> Google has captured what really is a public utility and should be either state-owned or heavily regulated.

I think part of what makes a utility a utility is that the nature of the service is naturally a monopoly. For example, you can only realistically have one set of waterways, so the company providing tap water as a service is a utility. Same with power lines, you can only realistically have one set, so the electricity-supplying company is a utility. With phone/internet service, I imagine that also requires sharing infrastructure.

Google doesn't fit in that paradigm. The nature of their services don't naturally require sharing resources to compete. They a monopoly simply because they amassed a ton a money to do things that other people can't, like drive on all roads on Earth with special cameras, or host however many videos there are on YouTube, serving those videos throughout the world, and even pay livable wages to the creators of the videos.

it doesnt need to be a utility. they just need to crack down on every attempt google uses to kill the competition.

There should be an agency you can complain to for monopolies which has the power to dictate new rules to the monopolist with far reaching power to crack down on anything that smells like anti competitive behavior.

e.g.

- force banking apps that try to secure themselves with google play services to make that dependency optional.

- force google to stop blocking newpipe, aurora, etc.

- force google pay to make itself available on any platform that wants to integrate it (apple, graphene)

- force google to allow alternative app stores to become first class citizens.

While I agree with where you're coming from, I think you're overstating it just a little. It only seems like something that should be considered a public utility because Google has anticompetitively bundled what should be several distinct types of products together as one take-it-or-leave-it package. Android (really Google Play Services) should not be tied to the Play Store App (think how MS was forced to include a browser choice screen in the EU). Likewise the Play Store Curation/Hosting Service should not be tied to the Play Store App (ie Aurora store etc should work and be fully supported by Play Store Curation/Hosting Service through the Service having a well-documented open API). Then Play Store Curation/Hosting Service would have to compete on its own merits, rather than anticompetitive tying with two instances of Metcalfe's law (Android users plus app developers).

Nothing has been captured, any more than a company inventing anything has "captured" it.

And there are other companies: Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Tencent MyApp, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor, K Telecom T-Store, Jio, MTN Play.

Not even close to a captured utility. And if it were, which state on the planet should own it?

The real problem here is that all those businesses are rounding errors on the balance sheet compared to ads, so the CEO doesn't care (or even know) about the issues and isn't motivated to improve anything.

They can treat their customers like livestock because their customers are okay with it. Why is that?

My hypothesis: turkeys think the farm is an amazing life until the week before Thanksgiving. Nobody really groks that Google is shit until it's too late.

> Except we read here stories of ad customers - their main buisness - here indicating they don't give a shit about them either.

> They are just so big, they can afford not giving a shit at all.

You have to realise your idea that people use them for no reason is not very likely, don't you?