemini #DarkPattern #monopoly #AI #GenAI #tying #antitrust #DefaultToOptOut

Here's an except from a post on Matt Stoller's BIG newsletter, which is very good on the subject of antitrust:

The last meaningful reference point for an antitrust remedy is the Microsoft case. In that one, the break-up was overturned, and a weak interoperability mandate was imposed. But the real penalty to Microsoft was embarrassment and fear within the executive suite; no longer would the company crush its rivals, from then on, lawyers would cautiously oversee product design. That’s not ideal, Microsoft should have just been broken up and set free to compete. But a chastened leadership did have the effect of not killing the next generation of companies, who ended up creating Web 2.0. That’s deterrence, which is one goal of antitrust remedies.

This remedy, by contrast, is obviously going to fail. And the main reason is that, unlike Microsoft, Google’s leadership is utterly unchastened. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and chief legal officer Kent Walker will get bonuses for what they did. They see this conflict as one in which they fought bitterly, and kept at it, and shredded documents, and the result was… victory. They will have no compunction continuing to engage in unlawful behavior. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? Would a rival or the government really go before a weak judge who doesn’t want conflict, and convince him to act? I don’t think so. In other words, this decision isn’t just bad, it’s virtually a statement that crime pays.

Stoller recently wrote a post titled "Why Is Google Still in One Piece? The Terminating a Monopoly Problem" with the subtitle: "Google has lost three separate antitrust cases, and more are on the way. Why does this company still exist in one piece? It shouldn't, but we're still dealing with the hangover of the 1990s."

The problems with the tech sector go all the way to the tippy top.

#Google #monopoly #IllegalMonopoly #antitrust #dev #tech #Gemini #android #Chrome

It looks likely that Google will be treated the way Microsoft was in their famous antitrust loss in the late 1990s, and not be broken up in any significant way. Google absolutely should be broken up, just like AT&T and Standard Oil (and countless other large US monopolists) were before it. Google's wealth and power derives from illegal behavior; this is not in question anymore. Why should they be permitted to keep what courts have decided they stole? 100 years of antitrust law and precedent says that it should not be permitted to keep the spoils of its illegal behavior.

It sounds to me like the hesitation to break up Google is largely ideological on the part of the judges and lawyers involved. The failure to break up Microsoft after its antitrust loss is arguably one of the main reasons the US economy is such a monopolized, consolidated mess today, and why so many things are "enshittifying". Breaking up Google and changing that pattern would obviously not cure all ills, but it'd almost surely make a number of things in the economy better for a whole lot of people.

In any case, one thing we can all do is look at Google as a bad actor, a law-breaking entity whose power is illegitimate.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-is-google-still-in-one-piece

#Google #Microsoft #antitrust #monopoly #USEconomy #neoliberalism

A federal judge ruled that Google violated US antitrust law by maintaining a monopoly in the search and advertising markets.

It's been a long time coming.

#google #monopoly #antitrust #DOJ

Google is now a bona fide illegal monopolist

Always worth remembering this, as another (the bigger) antitrust case against Google is in closing arguments today.

Google is trying to get its Gemini AI into Apple's next iPhone update. This industry seems to think it's above the law and even above what consumers want from them. It's long past time these giant companies be broken up.

#Google #Is #An #Illegal #Monopoly #iPhone #Apple #FTC