We are obsessed with all things Android: phones, tablets, apps and hacks to get the best out of Google's OS.
[Discussion] Why is Android communities getting so toxic?
I got my first smartphone in 2011 - Galaxy Nexus. I chose Android over iOS because I had weighed the pros n cons of both platforms and liked the Android's customizability and helpful community. iOS users came off as smug and snooty. I didn't want to be part of that. I never hated iOS though. I did buy an iPad 4 the next year and almost never needed any help from the "we are better than others" community. In contrast, Android community has always been open and welcoming. Almost all community members reveled in Android's power and also criticized its shortcomings. If Google did something wrong, they used to get called out. If an phone OEM or accessory OEM screwed up, they got called out. People appreciated that everyone has a different opinion and that lead to healthy discourse.
All that seem to be a thing of the past now. Looks like Android community is now aping Apple community in thinking that they are better than others and "Google can do nothing wrong". Be it /r/android or any other related sub or any related community on G+ or YouTube video - if you share your unpopular opinion, you get villified. Even remotely criticize Google and worshippers will roast you alive. Unless you are shitting on Allo. Call out Google on exhorbitantly pricing Pixel phones and you get "you poor people" tag. It's not just limited to Google. Report a bug in a popular app in their G+ community (say, Nova launcher, Substratum themes etc) and fans rain hell on you for "using the app wrong" or "whining without submitting logcat" or "using the app on beta OS". Request a feature and meet with "make your own app then". Hell, there are blog fans. Android Police has garnered passionate bunch of fans. Artem is overall a smug person (AP's success has gone to his head, I guess) and openly attacks anyone even remotly saying anything negative about AP. The other day, he had replied to someone with an ascii art of a person spreading his a-hole. Imagine that... Founder of the best Android blog acting like a 5 year old. And people "LoL"ing and cheering him on. Just today I saw the mod of a Pixel G+ community threatening to attack a commentator if he dared defend another user who was being harassed.
What is going on?? How did we come to this?




I personally think that if anything gets too popular it attracts too many trolls. Maybe it's just me but it looks like good people don't comment as often as trolls. And therefore you see more negative comments than positive. Also I've reported a lot of defects and never got a negative comment back, and on the other side when I read XDA I see a lot of people demanding some bugs to be fixed immediately, so I guess it goes both ways. Trolls everywhere.
My first thought when reading this was that it's not my experience. There seems to be more hate toward Android in communities and news sites and forums for Android. But then again, that could feed the superiority complex and anger that you are seeing there.
And then there is that Nietzsche quote:
I suppose you have a point im an android fanboy tbh but I think that the android community is misrepresented by the more vocal of us who have turned towards the dark side of forums. There is still a base of us good one out there
I'm Android fan too. I defend Android to bits. But I don't turn a blind eye to its shortcomings. I know it has fragmentation problem, inconsistency problem etc. We used to be able to discuss these earlier. But now, utter fragmentation and you'll hear "iSheep. Go get an iPhone then". I actually think a lot of iPhone users switched to Android in last two years and they brought their extreme fanatic fanboyism and smugness with them, thereby poisoning the entire Android community.
That's probably why. One thing that pisses me off tho is how everyone stereotypes android as Samsung and then they get all like android sucks because the Note 7 which would of been amazing flopped. Like there's way more than just Samsung. And tbh until now Samsung hadn't been that great especially with that atrocious ram management