> It's hard to listen to arguments when everything is so hyperbolic.

The frog is slowly being boiled so that people start to accept things which would be unthinkable in the past. Whoever refuses to bend nowadays sounds hyperbolic or insane, but I'm just using the "absolute temperature" here, you know...

> Neither of these situations are related to any so-called spyware. The fact that Google is involved here had to do with the fact that they are a trusted party for folks to rely on to ensure the desired properties are being met, nothing more.

They're NOT fullfilling that purpose here - read the post, insecure devices with Google Mobile Spyware pass that, while GrapheneOS doesn't. Yes, Google is trusted to ensure these security/ratelimiting properties are met, but instead uses/abuses that trust to ensure their anticompetitive business goals are met. Google is not an independent attestation authority and should not be treated as such, what Google is doing here should be (and most likely already is) illegal.

> Alternatively, Google could trust Graphene and everyone who already trusts Google would inherit such trust.

While far from perfect, that would be better, since we'll then only rely on having their hardware (legitimate business) and not their adware/spyware preinstalled with elevated privileges (illegitimate business, illegal monopoly).