I used to believe Android was the poster child of open source. "It's Linux-based, it's free, it's open, right?" That's what I told myself when I first tried building a custom ROM in college. I pulled down the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) expecting the full Android experience.
What I got instead was a half-baked shell. No Play Store. No Gmail. No Maps. Just a plain OS that felt more like a demo than the "world's most popular open source project."
That moment taught me something important: Android might be open source on paper, but in practice? It's a tightly controlled Google product.
Android's Open Source Theater
Sure, AOSP looks impressive on the surface. You can clone the repo, build it, flash it, and boom—you've got Android. That's leagues better than iOS, which is locked down from top to bottom.
But here's what nobody tells you: the Android you download from AOSP isn't the Android anyone actually uses.
The version running on your phone comes loaded with Google Mobile Services (GMS). That means the Play Store, Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, and all those APIs that third party apps depend on. None of that stuff is in AOSP. It's all closed, proprietary, and locked behind Google's licensing agreements.
This is where most developers hit the wall. You think Android is yours to hack and remix, but the second you need real features like push notifications, location services, app distribution you slam into Google's paywall.
Google's Real Power Play
Here's how the game actually works: if Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, or any phone maker wants to ship devices with the Play Store, they have to sign Google's licensing deal. And that deal isn't just "here, use our store." It comes with requirements: preload Google apps, make Google Search the default, bundle Chrome. That's how Google keeps its ecosystem dominant while keeping the base code "open."
Companies that don't play ball get crushed. Look at Huawei. Google banned them from using Google services in 2019, and their phones became basically unsellable outside China overnight. They scrambled to build HarmonyOS and their own app store, but let's be real, it's not the same experience.
Amazon tried the same thing with FireOS. It's built on AOSP, but without Google services it feels like you're using a completely different operating system. Amazon spent years building their own Appstore, maps, and notification systems, and it still doesn't compare.
Even enthusiasts feel the pain. Custom ROMs like LineageOS are incredible community projects, but ask anyone running them: life without Google Play Services sucks. Apps crash, APIs break, the whole experience falls apart. As a developer, you can see how much of "Android" actually runs on Google's proprietary code.
You can fork Android, technically. But unless you've got billions to rebuild Google's entire ecosystem, you're shipping broken software.
The Bigger Game Here
For me, this whole "Android is open source" thing isn't really about phones. It's about how companies weaponize openness. Open source doesn't equal freedom—it equals adoption. Google open-sourced AOSP so hardware makers everywhere could build cheap devices and flood the market. That's why Android dominates globally. But the real lock-in happens in that closed layer of services on top.
This pattern shows up everywhere. Chromium is open source, but Google Chrome with sync, DRM, and integrations is what people actually use. Elasticsearch was open until AWS built a competing service, forcing Elastic to change their license. MongoDB did the same thing. Open source gets the party started, but the money and control live in the proprietary add-ons.
When I flashed AOSP on my old phone and stared at that barebones homescreen, it finally clicked. Android without Google isn't Android. It's a skeleton. AOSP still has value (it powers forks, research projects, IoT devices), but it shows how "open" can be more marketing than reality.
If you care about open source, here's the real lesson: don't confuse open code with open ecosystems. The code might be free, but power belongs to whoever controls the services, distribution, and defaults. In Android's case, that's Google, and they've played this game better than almost anyone.