The recently lost file upload feature in the Nextcloud app for Android

We feel your pain at Nextcloud. Our team at Everfind (unified search across Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.) has spent the past year fighting for the *drive.readonly* scope simply so we can download files, run OCR, and index their full-text for users. Google keeps telling us to make do with *drive.file* + *drive.metadata.readonly*, which breaks continuous discovery and cripples search results for any new or updated document.

Bottom line: Googles "least-privilege" rhetoric sounds noble, but in practice it gives Big Tech first-party apps privileged access while forcing independent vendors to ship half-working products - or get kicked out of the Play Store. The result is users lose features and choices, and small devs burn countless hours arguing with a copy-paste policy bot.

Sounds like it's time for an(other) antitrust lawsuit. At least Nextcloud is based in Europe, which has recently shown an appetite to stand up to tech giants on some things.

The question to ask is: do Google apps have an advantage here over others?

they have the advantage that they can shape the API to their needs. yes, you can argue that google apps have the same limitations as other apps. but google defines the limitations. just because google doesn't need a feature, it doesn't mean that no one else needs or should have that feature. so google is able to define features that fit their business model, and they prevent anyone else from offering a different feature set. they own the platform and compete in it. that in itself is an advantage. to not have an advantage either google must not compete with apps on the platform and or they should relinquish their ownership of the platform.