Casa Robino

I recently stumbled across this article about Google's business model for Maps and Android. To sum things up, according to the article Google drives competition out of business by actually paying ad splits to OEMs which install Android on their plastic gadgets (or cars).
While I can't wait to hack up a N900, changed my direction links to Openstreetmap a while ago and see business disruption as a rational strategy in many ways, there is a different point that I found interesting: the control over central infrastructure. There is this huge discussion in about admins having too much power on the German Wikipedia and deleting most new articles due to some obscure relevance criteria. Nowadays I mostly go to the English Wikipedia if I want an introduction into a topic that is controversial or not totally mainstream. Anyway, Google and Wikipedia are somewhat equally important and both have become a monopoly that is hard to avoid.
Independence is a key value to a lot of us, yet people give away things that are important to them to companies because it's "free", has a "superior usability", is "not evil" or fruit-themed ;)
I'm not pointing any fingers here, typing on hardware made by the company that made holocaust logistics possible. But just as footage showing police violence magically vanishes from Youtube, one day directions to autonomous places could be as unavailable as the Ukraine or most addresses in Istanbul. Just imagine google being targeted by climate activists one day. Yeah, that can't happen, it'd be too hypocrite :> But still... another world is possible, take back your life!