A platform is only as good as the applications that are available for it, and we live in a world where some of the best applications are made by one company named Google.

For many users, the everyday experience of using the Internet surrounds watching videos on YouTube, finding their way with Google Maps, and communicating using Gmail.

Google's mission statement, of course, is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"... however, that is an abridgment: the full version continues in a whisper with "(except on Windows Phone)".

What follows are a selection of stories of Google's process of systematically isolating Windows Phone, each backed up with articles of the time (though it is of course trivial to find references: even mainstream media started to realize that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and started questioning the underlying motives).

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Microsoft was forced to write their own YouTube application, which did not show ads and so was blocked by Google. I will note that Apple also effectively did this, though working with Google (a key difference), so this isn't crazy on the face of it: the original iPhone came with a copy of YouTube written by Apple that did not play any advertisements.

https://www.windowscentral.com/google-microsoft-remove-youtu...

In the aftermath of this debacle, they wrote a new one, working along with Google this time (as far as I understand), that did show advertisements and was designed to satisfy Google's other demands... but Google seriously waited until it was not just completed but fully released and then went ahead and blocked it anyway.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2013/08/16/google-blo...

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Recently, Google decided that users of Gmail would not be able to access their email using Outlook on Windows Phone... even though it isn't like Microsoft is bad at email of all things.

https://mspoweruser.com/google-appears-blocking-windows-10-m...

However, this isn't the first time that Google messed with Windows Phone on email: when they removed the Exchange ActiveSync protocol, it was seen by many as a direct attack on Windows Phone.

https://www.theverge.com/2012/12/14/3768274/google-gmail-act...

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And who could forget the saga of Google Maps, which was blocked by Google on Windows Phone, even though it was accessible on other phones which used the exact same web browser engine, and even though the renderer was shared by the desktop version of IE.

http://gizmodo.com/5973295/google-maps-has-never-been-access...

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-admits-it-was-blocking...

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At one point Google's AdMob started to see a massive drop in revenue... only on Windows Phone. This was later claimed to be a "bug", but of course took Google a long time to come up with a fix, undercutting developer revenue on the platform.

http://www.businessinsider.com/developers-see-drop-in-window...

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Of course, Google refused to bring any other software to the platform, such as for Google Voice; and while you used to be able to use this from the web, once Apple relented and allowed Google Voice in the App Store, Google mostly stopped bothering maintaining their web version.

https://www.cnet.com/news/lack-of-google-voice-app-for-windo...

This wouldn't be so bad, but Google also tends to throw its weight around to get third-party clients for their products pulled from places like the App Store... now, I personally think they have no legal basis to do this, but Apple goes along with it (as Gooogle does support their platform ;P) and it creates a chilling effect on people writing their own clients elsewhere.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1141939/googlevoice_apps.htm...

Regardless, someone did write a third-party Google Voice app for Windows Phone, and Microsoft (who had even been frantically writing their own third-party apps) let it stay around. So, Google had to change their terms of service and figure out how to block it on their server, as again: their unabridged mission statement clearly reads "(except on Windows Phone)".

https://www.neowin.net/news/metrotalk-third-party-google-voi...