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How Proprietary Software Lets Companies Cheat (locusmag.com)
"Proprietary software makes it possible to design products to cheat ordinary users..." writes Richard Stallman -- linking to a new essay by Cory Doctorow:
Carriers adapted custom versions of Android to lock customers to their networks with shovelware apps that couldn't be removed from the home-screen and app store lock-in that forced customers to buy apps through their phone company. What began with printers and spread to phones is coming to everything: this kind of technology has proliferated to smart thermostats (no apps that let you turn your AC cooler when the power company dials it up a couple degrees), tractors (no buying your parts from third-party companies), cars (no taking your GM to an independent mechanic), and many categories besides.
All these forms of cheating treat the owner of the device as an enemy of the company that made or sold it, to be thwarted, tricked, or forced into conducting their affairs in the best interest of the company's shareholders. To do this, they run programs and processes that attempt to hide themselves and their nature from their owners, and proxies for their owners (like reviewers and researchers). Increasingly, cheating devices behave differently depending on who is looking at them. When they believe themselves to be under close scrutiny, their behavior reverts to a more respectable, less egregious standard. This is a shocking and ghastly turn of affairs, one that takes us back to the dark ages.
All these forms of cheating treat the owner of the device as an enemy of the company that made or sold it, to be thwarted, tricked, or forced into conducting their affairs in the best interest of the company's shareholders. To do this, they run programs and processes that attempt to hide themselves and their nature from their owners, and proxies for their owners (like reviewers and researchers). Increasingly, cheating devices behave differently depending on who is looking at them. When they believe themselves to be under close scrutiny, their behavior reverts to a more respectable, less egregious standard. This is a shocking and ghastly turn of affairs, one that takes us back to the dark ages.
It's not just Android. Even with PC's and Windows, many pieces of hardware now require a "cloud account". These included security web cameras with internet connection. In order to use the PC and Android application, you need a cloud account. Even to control the camera from a Smartphone. These days virtual machine applications require internet access to "keep up to date".
I bought a telephone handset for my mobile ... and of course it requires cloud services because it needs voice recognition in order to activate smartphone applications. It's getting ridiculous.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The phone manufacturer or carrier got paid to include those apps on your phone. So in a way you're benefiting from it via a lower phone price, though it can be hard to tell with how quickly they depreciate.
To get rid of it, you gotta root the phone. To get rid of the Google apps (which are linked to the Google Play Store), you have to root the phone and install a vanilla version of Android compiled straight from Google's open source, and don't install the Google Apps bundle. As you probably guessed though, this means you give up access to the Google Play Store and any apps which you may have purchased through it.
My suggestion would be to make a law where the manufacturer or reseller (carrier) must provide warranty service for as long as software not essential to the device's operation remains on it. So if they want to get paid to put Facebook on the phone and make it impossible to delete forever, then they need to provide warranty service for the phone forever. Basically if they want to behave as if they still partially own the phone, then they need to continue to provide warranty service for it.