"They're a part of the same suite of apps that provide the "Android experience". They manifestly have a profound connection with each other."
Google has worked very hard to integrate their app suite at such a deep level with Android to the point that they can steer what can be done with the OS just by using that one lever.
Anyone paying attention in the past decade will remember plenty of complaints about the GApps infesting Android.
But yes, if just looks at the situation as it is today, they could be excused for thinking that everything is normal.
Can you think of any technical advantages why Google would do this? Any functionality that becomes possible when the full suite of apps and APIs and services are all present together at once on the phone?
I honestly think that it was a reaction to update issues. The more of the OS which is updateable by Google, the easier it is to patch these. Additionally, i remember people saying at the time that it made it much easier to incrementally add features to Android between major releases.
I don't really mind about the Google Play Services thing (as it probably benefited people overall), but the contracts with OEM's were always wack, and I'm pretty happy that the EU has (eventually) fined them for this literally textbook anti-EU competition law behaviour.
Google has worked very hard to integrate their app suite at such a deep level with Android to the point that they can steer what can be done with the OS just by using that one lever.
Anyone paying attention in the past decade will remember plenty of complaints about the GApps infesting Android.
But yes, if just looks at the situation as it is today, they could be excused for thinking that everything is normal.