I’m a game developer for my day job and was recently looking through a large number of crash logs that had the following in them:
InitializationException: Firebase modules failed to initialize: messaging (missing dependency)
Long story short, the Huawei ban means people can’t have Google Play Services (Google bad right, no loss here?). The problem of course is our game is now crashing because they don’t have something we fundamentally expect on Android devices.
As a small startup, we can’t afford to replace all our Play Service API calls to support this small group. Usually cases like this come from restrictions people put on themselves (Staying on Android 5.0, running a degoogled device, etc) but these are innocent people who deserve none of this treatment.
I’m starting to think sanctions against things that affect the general population are really stupid. But alas, if people realize it as slowly as me we’re never going to a more free world without sanctions.
I mean, Western sanctions tend to be very much intended to target common people. Just look at the sanctions on Cuba and their effects on their COVID-19 response.
Economic sanctions have always been the state-level version of slacktivism: performative and at best ineffective, at worst counter-productive.