Nextcloud’s story of confusing communications about file permissions, and ultimately giving up trying to get file access, echoes the story of iA Writer. That Markdown editing app similarly lost access to system file syncing—a crucial aspect of a file-based text editor—and declined to take part in an annual CASA Tier 2 assessment to seek that access again.
Oliver Reichenstein, founder of that app’s maker, Information Architects (iA), notes that Google did not request a security review for Nextcloud but “simply shut them out—which is even harder to justify under the DMA,” Reichenstein wrote. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) broadly restricts companies deemed to be “gatekeepers,” including Google, Apple, and Meta, from unfairly steering users to their own services. “While we [iA] might be seen as a competitor in a very loose sense, Nextcloud very clearly is one,” Reichenstein wrote.
Nextcloud eventually issued an update of its app that restricts uploads to media files. Downloading and side-loading the Nextcloud app from the F-Droid external store and granting the app necessary permissions restored the ability to upload any files to a Nextcloud instance. The company told The Register that it had more than 800,000 Android users.
The company’s blog post goes further than pinpointing technical and support hurdles. “It is a clear example of Big Tech gatekeeping smaller software vendors, making the products of their competitors worse or unable to provide the same services as the giants themselves sell,” Nextcloud’s post states. “Big Tech is scared that small players like Nextcloud will disrupt them, like they once disrupted other companies. So they try to shut the door.”
Nextcloud is one of the leaders of an antitrust-minded movement against Microsoft’s various integrated apps and services, having filed a complaint against the firm in 2021.
This post was updated at 11:30 a.m. on May 15 after Nextcloud announced Google’s change in policy.