Which is a good thing if it results in more people getting quality services. gcc and Apache destroyed the market for commercial compilers and web servers; should they have been prohibited?
The difference here is that Apache didn't shove you a PlayStore, maps app and a browser in order to use their libraries. I want the products to "win" on merit not on reach. You also forget that Apache is open source which is not the case with Maps/youtube where your access can be denied at any time.
>> Which is a good thing if it results in more people getting quality services.
This gives no guarantee that Google won't start to charge its users for these services at some point in time. And there really won't be any competition as all the competitors have been killed by the "free" price.
Actually it seems they already set the price. You may argue that the end user doesn't pay for Playstore etc but we both know they pay...just like they paid for Windows. "Google said it would sell a license for a package including its Google Play...."
That's a completely independent complaint that has nothing to do with Android being available for free. You would have the same tying objection if Android cost money, right?
I think that densely populated areas and countries with public up to date cartography are easier to serve.
Might is an understatement. Google destroyed the market leading to Navteq and Tele Atlas being aquired by Nokia and TomTom.
There was Mapquest, and to my memory, Google came out of the starting gate with something close to feature parity with them.
This was also when traffic spiked to Google Maps and away from MapQuest / other competitors. And when you look at the data, the change in traffic is not due to users searching for "Google Maps" in the query more - but rather Google just linking to its own results more. [2]
It was when I knew the whole "Don't be evil" motto was bullshit.
[1] https://searchengineland.com/google-no-longer-linking-to-yah...
[2] https://searchengineland.com/comscore-to-report-google-maps-...