Google Play permitting alternative billing systems for users in South Korea
Remember, people: the real lock-in with Android is not the Google Play. It is the push notification services that are bundled with it.<p>The Android OS is intentionally crippled to work only with Google Play push notifications, and there are no &#x27;stock&#x27; ways to use an alternative without modifying the OS. The best alternative is to do it via persistently running app, which is less reliable and bad for UX.<p>This notifications problem also applies to iOS: even if users will be eventually allowed to install apps bypassing the AppStore, these apps would just sit idly until opened by a user, which is unacceptable for a very wide range of communication apps.<p>However, there is a difference with Android: iOS was crippled from the start, but first iterations of Android were relatively open, apps could run in the background without much issues. But then Google started tightening the grip, so Android now closely resembles iOS in this regard.