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@BenRichards I don't have an account there so I'm not going to vote in either direction, but my takeaway from that is that it sucks - hard - to be a Windows Phone user, which is unfortunate for those users that corporate politics gets in the way, but I think Microsoft and Google are, even in the present day, equally guilty of "being evil" (anti-consumer in favor of profit motive ideology).
To try and hold Microsoft blameless while lambasting Google is to ignore the decades of bad practices Microsoft has done, plus the Windows 10 "recommended updates", "telemetry" gathering enabled by default and still collecting even if you fully opt-out using the UI, etc.
They're large corporations. Corporations aren't people. Their executives exist solely to figure out what they have to do to get a bigger paycheck/bonus next year. If that means exploiting users and locking out their competitors, they're going to do it, even if it's in a very legal gray area.
As a consumer, you're in a school of fish and there are whales and sharks all around just eager to nom you up. If you don't want to get eaten by the big fish, your only option is to go live in a pond somewhere. If you're in the ocean, you're going to lose. Period.
And that means "pro-Google", "pro-Microsoft" or "pro-Apple" (or Amazon, or Adobe, or any of the other big players in the space) consumers are basically saying, "I prefer to be eaten by that particular shark over there! :D"
For me, though, if I'm going to lose, I'd rather lose in a way that isn't constantly vexing from day to day, with Android's endless slew of bugs, bloatware, UI lag and annoyances, or WP's perennial unavailability of apps, slow updates, and being given the shaft by Google plus many other big players. At least with iOS, I'm "only" losing by grossly over-paying for my hardware and probably getting my data scooped up by the NSA, plus having to go through contortions to install unsanctioned apps.
And those 3 problems aren't really a problem outside of a few specific times: when I bought the phone, the $1k I paid was painful; if I ever do something that the government deems worth arresting me for in the future, having my phone used as evidence against me will hurt a lot; and I've only needed to install an unsanctioned app once, and I did it by compiling it using Xcode and pushing it.
Ouch one-off, possible (but not guaranteed) future mega-ouch, and once-in-a-blue-moon minor ouch... but nothing that's irritating from day to day. I can live with that. Plus, the twice-monthly (approx.) security updates to keep malicious actors other than the Five Eyes from stealing my data/identity, and I'm sitting pretty.
