It's important to keep in mind that Android is completely subsidized by advertising revenue. Making money on mobile advertising is still troublesome enough in any market, but selling advertising targeted toward "a lot of poor people not able to afford a PC" is even less profitable. As someone who develops for the web and mobile web, I'm glad to see good browsers in the hands of more users, but it's important to keep in mind what makes that possible in the first place. If Android dominates in markets where no one can afford paid apps and no advertisers spend significant money, while Apple continues to hold a lock on the more lucrative demographics, Android could actually be in trouble overall.
> Android is completely subsidized by advertising revenue
This is why being open source is such a beautiful thing. Yes, Google could falter and stop developing Android, but the code they have put in Github lives forever. They could also turn completely evil and start misusing Android in exploitative or evil ways - but they can only do that to a certain extent before someone will pick up the baton, fork Android and replace them. The loss of the Google parts of the ecosystem would be huge, but you can see from the products that are on the market that are unblessed by Google that even without any Google involvement, Android is completely functional and useful OS.
In 3rd world countries like the Philippines, carriers are making gigantic profits off the backs of poor people.
But it's all about the money eh?
I see it more as a life-changing device. SMS was made a lot of difference in the lives of poor people. What more if your phone has a web browser?
Going back to your argument though. It doesn't matter if majority of Android users are poor people. As long as Google has enough eyeballs that would make ads worth it (e.g. in developed countries), it would be enough to support the costs of developing Android.
Google is a public company, with fiduciary duty to its shareholders. It is at least somewhat about the money. If Google can't make Android a profit center, there's nothing stopping Android from being relegated to FeedBurner status or going the way of Wave and Etherpad. I'm in no way whatsoever trying to pass judgement on the wrong or rightness of that, but I don't think it's arguable that Google must find a way to make Android a profitable endeavor for it to see continued active development and promotion.
The Android vs. iOS US/UK growth numbers lately have not been kind to Android and Android's greater number of devices still represent a lower amount of web traffic in North America (and on the decline lately). It's a very premature assumption to claim that Android will be lucrative enough in developed demographics to fund overall development. As long as Google is actually losing money on every Android device sold (due to the patent licensing), simply focusing on the number of devices sold is a very poor metric for the platform's long term success.
You realize that Asymco post is just speculation and the chart is based on that speculation, right? Those individual bars aren't based on any directly related facts or financials. He's very clear about that.
Considering Android's larger user base, measured usage numbers like those have almost all been abysmal. iOS even accounts for ~10% more web traffic than Android in North America and that gap has been widening lately. That's a serious problem that you shouldn't hand-wave away if you truly care about the future of Android.
Personally, I don't have a horse in this race. I think iOS, Android, and WP8 all have strengths. You seem to be angry at me for pointing out the flaws in focusing on raw Android activation numbers (many of which don't even have a data plan!). I don't understand why. It's not my fault that back-loading the profit is not viable for large swaths of the global mobile market, but I don't think that's a very controversial statement.
There's no need to be like that. I own multiple Android devices myself.
Just the fact that so many Android devices have been sold isn't very convincing. Lots of MySpace accounts were opened and lots of RIM devices were sold in years past too.
Android is free. If it doesn't drive revenue to Google through over avenues, it's not sustainable, and the only revenue stream Google excels at is advertising. Sure, there's Play, but a) Apple has stated that their 30% is just barely above break even; so even taking a cut of paid apps is probably not enough to sustain an entire platform and b) Android users overall are well known not to be very spendy when it comes to apps. If Android isn't a successful advertising vector for Google in the long run, I think you have to seriously question how secure its future will be.
I'm not sure how it's elitism to point out that the specific demographic you mentioned is not one that lends itself to Google's central business. Like I very specifically said, I personally think it's great as a developer who benefits from more WebKit browsers in the world. I also understand that Google isn't in this market to be philanthropic either.
Well, it's inaccurate to start with. The hair brained notion that people are only forced into Android, they don't choose it.
Also, you'd do well to read about why they were so passionate about Android, about putting money into it and having it be open source.
I literally don't know how to respond to this: If Android isn't a successful advertising vector for Google in the long run, I think you have to seriously question how secure its future will be.
Most because I just don't know where to even start. You seem to think that because Google is good at advertising, they have to put ads on Android or something for it to be a worthwhile cause to them?
A product activating a million units a day is going to shut down? Hell, they could lose money on Android and they'd fund it just to fight Apple.
I don't understand where you're getting that I said people are only forced into Android? Frankly, I don't understand why you seem so hostile in general, throwing out things like:
> Also, did you honestly think that Android just randomly shows ads or something?
> The hair brained notion that people are only forced into Android, they don't choose it.
To be clear, I develop primarily for the web so I'm not very invested in any of these platforms. You seem to think I'm anti-Android or pro-iOS (or whatever). Given the choice between Android or nothing, I wish people would buy Android devices and then actually use them to browse the web so that more of my users would be using WebKit! That doesn't seem to actually be happening though. The latest StatCounter numbers show Android's actual usage in North America at ~10% less and falling away from iOS slightly, even though there are so many Android devices.
The Wave team was passionate about Wave too. That's great, but passion (alone) doesn't pay the bills. I hate to be overly cynical, but Google's own track record speaks for itself quite clearly when it comes to products that don't contribute enough to the bottom line. Just off the top of my head, I can think of two popular Google services that I use daily which have stagnated due to lack of active development when Google decided they weren't worth focusing on.
Of course I don't think Android would be "shut down" overnight. What does that even mean? I do think that Android must remain important enough to Google that it's very actively developed and keeps pace with iOS and other mobile operating systems though. Otherwise, it would quickly fall by the wayside like Netscape, MySpace, or BlackBerry.
