How Google Closed the Open Web It Once Symbolized

Google was once a potent symbol of an open web. Its success was based on a simple ideal: to make all the world’s information accessible to everyone.

Almost three decades later, its founding motto, “Don’t be evil”, rings hollow. The company that defended openness is now interested solely in protecting its control rather than the ecosystem that made it great.

The new developer verification policy, which forces Android app creators, even outside the Play Store, to register and reveal their identity, marks another step towards a closed ecosystem. Google argues that the measure seeks to protect users from malware and fraud, but in practice it is a profound restriction on the right to develop and distribute software without intermediaries. What’s more, it’s in exchange for something that does not improve the situation, because any malicious developer can register as many times as they want.

The move has generated a coordinated reaction. “Keep Android Open”, supported by developers, users and digital activist organizations, warns that mandatory verification is the first step towards the total closure of the system: one more layer of bureaucracy and surveillance that marginalizes independent creators and consolidates Google’s power. Basically, what is being touted as a security improvement is actually a control strategy.

The problem isn’t that Google wants to make its platform more secure, but the way it redefines security as synonymous with authority. Open ecosystems always carry some risks, but closing it in the name of security is tantamount to giving up freedom. Android, which was born as an open alternative to Apple’s closed ecosystem, is repeating the same pattern. The difference is that Apple never pretended to be anything else: Google did.

As Cory Doctorow explains in his highly recommended “Enshittification”, the cycle is always the same: platforms start by optimizing for the user, then for their business partners, and finally for themselves. The evolution of Android is a perfect example of that pattern: where once there was freedom to install applications, there are now layers of permissions, verifications and blocks. Where Google used to boast of “not being evil”, today it acts with the logic of any mature monopoly: maximize control, minimize autonomy.

Defending an open ecosystem is difficult: it implies accepting that some actors will act in bad faith, that there will be mistakes or even abuses. But without that openness there is no genuine innovation: only fenced gardens. The history of technology shows that closed environments produce rent, not progress. Instead of strengthening the developer community, promoting a culture of cybersecurity among users and seeking transparency, Google seems more interested in recovering the value that it previously allowed to be freely distributed.

The risk is obvious: if Android ceases to be an open space, its appeal will diminish. Users will lose choice, developers will lose freedom, and the entire ecosystem will become dependent on the decisions of a single company. Turning Android into a replica of iOS may be profitable in the short term, but in the medium to long term it is simply suicidal.

Openness was the essence of the internet and the engine of digital innovation. If Google decides to abandon it to protect its advertising empire and market share, it will have betrayed not only its own slogan, but the original promise of the network: an environment where anyone could create, share and learn without having to ask permission.

We still have time to demand the opposite. Keeping Android open is not a lost cause, it is the defense of a fundamental basic principle: that technology should serve people, not lock them in a glass ecosystem. The difficult thing is not to build an open system: the difficult thing is to be willing to continue working to keep it that way even if it means giving up certain things for it.

UPDATE (11/14/2025): Google modifies this initiative and offers a few more degrees of freedom, alleging it was just “asking for feedback”. Sometimes, pressure works…

(En español, aquí)

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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