When I made my first app, KitKat had just come out, and Google was one of the better companies out there.
Man, things have gone a long way down some rough paths
This author makes it sound like its impossible and unthinkable to use a phone without google spy services. Newsflash, its not.
I have good memories of using KitKat on my first gen Nexus 7 and my Galaxy S III. It was rock solid, especially in its stock form.
One wonders if dropping Play Services support is enough to motivate a user who is already sufficiently determined to use a phone this outdated.
From my experience, those aren’t users determined to use outdated smartphones.
These are the super shady cheapo TV boxes that are essentially an underpowered SoC + Android 4.4 + a launcher. Or many Chinese handheld gaming devices.
Users probably do not stick around with 4.4 given how many important apps would not work.
As far as I know it’s also used on embedded devices like barcode scanners at Tesco. Those either run Windows or Android. Ancient versions in both cases. Unfortunately it seems the model number disappeared from my search history so I don’t know which versions for sure. I think it’s either Android 4.4 or Windows CE.
But in those cases the Google Play services probably don’t matter.