By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/06/2026When the company started to index the web in 1998, it was playing on an open field, where any web server could talk to any "user agent," even one whose user was a startup like Google, that was making a copy of every page on the server. 17/ 2131
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/06/2026For years, Google thrived on the open web, and built open technologies. Android - the mobile operating system that Google bought in 2005 - was presented as an "open" alternative to existing mobile offerings. 18/ 191
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/06/2026As the mobile market collapsed into two companies - Google and Apple - Google always presented Android as the open alternative to Apple's "walled garden." 19/ 180
