That is why there is this thing called legal agreements.

If Google actually cared, they would impose support requirements on OEMs that wanted to play on Android playground.

but ... did Google really have that much leverage in those relationships, at least, early on?

how authoritarian could Google be about forcing this on, say, Samsung?

and if they granted Samsung an exception, what would the reaction be from other manufacturers?

As much as they would be willing to go.

Given the results of Bada and Tizen, Google would have little to worry about if Samsung ever decides to go rogue.

And they did. It's called Project Treble.

No they did not, that is an urban myth easily dismissed with Google's documents and related ADB podcast.

OEMs are expected to push updates just like before, having a certified Treble device is meaningless, if the OEM does not care to provide OS updates.

And yet Google managed to get Treble support on the Pixel devices over a year after release...

With enough money, it was apparently possible.

Because the SoC is supported.

Then Google is free to give me an alternative device for development.

With the emulator broken, and the Nexus 5X unsupported, I am unable to assure that my apps work on Android P, and therefore I have no idea at all if they’ll crash or not.

But if they’ll crash, Google will punish me by downranking my score. A punishment for something I can’t do shit about.

It’s absolute madness.

> With the emulator broken

Except it's not? Not even remotely true anymore. Starts up instantly now even, they just showed that off. And if you're opposed to Intel HAXM you can now use Hyper-V https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2018/05/08/hyp...

I mean, you can just buy a phone that can run Android P. There are plenty of them available.

It's not unreasonable to expect a developer to buy a new device after three years, in my opinion.

1.5 years. The Nexus 5X was still sold by Google 1.5 years ago.

And all the alternatives are significantly more expensive.

I’m building open source apps.

If I put ads in my apps or track my users I’d make thousands and could buy a phone easily.

But I’m trying to do the right thing, and have a monthly budget of $6 (current donation level via Patreon).

If you sell me a phone with Android P for one year of my app income (aka 72€), I’d take it. I’ll even put some of my own money on top, 250€, as I paid for the Nexus 5X, I am willing to pay.

It was released three years ago, which is the date you should use for figuring out the life span of a device. You should expect to get less time out of a phone that's already been out for a year and a half when you buy it.

In my country a used 1st generation Pixel can be had for less than the 5x was when it came out (~$300 vs $379). It's not ideal to have to buy used instead of new but it is doable. The Nokia appears to cost about the same price that the 5x did but im not sure it's easily available everywhere.

Anyways, your situation is unfortunate but I don't consider Google's actions to be egregious in this instance.

The Pixel 1 also only gets 1y of support from this point on.

I can't just throw 300€ every year at Google for the privilege of developing apps, even iOS is cheaper at 400€ every 4 years plus 99€ a year.