Now you are confusing what the platform allows you to do (which has decreased to help battery life) with what the open source platform has implemented for you (which has increased drastically). Every single statement in your post is an example of that. For example, push services, which were never open source, can still be implemented by third parties as a system app. This has always been the case.
> I seriously suggest you actually go and try to build apps for non-Google Play devices at least a single fricken time, or try to build ROMs, before you comment.
I've built apps for the Amazon App Store and built AOSP from source multiple times. That's not the issue here. The issue is that you were confusing the fact that more of the things on Pixel devices are not open source (true, but Pixel doesn't claim to be an AOSP device) with fewer things being available in open source (which is false) and are now confusing fewer things being allowed to third party apps (true) with fewer things being available in open source (still false).
> I seriously suggest you actually go and try to build apps for non-Google Play devices at least a single fricken time, or try to build ROMs, before you comment.
I've built apps for the Amazon App Store and built AOSP from source multiple times. That's not the issue here. The issue is that you were confusing the fact that more of the things on Pixel devices are not open source (true, but Pixel doesn't claim to be an AOSP device) with fewer things being available in open source (which is false) and are now confusing fewer things being allowed to third party apps (true) with fewer things being available in open source (still false).